Kenny Davern

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Kenny Davern 1992 in Jazzland , Vienna

Kenny Davern (* 7. January 1935 in Huntington , Long Iceland , New York ; † 12. December 2006 in Sandia Park , New Mexico ) was an American jazz - clarinet and saxophone (soprano and others) of Dixieland jazz and swing .

Live and act

Kenny Davern came from a broken home and lived in nine foster families until he was raised with his grandmother in Queens , who was a Lithuanian Jew while his father was an Irish Catholic. He became interested in jazz after hearing swing musicians like Artie Shaw , but then the Dixieland jazz music of a Pee Wee Russell , which he also heard in Eddie Condon's New York Club, was formative . Davern took classical clarinet lessons from David Weber of the New York City Ballet Orchestra . In 1951 he played in gigs with Red Allen and in 1953 went on tour with the big band of pianist Ralph Flanagan . In 1954 he joined Jack Teagarden's band . When they wanted to tour California , but the musicians' union demanded a six-month stay, he switched to Phil Napoleon's "Memphis Five" in 1955 . He played with them at Nick's in Greenwich Village , New York, and also with Pee Wee Erwin and his own band, Washington Squares. In 1961 he played in Ted Lewis' band in the Roseland Ballroom and in 1962/3 with the " Dukes of Dixieland " (with whom he recorded a gospel album with the Clara Ward Singers ). In the late 1960s he played a lot in a band with pianist Dick Wellstood at "The Ferry Boat" in Brielle , New Jersey (which he liked so much that he turned down an offer to play with the "Louis Armstrong All Stars") . He became known in the 1970s with the band "Soprano Summit", which he led with Bob Wilber - both first met at one of Dick Gibson's "Colorado Jazz Parties". After the band broke up in 1979, he mainly turned to the clarinet. He played at festivals (such as the Newport Jazz Festival , those of Nice, Edinburgh and the North Sea Jazz Festival ), at jazz parties and with the "New York Jazz Repertory Company" under Dick Hyman . In 1991 there was a “Summit Reunion” with Wilber. In the 2000s he recorded a few albums on Arbors, on which Ken Peplowski and Tony DeNicola participated, among others .

In 1978 he recorded the free jazz album "Unexpected" with Steve Lacy (whom he still knew from the Dixieland scene in the 1950s), Paul Motian and Steve Swallow .

In 2001 he received an honorary doctorate from Hamilton College , Clinton , New York City . He died of a heart attack in his New Mexico home .

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