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Kenny Davern

Kenny Davern

Date de naissance 7.1.1935 à Huntington, NY, Etats-Unis d Amérique

Date de décès 12.12.2006 à Sandia Park, NM, Etats-Unis d Amérique

Malheureusement nous ne disposons pas encore d'une biographie en langue française.

Kenny Davern

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Kenny Davern

Kenny Davern (January 7, 1935December 12, 2006), born John Kenneth Davern, was a jazz clarinetist.

Biography

He was born in Huntington, Long Island to a family of mixed Jewish and Irish-Catholic ancestry.[1] His mothers family originally came from Vienna, Austria, where his great-grandfather Alfred Roth had been a colonel in the Austro-Hungarian cavalry, the highest rank accessible to a Jew in the Habsburg Imperial army.

After hearing Pee Wee Russell the first time, he was convinced that he wanted to be a jazz musician, too; and at the age of 16 he joined the musician's union, first as a baritone saxophone player. In 1954 he joined Jack Teagarden's Band, and after only a few days with the band he made his first jazz recordings. Later on, he worked with bands led by Phil Napoleon and Pee Wee Erwin before joining the Dukes of Dixieland in 1962. The late 1960s found him free-lancing with, among others, Red Allen, Ralph Sutton, Yank Lawson and his lifelong friend Dick Wellstood.

At this time, he had also taken up the soprano saxophone, and when a spontaneous coupling with fellow reedman Bob Wilber at Dick Gibson's Colorado Jazz Party turned out be a huge success, one of the most important jazz groups of the 1970s, Soprano Summit, was born. Co-led by Wilber and Davern, both switching between the clarinet and various saxophones, during the next five years Soprano Summit enjoyed a very successful string of record dates and concerts. When the group disbanded in 1979, Davern devoted himself to solely playing clarinet, preferring trio formats with piano and drums. His collaboration with Bob Wilber was revived in 1991, the new group being called Summit Reunion. Leading his own quartets since the 1990s, Davern has preferred the guitar to the piano in his rhythm section, employing guitarists Bucky Pizzarelli, Howard Alden and James Chirillo.

In 1997, he was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame at Rutgers University, and in 2001 he received an honorary doctorate of music at Hamilton College, Clinton, New York. In addition to the jazz greats that inspired him, Kenny Davern indicates classical clarinetist David Weber, principal solo clarinetist with the New York City Ballet Orchestra, as his most important teacher.

Although playing mainly in traditional jazz and swing settings, his musical interests encompass a much broader range of styles. In 1978 he collaborated with avantgarde players Steve Lacy, Steve Swallow and Paul Motian on a free jazz-inspired album appropriately entitled Unexpected. In addition to his accomplishments in jazz, his ardour and knowledge of classical music is encyclopaedic, particularly of the work of conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler.

Especially since he has been concentrating on exclusively playing the clarinet, Kenny Davern has been calling his own an unmatched mastery of the instrument. A full, rounded tone, especially "woody" in the lower chalumeau register, combined with highly personal tone inflections and the ability to hit notes far above the conventional range of the clarinet, have made his sound immediately recognizable. In the late 1980s, the New York Times hailed him as "the finest jazz clarinetist playing today". Kenny died of a heart attack at his Sandia Park, New Mexico home.

Discography

Title Released Note Label
Dialogues 2006-05-08 w/ Ken Peplowski Arbors Records
No One Else But Kenny 2006-11-21 Kenny Davern Trio Sackville Records
In Concert at the Outpost Performance Space, Albuquerque 2004 2005-09-13 Kenny Davern Quartet Arbors Records
At the Mill Hill Playhouse 2003-11-04 Kenny Davern Quartet Arbors Records
The Kings of Jazz 2003-08-05 - Arbors Records
Live at the Floating Jazz Festival 2002-01-22 w/ Joe Temperley Chiaroscuro Records
The Jazz KENnection 2001-10-30 w/ Ken Peplowski Arbors Records
A Night With Eddie Condon 2001-05-01 w/ Eddie Condon Arbors Records
You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet 2001-01-01 - Jazzology
Smiles 1998-01-01 Arbors Records
Breezin' Along 1996-06-13 - Arbors Records
Spanish Eyes 1995-11-05 Chiaroscuro Records
Never in a Million Years 1995-10-01 - Challenge Records
Kenny Davern and the Rhythm Men 1995-06-15 Arbors Records
East Side, West Side 1994-06-24 - Arbors Records
My Inspiration 1991-09-11 Music Masters Records
The Last Reunion 1998-05-14 - Upbeat Records
I'll See You in My Dreams 1988-01-01 Music Masters Records
This Old Gang of Ours 1985-12-10 - Upbeat Records
Kenny Davern Big Three 1985-11-25 Jazzology
Kenny Davern and Dick Wellstood 1984-01-15 w/ Dick Wellstood Challenge Records
Live Hot Jazz 1983-12-18 - Statiras Records
Stretchin' Out 1983-12-01 - Jazzology
The Very Thought of You 1983-01-01 - Milton Keynes Music
El Rado Schuffle 1980-06-07 - Kenneth Records
The Free-Swinging Trio in the Jazz Tradition 1979-12-02 - Fat Cat Jazz
The Hot Three 1979-07-01 - Monmouth Records
Unexpected 1978-05-30 -w/ Steve Lacy;Steve Swallow and Paul Motion; Kharma Records
John and Joe 1977-10-23 w/ Flip Phillips Chiaroscuro Records

References

External links

Dernière modification de cette page 01.04.2014 21:58:17

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