Kenny Davern

In the 1990s The New York Times called him "the finest clarinetist playing today," an assessment that proved accurate for Kenny Davern once he reached his later years and performed at the height of his abilities. Though some viewed him as a jazz traditionalist, even a purist, Davern insisted on interpreting standards and devoted himself to that repertoire. Numbers associated with George Gershwin, Eubie Blake, Fats Waller, and Irving Berlin—what many label Great American Songbook material—formed the core of his sets. Reviewers frequently singled out the lucidity and tonal purity of his playing, and he regularly performed unamplified at outdoor festivals.

Davern entered the world in Huntington on New York’s Long Island on January 7, 1935. After his parents separated he stayed with grandparents in Queens before moving through a succession of foster homes across Brooklyn and Queens. At age eleven he took up the clarinet after hearing a radio broadcast of Pee Wee Russell performing “Memphis Blues” with Muggsy Spanier’s Ragtimers; the experience convinced him that traditional, blues-rooted jazz would be his life’s work.

A pivotal opportunity arrived via a telephone call from trumpeter Harry “Red” Allen, whom Davern backed on local Queens engagements while still attending high school. During those years he alternated between clarinet and saxophone before returning to the former instrument to audition for pianist Ralph Flanagan’s orchestra in the early 1950s. Davern later recounted securing the chair by claiming he had another booking and needed an immediate tryout. He remained with the bandleader through 1953 and 1954.

Still a teenager, Davern made his first recordings alongside Jack Teagarden; four years afterward he issued his debut album as a leader, In the Gloryland, on Elektra Records. His catalog spans numerous releases on Concord, Chiaroscuro, and Arbors. During an extended period he concentrated on sideman work, accompanying trombonist Teagarden, trumpeters Harry “Red” Allen and Buck Clayton, and drummer Jo Jones while issuing relatively few discs under his own name. Only after turning forty did he contemplate fronting his own ensembles, by which time he had already logged more than two decades as a professional. Davern counted himself lucky to have shared bandstands in Manhattan clubs during the 1940s with many pre-bebop stylists.

In 1965 he relocated from New York City to the New Jersey Shore community of Manasquan and attributed shrinking earnings among traditional-jazz players to the ascent of rock & roll. Late in the 1970s he began directing his own groups and releasing his own recordings. Throughout much of the 1980s and into the following decade he spent as many as 230 nights annually on tour, easing that pace only in the mid-1990s when he limited himself to selected festivals. Among his most noteworthy sessions are those made for the Florida-based Arbors Records imprint from the 1980s onward. “I like to play music that makes me feel good,” Davern said in an interview. “I like to listen to it when I play it, and most of that music was played by people who happened to be born around the turn of the century. The lyrics may be corny, but the tunes are not. And the tunes will survive.” Davern died of a heart attack at his home in Sandia Park, New Mexico, on December 14, 2006, at the age of 71.