WASHINGTON — Pete Fountain, whose rousing performances on clarinet made him a star of Dixieland music, a familiar figure on television and in nightclubs, and one of the most popular musical ambassadors of his native New Orleans, died Saturday in his hometown. He was 86.
The immediate cause was not disclosed, but Mr. Fountain, who was in hospice care, had heart surgery and strokes in recent years.
From 1957 to 1959, when Mr. Fountain was a standout soloist on ‘‘The Lawrence Welk Show,’’ he was perhaps the most widely recognized jazz musician on TV. He developed his musical style as a teenager while playing in Bourbon Street clubs — which he called his ‘‘conservatory’’ — and seemed to have every old-time Dixieland and gospel tune at his fingertips.
His recording of the hymn ‘‘Just a Closer Walk With Thee’’ sold 500,000 copies when it was released in 1959, and several of his nearly 100 albums became gold records.
Known for his shaved head, goatee, and dapper wardrobe, Mr. Fountain was as effervescent as his music. For years, he owned Crescent City nightclubs in which he held court as the bandleader, featured performer, and raconteur.
Few musicians, with the possible exceptions of trumpeter Al Hirt and the members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, were so deeply identified with the early music of New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz.
He appeared nearly 40 times at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and was a guest on Johnny Carson’s ‘‘Tonight Show’’ more than 50 times. He performed at five White House state dinners and before Pope John Paul II during a 1987 papal visit to New Orleans.
‘‘It snuck up on me,’’ Mr. Fountain said of his fame in 2002. ‘‘I didn’t look for it. I never did strive for anything. Through the years I just wanted to play.’’
He stayed true to the classic music of his home town, and his versions of such tunes as ‘‘Basin Street Blues,’’ ‘‘Clarinet Marmalade,’’ and ‘‘Tin Roof Blues’’ are considered authoritative.
‘‘I never had any interest in going the improv route,’’ he told New Orleans CityBusiness. ‘‘I was just enjoying what I was doing too much. I didn’t want to progress in the progression of progressive jazz. I just like to hear the melody too much and know where I’m at.’’
Pierre Dewey LaFontaine Jr. was born July 3, 1930, in New Orleans. His father, who drove a beer truck and was a part-time musician, changed the family name.
Mr. Fountain began to play clarinet at the urging of a doctor, who said it would help build his lung capacity. He began performing in nightclubs at 15, alongside many of the founders of New Orleans jazz.
When one of his high school teachers reprimanded him for sleeping in class, Mr. Fountain explained that he was working nights on Bourbon Street. The teacher asked how much he made: The teen said he took home $150 a week.
‘‘He said, ‘I don’t make that — go turn in your book,’’’ Mr. Fountain recalled to the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 1997.
