The world of Jazz has lost a legend.
Heart failure on August 6 at the age of 86 ended the colorful career of the great Pete Fountain who introduced and presented his native New Orleans-style jazz to a national audience for more than 60 years. Born Pierre Dewey LaFontaine Jr., his career almost happened by accident because as a child he was sickly and had weak lungs due to respiratory infections.
Growing up a skinny kid, he admits he spent too much time hanging around the front stoop of the Top Hat Dance Club near his home. The Top Hat was a stronghold of Dixieland jazz, and it soon had a powerful hold on young Pete Fountain. A doctor recommended that his father buy his son an instrument into which he would blow. So inspired by Benny Goodman and fellow New Orleanian Irving Fazola, Pete selected the clarinet, which greatly improved the health of his lungs.
He turned pro at 15, working multiple nights on Bourbon Street. “When I was a high school senior,” he related, “my history teacher asked me why I didn’t study more. I answered that I was too busy playing clarinet every night, and when I told him I was making scale—about $125 a week—he said that was more than he made and that I should play full time.” Among the bands with whom he played during those formative years were the Junior Dixieland Band at the famous Persian Room, and Phil Zito’s International Dixieland
