Pete Fountain

Pierre Dewey LaFontaine Jr. (July 3, 1930 – August 6, 2016), known professionally as Pete Fountain, was an American jazz clarinetist.\n', '

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, to Pierre, Sr. and Madeline. Pete was the great-grandson of a French immigrant, François Fontaine, who was born in Toulon, circa 1796, and came to the U.S. in the early 19th century, and died on the Mississippi Gulf Coast circa 1885. Pete\'s father, a truck driver and part-time musician, changed the family name to Fountain.\n', '

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…