The Best of Pete Fountain

At times, the song selection is a little eccentric; but at others, it's pure Dixieland! One of New Orleans' favorite sons lends the sweet, fluid tone of his clarinet to While We Danced at the Mardi Gras; A Closer Walk With Thee; Columbus Stockade Blues; Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?; China Boy (Go Sleep); Lazy River; High Society; Stranger on the Shore; Over the Waves; You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You; My Blue Heaven; When the Saints Go Marching In; St. Louis Blues , and more.

Though clarinetist Pete Fountain has long been a fixture on the New Orleans jazz scene, his greatest notoriety came from his 1957-1959 nationally televised appearances with the Lawrence Welk orchestra leading a small group playing traditional jazz. Fountain, a Benny Goodman disciple who plays the old standards with indefatigable fervor, is a fixture on Mardi Gras day in New Orleans, leading the early morning parade down St. Charles Avenue with his "Half Fast" marching club. As Fountain walks, he plays the numbers on this record that comprise his standard repertoire--"While We Danced at the Mardi Gras," "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans," "Basin Street Blues," "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans," "When the Saints Come Marching in March" and "St. Louis Blues." --John Swenson