Kenny Davern

Kenny Davern
Kenny Davern on clarinet
Background information
Birth name	John Kenneth Davern
Born	(1935-01-07)January 7, 1935 Huntington, New York, U.S.
Died	December 12, 2006(2006-12-12) (aged 71)
Genres	Dixieland, swing
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instruments	Clarinet
Labels	Arbors, Chiaroscuro, Jazzology
Associated acts	Soprano Summit, Jack Teagarden, Joe Temperley, Bucky Pizzarelli, Ken Peplowski

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

He was born in Huntington, Long Island to a family of mixed Jewish and Irish-Catholic ancestry. His mother’s 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. He also made several appearances to the Colorado Springs Invitational Jazz Party and performed with numerous international jazz musicians.