Pete Fountain has retired from performing, will miss the 2014 New Orleans Jazz FestPete Fountain, who said on Thursday, April 17, 2014, that he is retiring from live performing, made his last appearance at the New Orleans Jazz Fest in 2013. He performed, along with his granddaughter, before a packed house in the in the People Health Economy Hall on Sunday, May 5, 2013. (Photo by David Grunfeld, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
By Keith Spera, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
April 17, 2014
The Pete Fountain fans who filled the Economy Hall Tent at the 2013 New Orleans Jazz Fest unknowingly bore witness to bittersweet history: The farewell performance by one of the greats of New Orleans music in general, and traditional jazz clarinet specifically.
"Last year was his last public performance," Benny Harrell, Fountain's son-in-law and longtime manager, said Thursday (April 17). "He's fully retired now."
In interviews over the years, Fountain maintained that he would keep "tootin'" as long as he and his audience were satisfied with the sound that resulted. His clarinet tone, simultaneously sweet and swinging, illuminated such signature songs as "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" and "Basin Street Blues."
But after last year's Jazz Fest, he concluded that the time had come to hang up his horn. His playing was no longer "to the level of his expectations," Harrell said. "It was the right time" to retire.
Still, declining an invitation to the upcoming, 2014 Jazz Fest was emotional, Harrell said, for many reasons.
Fountain appeared at the 1969 event that was a precursor to the first, official New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 1970. At that first Jazz Fest, he was featured for a nighttime concert aboard a riverboat.
He's been a staple of most of the 44 Jazz Fests that followed, and hasn't missed one in more than two decades. For fans of traditional New Orleans and Dixieland jazz, checking in with Fountain at the People's Health Economy Hall Tent was akin to a pilgrimage.
The festival "has been a big enjoyment for him," Harrell said. "He loved the crowds. They really expressed their feelings for him.
"And it's not only his fans, but the people that work at the festival. The warmth that they showed him every year... they treated him like family."
He'll be missed at Jazz Fest this year. But at 83, Fountain has more than earned his retirement.
He turned pro at 15, working multiple nights on Bourbon Street. He became one of the most famous jazz musicians in the country during a two-year stint in the late 1950s on "The Lawrence Welk Show." Three gold-selling albums followed. He returned to New Orleans in 1959; a year later, he opened the first of two nightclubs that would bear his name on Bourbon Street. In 1977, he moved his club to the Hilton Riverside.
Along the way he squeezed in 59 appearances on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." He entertained four presidents and one pope, hung with everyone from Louis Armstrong to Dolly Parton. In general, he lived life large as Mr. New Orleans, the most prominent ambassador of good-time New Orleans jazz.
After closing his Hilton club in 2003, he still performed regularly at a casino near his waterfront estate in Bay St. Louis, Miss.
Various medical issues have slowed him down in recent years, especially after Hurricane Katrina destroyed his Bay St. Louis, Miss., house and heavily damaged his home near the New Orleans lakefront. Emergency bypass surgery in 2006 caused him to miss his Half-Fast Walking Club's annual Mardi Gras morning ramble for the first time in 45 years, much to his dismay. He rallied to perform at the 2006 Jazz Fest, the first one after Katrina, with his cardiologist in attendance -- just in case.
Months later, two strokes, one minor, one more serious, made speaking difficult for him. But he could still make his clarinet sing: He was the featured attraction at the 2008 French Quarter Festival.
He was hospitalized with pneumonia in early 2013. He did not feel well enough to sit in with cornetist Connie Jones at that spring's French Quarter Festival.
His health of late has been good, Harrell said. "He's doing well. He hasn't had any (health) issues lately."
Mardi Gras is still a happy place to be for Jazz musician, Pete Fountain.
Clarinet player and jazz musician Pete Fountain, 83, is a popular guy among parade goers on Mardi Gras morning. This year, marked the 64th year that Fountain and his band joined the Half-Fast Walking Club to Fat Tuesday festivities in New Orleans.
Fountain often goes out for breakfast, and attends meetings of the Half-Fast Walking Club. He rode aboard the Half-Fast Club's traveling bandstand on Mardi Gras this year, but did not play with the band.
VIDEO:
http://video-embed.nola.com/services/player/bcpid1949030309001?bctid=32919107080...In September 2013, he was the honored guest at a fundraising concert at his alma mater, Warren Easton High School. He, his wife, Beverly, and other family members watched fellow Easton alums Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews and Nicholas Payton perform.
Fountain didn't join the youngsters onstage that night at Warren Easton. He'd already delivered his swan song four months earlier, on May 5, 2013 at the Fair Grounds.
'The love that the crowd showed him was awesome.' -- Benny Harrell, Fountain's son-in-law.
Seated on a red walker at Jazz Fest's People's Health Economy Hall Tent, he fronted a band that featured fellow clarinetist and lifelong Fountain disciple Tim Laughlin. With trombonist Mark Mullins, cornetist Connie Jones, trumpeter Jimmy Weber, saxophonist Otis Bazoon, pianist David Boeddinghaus and drummer Bryan Barberot, they ran through songs that are, to Fountain's fans, more like old friends: "Just a Closer Walk With Thee." "Struttin' With Some Barbecue." "Basin Street Blues." "Tin Roof Blues."
As in previous years, members of Fountain's family joined him onstage. His adult granddaughter Danielle Scheib worked a washboard on several songs. A 7-year-old great-granddaughter, Isabella "Izzy" Harrell, sang "You Are My Sunshine." Afterward, a photographer caught Fountain wiping a tear from his eye.
Throughout the show, the overflow crowd broke out in spontaneous second-lines and showered him with adoration. Each time he raised the clarinet to his mouth, scores of cellphones snapped photographs.
"The love that the crowd showed him was awesome," Harrell said. "From when they announced his name to the standing ovation, it was amazing.
"It was a great show to end up on."
Music writer Keith Spera can be reached at [email protected] or 504.826.3470. Follow him on Twitter @KeithSpera.http://www.nola.com/jazzfest/index.ssf/2014/04/pete_fountain_has_retired_from.ht...