Pete Fountain, c1962.
Pierre Dewey LaFontaine, Jr. (July 3, 1930 – August 6, 2016), better known as Pete Fountain, was an American jazz clarinetist. He played in various traditional and contemporary genres of jazz, such as Dixieland, pop jazz, honky-tonk jazz, as well as pop, and Creole music.
Pierre Dewey Fountain, Jr., was born on White Street, in New Orleans, between Dumaine and St. Ann, in a small Creole cottage-style frame house. Pete was the great grandson of Francois Fontaine who was born in Toulon, France circa 1796, and died on the Mississippi Gulf Coast circa 1885.
He started playing clarinet as a child at the McDonogh 28 school located on Esplanade Avenue. As a child, young Pete was very sickly, frequently battling respiratory infections due to weakened lungs. He was given expensive medication but it proved to be not very effective. During a pharmacy visit, Pete’s father began a discussion with a neighborhood doctor who was also there shopping and talked with him about his son’s condition. The doctor agreed to see the boy the following day. After a short exam, the doctor confirmed the weak lung condition and advised the father to try an unorthodox treatment: purchase the child a musical instrument, anything he has to blow into. The same day, they went to a local music store and, given his choice of instruments, Pete chose the clarinet (after first wanting the drums, which his father declined per the doctor’s orders). At first, Pete was unable to produce a sound from the instrument, but he continued to practice and eventually not only made sounds and eventually music, but greatly improved the health of his lungs.
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. According to Fountain:
When I was a high school senior, my history teacher asked me why I didn’t study more… I answered that I was too busy playing clarinet every night, and when I told him I was making scale — about $125 a week — he said that was more than he made and I should play full time. I guess I was a professional from that point on.
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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 with only peripheral relevance to any type of jazz.
The distinctive Fountain sound — more woody than most — came from the crystal mouthpieces he played with since 1949. His first crystal mouthpiece was actually Irving Fazola’s, given to Pete by Fazola’s mother after Faz’s death, because she had heard him play and noted how he played like her son. That mouthpiece was shattered on the bandstand one night when Pete had played his solo and was standing by as trumpeter George Girard played his [own solo], and Girard brought his trumpet down suddenly on top of the mouthpiece. Pete kept the shattered mouthpiece, and played other crystal mouthpieces from then on.
Fountain led the Pete Fountain Quintett, a New Orleans French Quarter jazz band of Fountain and his Creole-style music. The “Quintett” had many musicians over the years, but primarily recorded with Jack Sperling on drums, bassists Don Bagley or Morty Corb, vibeist Godfrey Hirch, and pianists Merle Kock or Stan Wrightsman.
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Fountain married Beverly Lang on October 27, 1951; they remained married for sixty-five years until his death. They have two sons and a daughter: Kevin, Jeffrey, and Dahra. Dahra’s husband, Benny Harrell, was Fountain’s manager in his later years.
Fountain died in his hometown on August 6, 2016, at the age of eighty-six. He had suffered from heart problems and was in hospice care when he died.
At the time of his death, Fountain was registered to vote in Orleans Parish as an Independent under the name Peter D. Fountain, Jr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Fountain
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Patrice Munsel, Coloratura Soprano, popular in the ’60s
Patrice Beverly Munsel (May 14, 1925 – August 4, 2016) was an American coloratura soprano, the youngest singer who ever starred at the Metropolitan Opera, nicknamed “Princess Pat”.
An only child, Patrice Munsel was born and raised in Spokane, Washington. Her father, Audley J. Munsil, was a local dentist. She attended Lewis and Clark High School before leaving at age fifteen, accompanied by her mother, to study in New York City, coached by Giacomo Spadoni (1884–1960). Her surname at birth was spelled “Munsil.”
Munsel first sang at the Metropolitan at age 17, in March 1943. She made her official Metropolitan debut on December 4, 1943, at the age of 18, singing Philine in Mignon. Her first opera contract was for three years at $40,000 per year; with other appearances she was making around $100,000 annually.
Perhaps best known for the role of Adele in Die Fledermaus, she performed 225 times at the Metropolitan. Sir Rudolf Bing called her a “superb soubrette” and implied that she was the world’s best. Her opera roles included Rosina in The Barber of Seville and Despina in Cosi fan Tutte.
Her husband Robert C. Schuler (1917–2007) conceived and produced the ABC-TV primetime variety series The Patrice Munsel Show, which starred his wife, and was broadcast in the 1957–1958 season.
Munsel appeared on many other TV shows during her career, including the role of Marietta (Countess d’Altena) in the January 15, 1955 live telecast of the operetta Naughty Marietta. She also portrayed the title role in the 1953 film Melba, which chronicled the life of the great opera singer, Dame Nellie Melba. Munsel made frequent television appearances on The Bell Telephone Hour, and was the central singer in the Camp Fire Girls’ famous TV commercial and song “Sing Around the camp fire (join the Camp Fire Girls)”, aired in the mid-1960s.
Munsel made her final performance for the Metropolitan Opera on January 28, 1958, in the title role in La Périchole. She appeared on stage as a guest during the 1966 Gala Farewell to the old opera house at Broadway and 39th Street Munsel ended her career as an opera singer in 1981, and began to perform in musical comedies. She retired from performing in 2008.
In 1952, Munsel married Robert C. Schuler, an advertising and public-relations executive, producer, and writer. They were married for 55 years, until his death at age 90 in 2007, and had four children: Heidi (b. 1953), Rhett (1955–2005),[19] Scott (b. 1958), and Nicole (b. 1959). Munsel and Schuler co-wrote a 2005 memoir of Schuler’s life entitled The Diva & I. Munsel died on August 4, 2016, at the age of 91.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Munsel
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Other Notable Musicians’ Deaths…
August 2016:
9: Padraig Duggan, 67, Irish folk musician (Clannad, The Duggans).
7: B. E. Taylor, 65, American musician (“Vitamin L”), brain cancer; Dolores Vargas, 80, Spanish singer, complications of leukemia.
6: Pete Fountain, 86, American clarinetist; József Laux, 73, Hungarian drummer (Omega, Locomotiv GT).
5: Richard Fagan, 69, American songwriter and musician, liver cancer; Vander Lee, 50, Brazilian singer-songwriter.
4: Patrice Munsel, 91, American coloratura soprano; Snaffu Rigor, 69, Filipino singer and songwriter, lung cancer.
3: Ricci Martin, 62, Dean Martin’s son and American musician; Elliot Tiber, 81, American artist and writer (Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert and a Life), stroke.