Musical Style
Fountain's clarinet work is noted for his sweet fluid tone. He has recorded over 100 LPs and CDs under his own name, some in the Dixieland style, many others with only peripheral relevance to any type of jazz.
The distinctive Fountain sound—more woody than most—comes from the crystal mouthpiece he has played with since 1949. His first crystal mouthpiece was actually Irving Fazola's, given to Pete by Fazola's mother after Faz's death, because she had heard him play and noted how he played like her son. That mouthpiece was shattered on the bandstand one night when Pete had played his solo and was standing by as trumpeter George Girard played his, and Girard brought his trumpet down suddenly on top of the mouthpiece. Pete still has the shattered mouthpiece, and has also played crystal mouthpieces ever since.
Fountain leads the Pete Fountain Quintett, a New Orleans French Quarter jazz band of Fountain and his Creole-style music. It has had many musicians over the years but has primarily recorded with Jack Sperling on drums, bassist Don Bagley/ Morty Corb, vibeist Godfrey Hirch and pianist Merle Kock/ Stan Wrighisman.
Read more about this topic: Pete Fountain
Famous quotes containing the words musical and/or style:
“There was something refreshingly and wildly musical to my ears in the very name of the white man’s canoe, reminding me of Charlevoix and Canadian Voyageurs. The batteau is a sort of mongrel between the canoe and the boat, a fur-trader’s boat.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It pays off slowly, your agent will sneer at it, your publisher will misunderstand it, and it will take people you have never heard of to convince them by slow degrees that the writer who puts his individual mark on the way he writes will always pay off.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)