Customer Reviews

The Best of Pete Fountain

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You won't go wrong buying this CD! Pete's at his very best mixing jazz and dixieland in his unique style. This music will have you snapping your fingers, tapping your toes, and strutin' to the tunes. My favorite CD of Pete's.

The only problem I have with Fountain and "the late and great" Al Hirt is they never made actual New Orleans jazz albums. And by that I mean they never played with the usual setup (A piano, trumpet\cornet, Trombone, Banjo\Guitar, Clarinet and so on) at least the albums I have by them. I still enjoy Fountain's albums though and think he is one of the best. My favorite tracks are "High Society",which is a very old New Orleans song played back in the day of Morton and maybe even before. This song has the traditional setup that I'm talking about. Pete's solo is nothing short of terrific. Then there's " Bye Bye Bill Bailey" which also is played with the traditional backup. For something differnt there's "China boy" the velocity the group plays at might not be or ever be matched. It really is "The Best of Pete Fountain"!

I have several CDs performed by Pete Fountain, three of these autographed, but this album is my favorite. It's really the best. "Fascination Medley", "Stranger on the Shore" and "Over the Waves" are fantastic performances. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to find Pete's CDs in Brasil. I had never found them here. I think a few people know him here.

This takes me back to my childhood when I was allowed to stay up and listen to Pete Fountain on the Tonight Show. I recommend this to anyone who loves jazz, dixieland or just great backround music for a Mardi Gras party. Also, I think this would great for music teachers to use in the classroom to encourage kids to broaden there listening spectrum!

I had the lp for so long until my [$$$] stylus went kaput but I love the vinyl version over the cd. This cd has some great ambience, a nice drum solo(I just love his back-up on this disk) and the disk was produced well. The price is incredible and you can't miss with this high-class, marching-band ensemble. I don't like medleys which is why I gave this 4 instead of 5 stars.This is a great Sunday morning- brunch time listen.You can crank this up too. Buy this.

I am a clarinet player of the past and a fan of Pete Fountain.The richness of his sound is captured on this CD and the selection of numbers is well chosen.There are so many artists here besides Pete Fountain and they are regrettably not mentioned.I listen to this CD while on the Nordic Track and never has thirty minutes gone so fast.

First had this as a tape in the early 70s, and it's still my favorite Pete Fountain album.

I bought the cassette version of this album over 20 years ago. I have purchased several other Pete Fountain cd's since. This is by far the best Pete Fountain CD I have found.

I wish they still made music like this. I love to listen to this CD when working around the house. I've loaned it to many of my friends and we all love Pete Fountain!

The inclusion of "Fascination" and "Shrimp Boats" and the exclusion of "Bourbon Street Parade" and "Panama" emblematize what is missing on this otherwise slick, polished, practically flawless performance. But Pete (whom I remember catching at Chicago's Blue Note before his Lawrence Welk fame) has sponsored a genuinely valuable contribution to the catalog of recorded clarinet literature with an offering entitled: "Pete Fountain Presents the Best of Dixieland."

If the word "dixieland" rubs you the wrong way, forget the labeling. For anyone who loves jazz clarinet or, for that matter, those modern-day listeners who tend to be dismissive of the old "licorice stick," the other album provides a rare opportunity to hear virtually all of the masters of the instrument on a single disc. It's unlikely a collection like it exists anywhere. The all-star line-up includes the New Orleans triumvirate (Dodds, Noone, Bechet), the Chicago school (Pee Wee Russell), and latter-day giants (Wilbur, Davern, Fountain). Most telling is the expressive range and variety, from the intimate and heartfelt conversations of Russell, to the playful, flirtatious melodic statements of Irving Fazola, to the endlessly inventive responses of Omar Simeon, to the incisive, penetrating attack of Davern, to the breathtaking virtuoso solo work of Edmund Hall. In fact, Fountain's own smooth, polished performance sets him more in the company of Benny Goodman than alongside the highly personal voices represented on the sampler bearing his name. Those listeners who are so quick to champion the tenor sax as the most expressive instrument in jazz, as the closest thing to the human voice, should listen carefully and often to the "Best of Dixieland" (not the "Best of Fountain") album before making any further pronouncements.

Whether or not it's still possible to hear anything resembling the glorious past in the music's cradle is open to question. In the 1970s it still was. There was a jazz museum right on Bourbon Street (which must have cost the city an infinitesimal amount compared to the Super-Stadium, or whatever it's called), and you could still go to Preservation Hall and be transported back in time by over half a century by the clarinet of Albert Burbank (even the Humphrey brothers were a distant second). Consequently, I was somewhat taken back, upon bumping into Danny Barker in the middle of Bourbon Street early one morning, to hear his glum assessment of the state of the art of New Orleans music. He must have been prognosticating about the music's future. Either that or reflecting on a time the rest of us will never be privileged to re-enter--at least not in this temporal world.