Kenny Davern - R.I.P.

[Lois Gilbert]

KENNY DAVERN from today's The Independent, London

" Louis Armstrong can say something with one note, but then there are
others who take an hour to rev up and wind up with a fart in a bathtub."

Although Kenny Davern became one of the most effective jazz clarinettists
of the last 50 years, he always regarded a trumpeter, Louis Armstrong, as
the wellspring of his inspiration. Unusually for a clarinet player he had
a forceful attack, almost as though he was playing the trumpet. He played
the instrument with great fire and probably more passion than any other
clarinettist playing today.

"When I was a kid we'd go to Bop City and Birdland to listen to Charlie
Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell. Bird was a great musician but his
points of reference were different from mine.I thought the real jazz was
Louis Armstrong and I still do.

"I can listen to 'Jubilee' by Louis Armstrong and know that good will
triumph after all and that there's justice in the world."

Self-taught, Davern was given an old Albert system clarinet when he was
11. Three years later he acquired a more convential Boehm system
instrument. He began playing professionally when he was 16 and three
months after he left high school auditioned for the big band led by Ralph
Flanagan.

"When I got there were about ten guys ahead of me, but I went up to the
manager and said 'Let me play, I gotta be somewhere, I have an
appointment..Then Flanagan went over to the piano and we played two
choruses of "Muskrat Ramble" and that was it.'"

In the Flanagan band he was required to play alto and baritone saxophones
as well as clarinet. He stayed for a year, leaving because he couldn't
stand life on the road.

Perhaps he was fortunate in being a New Yorker, for all his formative
work was in the city, often playing with the jazz greats of earlier years.

"To be on the bandstand with a Roy Eldridge or a Buck Clayton is an
honour and a privilege not granted to everyone. Making harmonious music
with such people in your formative years, you come away with something in
your head. Call it tradition if you must, although it's a word I hate -
maybe because I overreacted to it by playing revival music at one time."

Back in New York he rejoined Flanagan on a temporary basis. One of the
saxophone players asked him how he'd like to play with Jack Teagarden.

"I was gassed. I joined the band at the Meadowbrook, played a couple of
tunes and got off the stand. Teagarden hadn't said anything so I went over
to him and asked how I'd done. He smiled and said 'Where've you been?'

After Teagarden, with whom he recorded with in 1954 when he was 19,
Davern freelanced in the city and led his own band which he called his
Washington Squares. It included his friends and contemporaries Dave
Frishberg and Johnny Windhurst. He worked with Ruby Braff, Wild Bill
Davison, Billy Butterfield, Bud Freeman and for Eddie Condon at Condon's
club. He also appeared in the play "Marathon 33" on Broadway. The play
starred Julie Harris and the band, which stayed on stage throughout,
included Davern's long-time colleague and pianist Dick Wellstood.

An avant-garde band that Davern helped to run in the Fifties that
included Archie Shepp and Roswell Rudd and played arrangements by Carla
Bley and Cecil Taylor inspired the remark at the beginning of this piece.
Davern also appeared along with Rudd in the film The Hustler (1961).

Following a jazz party in 1973 where he and fellow clarinettist Bob
Wilber played together they formed the band Soprano Summit - two soprano
saxophones and a rhythm section. The band lasted until 1979 and recorded
several albums, including reunion ones in 1991 and 1997. The soprano sax
is a difficult instrument and Davern became bored with it and returned to
the clarinet after a couple of years.

When the band broke up he worked in small groups and led a trio with
Dick Wellstood called The Blue Three. He and Wellstood worked together
until the pianist's death in 1987. He frequently worked with two other
pianists, Ralph Sutton and Dick Hyman. He toured Europe with the New York
Jazz Repertory and the successful Kings Of Jazz and appeared regularly on
jazz cruises and at European jazz festivals. He worked in Australia and
New Zealand in August 1988.

A concert of his with Humphrey Lyttelton was recorded in 1982 and he
returned to record with Lyttelton in 1985.

He was described by Lyttelton as "Fluent, hot and with as original a
slant on traditional clarinet as you'll find anywhere."

In the Nineties he became much involved with the Arbors record label,
where he was given a free rein to record what he liked by the sensitive
director Mat Domber.

Last year he put a band together for a one-night appearance at New York's
Tavern On The Green by an old friend, the film star Billy Crystal. He
visited Britain last summer with The Statesmen of Jazz.

Davern could have an alternative career in stand up comedy. He hated
microphones, preferring to play acoustically and in clubs would always
turn them off if he could, sometimes to the annoyance of the audience. He answered complaints that his announcements couldn't be heard with "I'm not saying anything. Just passing the time." He would elicit requests for
tunes, asking members of the audience who would respond with everything
from early New Orleans marches to, say, Artie Shaw's "Concerto For
Clarinet".

"I'm not going to play any of them," Davern said. "I just want to know
where your heads are at."


John Kenneth Davern, clarinettist and saxophonist: born Huntington, New
York 7 January 1935; married Elsa Last (one stepson, one stepdaughter);
died Sandia Park, New Mexico, 12 December 2006.

[jonathanjazz]

Really sad news...

[Dr Dave]

Other than Don Byron, and I guess Ken Peplowski, who has clarinet as a main axe these days?

Think about it: In the 1940s and 1950s, and for a good while afterward, there were monsters on the instrument. Benny Goodman, Buddy DeFranco, Artie Shaw, Jimmy Noone, Kenny Davern...and that's just off the top. These guys were major engines of jazz. There may be great players now, but there aren't clarinet stars the way there were 40-50 years ago.

Davern was cool. He played a lot of New Orleans stuff, but he could (and occasionally did) play anything.

[clinthopson]

I love those soprano duos he did with Bob Wilbur.

[Mike Goodbar]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

Other than Don Byron, and I guess Ken Peplowski, who has clarinet as a main axe these days?

Eddie Daniels, maybe?









Naw. You're right.

[Dennis Gonzalez]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

Other than Don Byron, and I guess Ken Peplowski, who has clarinet as a main axe these days?

The young guy who played with us in New York on Friday night, at The Stone, Patrick Holmes - though unknown, he will rise fast I'm sure - plays clarinet only:




Sounds like a young John Carter.

RIP Kenny...you'll be missed.

[Mike Schwartz]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

Other than Don Byron, and I guess Ken Peplowski, who has clarinet as a main axe these days?

Think about it: In the 1940s and 1950s, and for a good while afterward, there were monsters on the instrument. Benny Goodman, Buddy DeFranco, Artie Shaw, Jimmy Noone, Kenny Davern...and that's just off the top. These guys were major engines of jazz. There may be great players now, but there aren't clarinet stars the way there were 40-50 years ago.

Davern was cool. He played a lot of New Orleans stuff, but he could (and occasionally did) play anything.

I saw Davern a couple of times years ago and enjoyed what he did...RIP

Ben Goldberg and Marty Ehrlich both are outstanding on clarinet[s] and I've always loved Eddie Daniels.

Greg Tardy, who is reasonably well known as a tenor saxophonist is excellent, and let's not forget Paquito D'Rivera who plays quite a bit of clarinet.

[Brian Olewnick]

Very sad. Always enjoyed Davern's work when I'd hear it though I didn't know it very well. I was fortunate enough, in the spring of '78, to be present for the recording of his album "Unexpected", with Steve Lacy, Steve Swallow and Paul Motian, a memorable event (and one on which he played soprano, btw).

[Guinness Steve]

Great musician, and a wonderfully funny guy. His stuff with Bob Wilbur (Soprano Summit) is all very good .....well, I love his playing in most any context. I remember a record he did with Flip Phillips many years ago that I listened to alot.
Sad news. RIP Kenny.