Dixieland
Dukes of Dixieland
The Dukes of Dixieland
Back in late 1974, John Shoup, a television producer for PBS and later The Discovery Channel who has also managed and produced many artists, flew out to Las Vegas to meet with musician/singer Louis Prima at Prima’s golf course. Shoup wanted Prima’s permission to take over his lease at the Monteleone Hotel’s rooftop nightclub in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Two months later, on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1974, Shoup opened “Dukes’ Place” atop the Monteleone. It featured the home of the newest ensemble of The DUKES of Dixieland, with Connie Jones as leader. In the summer of 1975, the DUKES performed outdoors with the Grant Park Pops Orchestra in Chicago. Henry Brandon (who wrote the music for the Oscar Mayer commercial, “Oh I Wish I Were an Oscar Mayer Wiener”), conducted the orchestra and wrote several symphony charts for the DUKES to perform. That was the beginning of 30 years of performing with symphonies like the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Chicago, Indianapolis, Maryland, Florida, Grand Rapids, and Syracuse Orchestras, as well as with Skitch Henderson and The New York Pops. Erich Kunzel, Doc Severinsen, and Peter Nero have also conducted the DUKES with their respective orchestras.
In the summer of 1976 they traveled throughout France for the U.S. Bicentennial Celebrations. In later years, they have worked for Aramco in Saudi Arabia and have opened performing arts centers in Turkey, Ecuador, Peru, and Japan.
The DUKES have performed from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, to Chautauqua in New York, Ravinia in Chicago, and Wolf Trap in Virginia.
From hundreds of colleges to music and jazz festivals around the world, the DUKES have played them all. They played the first New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and have performed there every year since then. They traveled to the Espoo Jazz Festival in Helsinki, Finland, and to the JVC Jazz Festival in New York City.
In 1984, after three years of construction, the DUKES opened their jazz club at 309 Bourbon Street called “Lulu White’s Mahogany Hall.” They hosted Super Bowl parties, concerts with Woody Herman, and shot several television shows, including Toots Thielemans, Irma Thomas, and A Salute to Jelly Roll Morton. By 1991, their lease was up and they accepted an offer to make their home base aboard the Steamboat Natchez. They have been performing nightly for the dinner cruises on the Natchez ever since.
In the summer of 2005 the DUKES were winding up recording two CDs — one for Christmas and one for Mardi Gras 2006. On August 29, 2005, two days after the tapes for the Christmas CD were sent off to Los Angeles for mastering, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. The Steamboat sailed up to Baton Rouge to get out of harm’s way. The DUKES were scattered from Seattle to Virginia to Florida. Shoup was the only one who sat the storm out in downtown New Orleans.
In the two weeks following the hurricane, Shoup was able to book the DUKES into the Lady Luck Casino in Las Vegas through the end of October. Then the DUKES flew to Cincinnati to join the Natchez for a four-week fundraising tour (Cincinnati–Louisville–Evansville– Paducah–Memphis–Greenville–Natchez–Baton Rouge–New Orleans) for the Bush-Clinton Katrina Foundation. We closed out 2005 with the Lancaster Symphony on New Year’s Eve.
As we enter 2006, rebuilding New Orleans and helping bring tourists back with our Mardi Gras CD, we look back and say, it’s been one heck of a ride.
The DUKES still travel to Japan to perform at the Blue Note clubs and play approximately 30 concerts a year with symphonies and festivals around the world.
The DUKES have not been affiliated with the Assunto family since 1974.
Pete Fountain
Pete Fountain
Peter Dewey Fountain, Jr. was born July 3, 1930 in New Orleans, the cradle of American music, Jazz. He was a skinny kid who spent too much time hanging around the front stoop of the Top Hat Dance Hall near his home. The Top Hat was a stronghold of Dixieland Jazz and Jazz already had a strong hold on Pete Fountain. But, oh the sounds! This was music straight from the soul. Sounds that would never be written in stone, that would always be brand new because they were purely personal. Pete heard all the greats in New Orleans and he knew he wanted to play Jazz.
After endless hours of practicing and listening to the recordings of Benny Goodman and Irving Fazola, the personal sound of Pete Fountain began to emerge and it was "Fat." By the time Pete was 16, he had already gained a reputaffon on the street, Bourbon Street.
Through these formative years of his musical training, Pete performed with several sensational bands. One such band was the Junior Dixieland Band which performed in the famous Parisian Room—often performing for legendary jazz men. It was a heady time of life and Pete Fountain was savoring every moment.
A few years later Pete joined Phil Zito's International Dixieland Express. They were playing the El Morocco on the street. It was there he met Beverly. She had decided very young to marry a musician and Pete had decided very young to be a musician.
Pete was performing with some of the best known jazz bands in the countly—The Basin Street Six, The Dukes of Dixieland, Al Hirt—and it was great.
Until 1956...Be-Bop and Rock & Roll were the hot new sounds, and the music that Pete loved could not provide him or anybody else with a living. Jazz, in its own birthplace New Orleans, was definiteb asleep. He gave up music. He had no choice. With a wife and three small children to support, music was a luxury he could not afford.
All he really wanted to do was play music. All he needed was a band, a bandstand and a place to play.
In 1957, Lawrence Welk, host of the nation's most popular television program, wanted Pete on the show, and that kind of opportunity only comes once in a lifetime. For two years, Pete was the most famous Jazz musician on television. Pete Fountain became a household name and New Orleans Jazz made a comeback that has never faded.
After two years in California, Pete came home to New Orleans. He had learned what every New Orleanian has to accept as a fact of life. You can leave New Orleans, but it never leaves you. The cuisine, the sights and the sounds.
Pete immediately opened his own jazz club in the heart of the French Quarter. His national fame and fans followed him to New Orleans which allowed Pete's club to expand, through the past 38 years, into the largest jazz club in the city.
Pete has always been considered an ambassador of New Orleans Jazz as he performs his music on guest appearances on network television and specials. Some of the highlights have been such classics as the Ed Sullivan, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Andy Williams specials. More recently his credits include A Close Up of Pete Fountain, Super Bowl Saturday Night and the National Memorial Day Concert. He also performed 59 times on Johnny Carson's "The Tonight Show."
Pete has performed at four U.S. State Dinners by command performance for four Presidents of the United States. He has also performed for Pope John Paul II at the New Orleans Papal Mass with an attendance of over 400,000 people.
During Pete's career, he has recorded over 90 albums. Three of Pete's albums have gone gold, "Pete Fountain's New Orleans," "The Blues," and "Mr. New Orleans." He also received a gold record for his hit single "Just A Closer Walk With Thee."
Through Pete's career he has received numerous awards and honors including a Doctorate of Music from the College of Santa Fe, he was voted the #1 Jazz Clarinetist for 13 consecutive years in the Playboy Readers Poll, he was King of Bacchus; he received an Emmy for the 1990 Super Bowl Pre-Game Music; he was awarded the 1993 Louisiana Legends Award; and Pete received the 1998 Lifetime Achievement Award in Music.
Pete has performed with music legends ranging from Louis Armstrong and Harry James to Harry Connick, Jr. Yet to this day his greatest thrill is taking the stage and performing the music he loves, watching as it works its irresistible magic on the audience. Straight to the soul. Pete Fountain and his wife, Beverly, have three children and six grandchildren. He divides his DAYS between his family, various charitable organizations and his favorite fishing hole.
Pete's home in Bay St.Louis, MS, was completely destroyed in hurricane Katrina. A lot of his memorabilia was lost but some of his most prized possessions were found and returned by neighbors. Also, his gold record collection was restored as well. Pete and his wife Beverly are now living in a condo in Hammond, La. at the time of this writing.
Bio courtesy of www.epluri.com
