Discography Carl Fontana (source AMG) - (just a few webmaster)
Louise Baranger	Trumpeter's Prayer (1998)	Trombone
Louis Bellson	Don't Stop Now! (1984)	Trombone
Paul Cacia	Alumni Tribute to Stan Kenton (1987)	Trombone
Conte Candoli and Carl	Complete Phoenix Recordings, Vol.... (2002)	Trombone
Dusko Goykovich	Belgrade Blues (2001)	Trombone
Hanna-Fontana Band	Live at the Concord (1975)	Trombone
Jake Hanna	Live at Concord (1975)	Trombone
Woody Herman	Early Autumn [Discovery] (1952)	Trombone
Woody Herman	Concerto for Herd (1967)	Trombone
Woody Herman	Scene & Herd in 1952 (1995)	Trombone
Woody Herman	Cool One (1998)	Trombone
Woody Herman	Jazz Swinger/Music for Tired... (2001)	Trombone
Woody Herman	Woody Herman's Finest Hour (2001)	Trombone
Woody Herman	Presenting Woody Herman & The Band (2001)	Trombone
Woody Herman	Standard Times - The Third Herd... (2003)	Trombone
Bill Holman	Big Band in a Jazz Orbit (1958)	Trombone
Bill Holman	In a Jazz Orbit (1958)	Trombone
Stan Kenton	Retrospective (1943)	Trombone
Stan Kenton	Sketches on Standards (1953)	Trombone
Stan Kenton	Cuban Fire! (1956)	Trombone
Stan Kenton	Kenton in Hi-Fi (1956)	Trombone
Stan Kenton	Plays Holman Live! (1996)	Trombone
Stan Kenton	Jazz Profile (1997)	Trombone
Stan Kenton	1950's Birdland Broadcasts (1998)	Trombone
Stan Kenton	Intermission Riff 1952-1956 (1999)	Trombone
Stan Kenton	At the Ernst-Merck-Halle, Hamburg, (2003)	Trombone
Stan Kenton	Contemporary Concepts [Bonus... (2003)	Trombone
Stan Kenton	Concepts Era Live!	Soloist
Bobby Knight/Great	Cream of the Crop (1996)	Trombone
Lawson-Haggart Jazz	World's Greatest Jazz Band, Vol. 1 (1968)	Trombone
Paul McKee	Gallery (1999)	Trombone
Bill Perkins	Bill Perkins Octet on Stage (1956)	Trombone
The Bill Perkins Octet	Bill Perkins Octet on Stage [Bonus (2002)	Trombone
Flip Phillips	Celebrates His 80th Birthday at... (2003)	Trombone
Bobby Shew	Heavyweights (1995)	Trombone
Don Sickler	Nightwatch (1995)	Trombone
Supersax	Supersax Plays Bird, Vol. 2: Salt... (1973)	Trombone
Mel Tormé	Round Midnight: A Retrospective... (1956)	Trombone
Bill Trujillo & Carl Fontana	It's Tru (1999)	Trombone
University of Wisconsin	Jazz in Clear Water: Harpoon (1996)	Trombone
Bill Watrous	Bill Watrous & Carl Fontana (2001)	Trombone
Scott Whitfield	To Be There (1997)	Trombone
Kai Winding	Trombone Panorama (1956)	Trombone
Kai Winding Septet	In Cleveland 1957 (1994)	Trombone
Kai Winding Septet	Cleveland June 1957 (2000)	Trombone
Various Artists	Uptown Christmas (1984)	Trombone
Various Artists	Concord Jazz: Collector's Series... (1990)	Trombone
Various Artists	Big Band Renaissance (1996)	Trombone
Various Artists	Masters of Jazz, Vol. 4: Big Bands (1996)	Trombone
Various Artists	Blues in the Night: The Johnny... (1997)	Trombone
Various Artists	Complete Johnny Mercer Songbook (1998)	Trombone
Various Artists	West Coast Jazz Box: An Anthology... (1998)	Trombone
Various Artists	After Dark: Jazz Ballads (1999)	Trombone
Various Artists	Great Swing Classics in Hi-Fi (1999)	Trombone
Szalóky Béla & Various Artists	Hungarian Jazz Trombone Company (1998)	Trombone
Great American Trb Company	Strike Up the Band (his all time best solo)	Trombone

Portrait made by Robert Hackett

Bill Watrous - John Fedchock (photo John Fedchock)

Jazz Profile

Carl Charles Fontana: July 28, 1928-October 9, 2003
by Ken Hanlon, trombonist, UNLV Music Professor and 2nd director of the Arnold Shaw Institute for Popular Music at UNLV

Carl Fontana In the world of music, as in all of the arts, there are only a few truly original voices that emerge in each generation, and an even smaller number of those voices transcend their time to become a major influence and inspiration for succeeding generations. Carl Fontana was--and is through his recorded legacy--such a voice.

Truly a master of his art, Fontana had the Mozartian quality of impeccability. As Mozart's scores were absent of corrections or deletions, Fontana's mellifluous solos were unscarred by errant notes. One of the most often heard remarks from Carl's peers has been "I've never heard him play a wrong note."

A great contrapuntalist, Carl would weave lines that served as countermelodies to the tune, which he often did as an accompaniment to a colleague's statement of the melody. A study of his solos demonstrates that if all of his choruses on a tune could be simultaneously performed, the result would be a rich multi-lined tapestry comparable to the complex fugal compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach.

As with all original voices, Carl Fontana spent little time emulating the solo styles of other jazz performers; he quickly developed a style that was uniquely his own. In his first recording with Woody Herman, "Mother Goose Jumps," he gives a clear tip of the hat to one of his great predecessors, Bill Harris, but by his second recorded solo on "Moten Swing," he had clearly moved on to establish his own mode of musical expression that is by now so familiar to Fontana fans.

When asked by interviewers, "Who were your major influences?" Carl's response was usually that there was no one in particular he tried to emulate. Among Fontana fans, there is a literal legion of fellow trombonists who consider him to be a major influence on their playing, often referring to him as possibly the greatest jazz trombonist of all time. Every year that he performed for UNLV's "76 Trombones + 4" concert, there would be a cadre of trombonists who would travel from nearly all over the world to perform with him and, of greater importance, hear him weave his musical magic. The large ensemble that performed this concert--most often numbering more than a hundred--was in large part attributable to his presence. He is truly the "trombonist's trombonist."

Mixing an interesting combination of mainstream jazz with bebop technique, Carl had the ability to convincingly perform a variety of styles effortlessly. His performances with the tradition-bound World's Greatest Jazz Band and with technical wizard Don Menza are clear demonstrations of this talent. Having developed a technique he referred to as "doodle tonguing"--claiming he did so as a defense against multi-noted tenor sax players--Fontana could go toe to toe with any musician. Responding to Carl's reputation of literally "blowing other soloists off the stage," pianist Nat Pierce composed "Captain Kutcha" in 1956 for the "Captain," a title that stuck with Carl for the remainder of his career. The Kai Winding septet recorded Captain Kutcha on a Columbia-label LP, The Trombone Sound; re-released on CD by Collect-ibles, 2000, http://www.oldies.com.

Although Carl could readily sit down and write out the melodies and chord changes to any tune, he scrupulously avoided reading chord progressions, because he felt it interfered with his creativity. The results he got speak for themselves; his incredible ear and sense of time and phrasing--the things that made him a musical genius--allowed him to conjure solo after solo, each a pearl. Although educated at Louisiana State University, where he received a bachelor's degree and began working on a master's before joining the Woody Herman band, Fontana relied mostly on his natural instincts, as most highly creative artists do.

Carl, who was loved for his great sense of humor as well as his musical talents, had a penchant for performing little-known ballads and used the unexpected, often "off-the-wall" tunes that he would turn into bossa novas. It was the latter that he would use as an outlet for his "tongue-in-cheek" wit, with tunes like "America the Beautiful" (from The Great Fontana album) and "If I Only Had a Brain" (on both the Live at Capozzoli's--The Carl Fontana Quartet and Nice 'n' Easy CDs). His discovery of obscure ballads led to a world-wide reputation as the source for such material. Musicians from around the globe would call Carl to check the chord changes or melody of an unfamiliar song, and he could immediately supply the requested information from his encyclopedic memory.

A man of few words--except in his wittier moments--Fontana was considered a "tough" interview by most journalists, too often giving one-word answers to their questions. This "shy" quality and his desire to be a home body resulted in a renown among his fans and colleagues while leaving him largely unknown to the general populace. Traveling not only didn't interest him, it was quite often the deciding factor in turning down gigs. In the spring of 1992, Carl was contacted by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Jazz Orchestra (WDRF) of Cologne, Germany--a superb musical organization--and offered $5,000 plus all expenses to perform two concerts with them, one at a local jazz festival and the other at the International Trombone Workshop in Detmold. The primary work on which he was to be featured, along with Jiggs Whigham, was a multi-movement composition by noted composer/arranger Jerry von Royen. At the time, Carl insisted that I was his manager--a job for which I was not qualified either by skill or personality--and asked me to return a call for him to the WDRF management and tell them $5,000 was not enough money. The offered fee was raised to $6,000, but Carl also declined for the same reason. More calls followed with the fee rising finally to a begrudging $9,000 with the caveat that it would go no higher. Carl's response was to have me call and tell them that he would not be able to make the trip. Devastated by this information, since I was to give a research paper on Carl's solo work in Detmold, I asked him why he was turning down such a great offer to work with top notch musicians playing superbly written music. His answer was, "It's too far to go, and besides, I don't want to have to do all that reading of a new chart."

In late 1991, Gerry Mulligan called Carl and told him that he was going to re-record the music from the classic jazz album Birth of the Cool, and would he be available for the date. According to Carl, his reply was, "Only if I get paid as much as you do!" Following a couple of ensuing phone calls, I was visiting with Carl at his house and asked him if he was going to make the recording date. He said, "No." When I asked him why he was turning down such an historically important session, his answer was, "It's too cold in New York this time of year." With such refusals great fame remains elusive, but Fontana preferred staying home where he could visit with his daughter Felicia and two sons Mark and Scott, as well as his grandchildren, who knew him only as "Popo."

Fortunately for Fontana fans, Carl made several CDs during this last decade that have greatly enhanced the number of recordings available of his work. Unfortunately, he is no longer here to astound us with his constant flow of musical inventiveness and possibly worse yet, to no longer make us laugh. We should, however, feel extremely fortunate that he touched our lives, that we had the opportunity to experience firsthand true musical greatness, and that through his recorded legacy his genius will always be there to enjoy. Let's hope that he and his buddy Frank Rosolino keep on jamming on the other side until we can get there to hear them once again!

PARTIAL DISCOGRAPHY

All recordings on the list are CDs, including reissues of LPs: Stan Kenton: Contemporary Concepts, 1955/2002, Blue Note (Capitol) ASIN: B000093U3X Stan Kenton In Hi-Fi, 1956/1992, Capitol CDP 7 98451 2 Stan Kenton: Cuban Fire! 1956/1991, Capitol CDP 7 96260 2 The Trombone Sound: Kai Winding Septet, 1956/2000, Collectibles (no number) Live at Concord: The Hanna-Fontana Band, 1975, Concord Jazz CCD-6011 Bobby Knight's Great American Trombone Company, 1978, Jazz Mark 116 The Great Fontana, 1987, Uptown UPCD27.28 Live at the Royal Palms Inn: Conte Candoli & Carl Fontana, 1994, Woofy WPCD37-1 Live at the Royal Palms Inn: Carl Fontana & Buddy Childers, 1994, Woofy WPCD37-2 Live at the Royal Palms Inn: Bob Cooper & Carl Fontana, 1994, Woofy WPCD37-3 Live at the Royal Palms Inn: Carl Fontana and Steve Huffsteter, 1994, Woofy WPCD37-6 Live at the Royal Palms Inn: Bill Perkins, Pete Candoli and Carl Fontana, 1994, Woofy WPCD37-9 Heavyweights: Bobby Shew Quintet with Carl Fontana, 1996, MAMA 1013 Live at Capozzoli's: The Carl Fontana-Arno Marsh Quintet, 1997 Woofy WPCD51 Nice ?n' Easy: Jiggs Whigham & Carl Fontana, 1997 TNC Jazz CD-1701 Live at Capozzoli's: The Carl Fontana Quartet 1998, Woofy WPCD72 First Time Together: Hungarian Jazz Trombone Company w/Carl Fontana, 1998, BMC CD 015 Live at Capozzoli's: The Carl Fontana-Andy Martin Quintet, 1999 Woofy WPCD87 Bill Trujillo: It's Tru!, 1999, SeaBreeze Jazz SEAB 3033 Paul McKee, 1999, Gallery CD 9704 Keepin' Up with the Boneses: Carl Fontana & Jiggs Whigham, 2001, TNC Jazz CD-1708 Marv Koral & the All-Stars: Live at Pierce Street Annex, available through Marv Koral

Ken Hanlon wrote the following short profile a few years prior to Carl Fontana's death.

During the second week of January (2000) while attending the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) Annual Conference, I was standing in line in a fast-food restaurant when the two young college men in front of me turned around and recognized my IAJE T-shirt. They asked me how I was enjoying the conference, which they were also attending. I responded that I was enjoying it very much and that I was especially looking forward to interviewing Al Belletto, whose big band was scheduled to perform at the conference, for a biography of Carl Fontana on which I was working.

One of the young men enthusiastically reacted with "Carl Fontana! He's my favorite jazz trombonist. I saw him a few years ago and had no idea who he was then, but the minute that I heard him play I was an instant fan."

Reactions of this sort are also common among jazz professionals and afficionados everywhere. Ask jazz trombonist Bill Watrous who his favorite trombonist is and he will immediately answer: "Carl Fontana!" L.A. trombonist Bob McChesney was so impressed with Carl that he wrote a method book on "doodle tonguing," a technique invented by Fontana, in his words, "in self-defense against tenor saxophone players." (With doodle tonguing it is considerably easier to play rapidly and cleanly on the trombone, thus making it easier to keep up with pyrotechnical tenor saxophonists.) Perhaps one of the more humorous and endearing reactions comes from trombonist/vocalist Bob Flanagan of the Four Freshmen who has turned to me on more than one occasion when we were listening to Carl and laughingly said, "Don't you just hate this guy?"

Carl Charles Fontana was born in Monroe, Louisiana, on July 18, 1928, the son of band leader-saxophonist-violinist Collie Fontana, in whose band Carl played during his teen years. Unlike many young musicians in the '30s and '40s who opted to go right from high school into touring musical groups, Carl attended the two-year school in his home town (now University of Northeast Louisiana) and then transferred to LSU where he received his Bachelor's degree and finished nearly all of the requirements for a Master's as well, before receiving a phone call from Woody Herman that eventually led to a three year stint with the Third Herd in a trombone section that included the Green brothers, Urbie and Jack.

From there he moved on to engagements with Al Belletto, Lionel Hampton, Hal McIntyre, Stan Kenton and Kai Winding before becoming a permanent resident of Las Vegas. Fontana has recorded albums with nearly every group mentioned above, plus the World's Greatest Jazz Band, Supersax and Georgie Auld. As a leader or co-leader, Carl has recorded albums with Jake Hanna, Al Cohn, Jiggs Whigham, Arno Marsh, Andy Martin and his own quartet. In the last few years, he has appeared as guest soloist on CDs featuring Bobby Shew, Paul McKee, Bill Trujillo and vocalist Joni Janak. Considered a virtuoso by musicans everywhere, Fontana is not only a model for younger players, but is also an inspiration to the other musicans who share the bandstand with him. Like a great actor who brings out the best in fellow thespians, Carl raises the bar for all who perform with him and they in turn rise to the greater musical expectations.

Perhaps jazz chronicler and critic Leonard Feather best expresses Fontana's place in the lineage of jazz trombonists: "Fontana has long been regarded as the most fluid, innovative trombonist after J. J. Johnson--a modern trombonist with exceptional technique and ideas." In the collective opinion of his fans, while he may produce technical fireworks on the trombone, it is his lyrical playing that melts their hearts. The words of his dad, Collie, best express Carl's philosophy of ballad playing: "Whenever you play a ballad, play it as if you were talking to your best girl." May he serenade us all for many years to come! Carl Fontana photo by Ed Boyer.

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