03/07/1930, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A. - 06/08/2016, same place
American jazz clarinetist. Real name is Pierre Dewey LaFontaine Jr. He took private lessons but also learned to play jazz by playing along with phonograph records of first Benny Goodman and then Irving Fazola. By the time he reached his teens, he was playing regular gigs in the nightclubs on Bourbon Street. He later joined the Lawrence Welk orchestra in Los Angeles, where he relocated and lived for two years. Fountain became well known for his many solos on Welk's ABC television show, The Lawrence Welk Show. Fountain returned to New Orleans, played with the Dukes of Dixieland, then began leading bands under his own name. He owned his own club in the French Quarter in the 1960s and 1970s. He later acquired "Pete Fountain's Jazz Club" at the Riverside Hilton in downtown New Orleans. Fountain's clarinet work was noted for his sweet fluid tone. He 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.
