26 Facts About Pete Fountain

Pete Fountain started playing clarinet as a child at the McDonogh 28 school located on Esplanade Avenue.

Pete Fountain was given expensive medication but it proved ineffective.

At first, Pete Fountain was unable to produce a sound from the instrument, but he continued to practice and eventually not only made sounds and eventually music, but greatly improved the health of his lungs.

Pete Fountain took private lessons but learned to play jazz by playing along with phonograph records of first Benny Goodman and then Irving Fazola.

In 1954, after the Basin Street Six folded, Pete Fountain briefly went to Chicago to play with the Dukes of Dixieland, then returned to New Orleans and teamed up with Al Hirt to lead a band, playing an extended residence at Dan Levy's Pier 600.

Persistent persuasion from the son led the senior Welk to invite Pete Fountain to join the Lawrence Welk orchestra in Los Angeles, where he relocated and lived for two years.

Pete Fountain became well known for his many solos on Welk's ABC television show, The Lawrence Welk Show.

Pete Fountain was rumored to have quit when Welk refused to let him "jazz up" a Christmas carol on the 1958 Christmas show.

Pete Fountain returned to New Orleans, played with the Dukes of Dixieland, then began leading bands under his own name.

Pete Fountain owned his own club in the French Quarter in the 1960s and 1970s.

Pete Fountain later acquired "Pete Fountain's Jazz Club" at the Riverside Hilton in downtown New Orleans.

Pete Fountain's Quintett was made up of his studio recording musicians, Stan Kenton's bassist Don Bagley, vibeist Godfrey Hirsch, pianist Merle Koch, and the double bass drummer Jack Sperling.

Pete Fountain brought these same players together in 1963 when they played the Hollywood Bowl.

Pete Fountain would make the trek to Hollywood many times, appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 56 times.

Pete Fountain opened his club, the French Quarter Inn, located in the heart of the famed French Quarter district, at 800 Bourbon Street, in the spring of 1960.

In 2003, Pete Fountain closed his club at the Hilton with a performance before a packed house filled with musical friends and fans.

Pete Fountain began performing two nights a week at Casino Magic in Bay St Louis, Mississippi, where he had a home.

Pete Fountain performed his last show at Hollywood Casino on December 8,2010, before returning to help reopen the resort in 2014, by which point he was mostly retired.

Pete Fountain changed the name under pressure exerted by the parade organizers.

On Mardi Gras Day 2007, Pete Fountain again joined his Half-Fast Walking Club, having missed the event in 2006 due to illness.

Pete Fountain recorded over 100 LPs and CDs under his own name, some in the Dixieland style, many others essentially instrumental pop records with only peripheral relevance to any type of jazz.

That mouthpiece was shattered on the bandstand one night when Pete Fountain had played his solo and was standing by as trumpeter George Girard played his [own solo], and Girard brought his trumpet down suddenly on top of the mouthpiece.

Pete Fountain kept the shattered mouthpiece, and played other crystal mouthpieces from then on.

Pete Fountain married Beverly Lang on October 27,1951; they remained married for sixty-five years until his death.

Pete Fountain died of heart failure in his home town on August 6,2016, at the age of eighty-six.

Pete Fountain had suffered from heart problems and was in hospice care when he died.