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Wilton Crawley was born on July 18, 1900 in Virginia with his family moving to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Some of his musical influences may be traced back to Virginia and its many farms and barnyards with cackles and clucks like a chicken, oinks like a pig, and neighs like a goat that he . It was in Philadelphia that along with his reed-playing brother Jimmy that they formed their first band. During the ’20s and ’30s, the clarinetist found success with a variety act featuring his singing and playing. Though not the most versatile musician he had a sound and style that utilized weird speech-like sound effects and extended use of slap tonguing, sometimes filling out whole lines of a solo with obnoxious little pops.
Between 1927 and 1930 Wilton recorded his own compositions for OKeh and Victor Records, working with Paul Barbarin, Lonnie Johnson, Henry “Red” Allen, Pops Foster, Luis Russell, Jelly Roll Morton, Eddie Heywood and Eddie Lang among others. After splitting with Morton in the 1930s he toured England and after the death of his father and his friend guitarist Eddie Lang, his personal problems derailed his career and slipped into oblivion.
His most famous pieces include Crawley Clarinet Moan, She’s Forty With Me, Put a Flavor to Love, Futuristic Blues and Irony Daddy Blues. Much of this music reveals his attempts to recreate jazz sounds from other instruments, particularly the muted trumpet effects that might have been done by an artist such as Bubber Miley. While some of this sound effect activity have may influenced Anthony Braxton, he may have more in common with the clarinetists who worked with Spike Jones or even later rock showmen like Arthur Brown. Some of the membership in his ensembles such as Wilton Crawley & His Orchestra or the Washboard Rhythm Kings remains unknown, however, banjoist Johnny St. Cyr and blues guitarist Lonnie Johnson show up in his bands.
It is unfortunate that many of the recordings originally done under his own name have all been reissued in various Jelly Roll Morton retrospectives, as he went on to become a lasting legend of early jazz while the clarinetist went into obscurity. Clarinetist, composer, contortionist and vaudevillian Wilton Crawley passed away in 1948 in Maryland.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Darensbourg was born Joseph Wilmer Darensbourg on July 9, 1906 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He received some of his earliest training from Alphonse Picou. After playing with local groups, and traveling with a medicine show and a circus band, he settled in Los Angeles, California and worked with Mutt Carey’s Liberty Syncopators.
He worked in Seattle from 1929 to 1944, working on cruise lines, playing in after-hours clubs and roadhouses, and backing several non-jazz entertainers. Darensbourg resumed playing jazz in 1944, in a traditional group with Johnny Wittwer. When he returned to Los Angeles, he recorded with Kid Ory and worked briefly with R&B bandleader Joe Liggins.
From 1947 to 1953 Joe worked solely with Ory, then spent the rest of his career in traditional ensembles, working with such musicians as Gene Mayl, Teddy Buckner and Louis Armstrong’s All-Stars. He led his own groups, and had a hit with the song Yellow Dog Blues, and toured with the Legends of Jazz from 1973 to 1975. He also worked with Buddy Petit, Jelly Roll Morton, Charlie Creath, Fate Marable, Andy Kirk, Johnny Wittwer and Wingy Manone. Clarinet and saxophonist Joe Darensbourg, one of the purest soloists in traditional jazz, passed away in Van Nuys, California on May 24, 1985.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bruce Turner was born Malcolm Bruce Turner on July 5, 1922 in Saltburn, England. Educated at Dulwich College, he learned to play the clarinet as a schoolboy and began playing alto sax while serving in the Royal Air Force in 1943 during World War II. He played with Freddy Randall from 1948–53, and worked on the Queen Mary in a dance band and in a quartet with Dill Jones and Peter Ind.
He briefly studied under Lee Konitz in New York City in 1950 then joined Humphrey Lyttelton’s outfit from 1953 to 1957. After leaving Lyttelton he led his own Jump Band from 1957–65 and was featured and arranged the music in the 1961 film Living Jazz. In 1961, Turner and his band recorded the LP Jumpin’ At The NFT (National Film Theatre) coinciding with the film’s release. Two years later he took part in the largest trad jazz event to be staged in Britain with George Melly, Diz Disley, Acker Bilk, Chris Barber, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer, Monty Sunshine, Bob Wallis, Alex Welsh and Mick Mulligan.
He returned to work with Randall from 1964–66, and played with Don Byas in 1966 and Acker Bilk from 1966 to 1970. He continued to work with Lyttelton and Ind in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and played with the Jump Band every so often. He worked with Wally Fawkes, John Chilton, Stan Greig, Alex Welsh, and Dave Green through the Seventies. He led his own small ensembles in the 1990s, up until his death.
He was noted for his very quiet voice and his autobiography Hot Air, Cool Music was published in 1984. He also wrote a column on jazz for the Daily Worker. Saxophonist, clarinetist, and bandleader Bruce Turner passed away on November 28, 1993 in Newport Pagnell.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Pete Fountain was born Pierre Dewey LaFontaine, Jr. in a Creole cottage style frame house on July 3, 1930 in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father later changed his name to Peter and added Junior. He started playing clarinet as a child due to suffering from weakened lungs from a respiratory infection. Choosing the clarinet, his lungs became strengthened after receiving a doctor’s advice to play an instrument that he would have to blow into.
He took private lessons but also learned to play jazz by playing along with phonograph records of first Benny Goodman and then Irving Fazola. Early on he played with the bands of Monk Hazel and Al Hirt. Fountain founded The Basin Street Six in 1950 with his longtime friend, trumpeter George Girard . Four years later the band broke up and he was hired to join the Lawrence Welk orchestra and became well known for his many solos on the television show, The Lawrence Welk Show.
Post Welk, Pete was hired by Decca Records A&R head Charles “Bud” Dant and went on to produce 42 hit albums with Dant. He returned to New Orleans, played with The Dukes of Dixieland, then began leading bands under his own name. On the Sixties and Seventies he owned his own club in the French Quarter and later acquired Pete Fountain’s Jazz Club at the Riverside Hilton. He would lead a quintet comprised of bassist Don Bagley, vibist Godfrey Hirsch, pianist Merle Koch, and double bass drummer Jack Sperling. He played the Hollywood Bowl and appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 56 times.
Over the course of his career his club would host Cliff Arquette, Jonathan Winters, Frank Sinatra, Phil Harris, Carol Lawrence, Robert Goulet, Keely Smith, Robert Mitchum, Brenda Lee, among many others. He would play and/or record with Oliver “Sticks” Felix, John Probst, Paul Guma, Godfrey Hirsch, Jack Sperling, Don Bagley, Morty Corb, Godfrey Hirch, Merle Kock, Stan Wrightsman and Al Hirt, who had a club down the street. He performed his last show at the Hollywood Casino in 2010.
He is a founder and the most prominent member of the Half-Fast Walking Club, one of the best known marching Krewes that parade in New Orleans on Mardi Gras Day. He has been honored with induction into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame, given a star on the Delta Music Museum Walk of Fame, and received an honorary degree from Loyola University New Orleans. Clarinetist Pete Fountain, who played jazz, Dixieland, pop jazz, honky-tonk jazz, pop, and Creole music, passed away in his hometown on August 6, 2016 from heart failure at the age of 86.
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Gary Foster was born May 25, 1936 in Leavenworth, Kansas and started on the clarinet at age 13. His first personal musical inspiration was Olin Parker, his Jr. High School music director and private teacher who introduced him to Woody Herman, Count Basie and many other types of music. He listened closely to the Woody Herman orchestra recording of “Four Brothers” from the late 1940s which featured jazz saxophonists Stan Getz, Zoot Sims and Serge Chaloff and for him, Getz stood out on the tenor saxophone because of his tone. but Lester Young and Charlie Parker were also major influences.
His earliest professional experience was at age of 15 playing Leavenworth VFW Hall dances with bassist Harold Stanford. After high school Gary studied at Central College in Fayette, Missouri, he then transferred to the University of Kansas studying classical clarinet, music education, musicology and conducting. While there he met and played with Kansas City jazz trumpet great Carmell Jones.
In 1961 at age 26 Foster moved to Los Angeles, California to join the West Coast jazz scene, teaching privately and studying the flute but finding little work for a saxophonist to make a living only playing jazz he turned to studio work as a woodwind doubler to support his family. His initial associations and friendships with Clare Fischer and Warne Marsh were vital to Foster’s artistic approach to music and jazz improvisation.
He joined at its inception in 1973 he was a member of the Grammy Award winning Toshiko Akiyoshi – Lew Tabackin Big Band, worked with the big bands of Clare Fischer, Louis Bellson, Mike Barone, Ed Shaughnessy, and the Marty Paich Dek-tette, as well as with Cal Tjader, Poncho Sanchez, Sammy Nestico, Shelly Manne, and Rosemary Clooney and numerous others.
For over 45 years he has made his studio work has included television, movies, recordings, media and soundtracks such as Monsters, Inc., Ice Age, Elf, Meet The Fokkers, and Haunted Mansion to name a few. Foster has been in the Academy Awards Television Orchestra for 30 different broadcasts of the show, performed regularly with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.
Saxophonist, clarinetist and flutist Gary has taught at Pasadena City College, University of Missouri, University of California, Los Angeles and California State University and founded Nova Music Studios. He has co-authored educational materials and conducts clinics at colleges and performs and lectures at professional music symposiums.
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