Claude Luter

Claude Luter ( born July 23, 1923 in Paris, † October 6, 2006 in Poissy, Yvelines ) was a French oldtime jazz and dance - band leader, saxophonist (soprano) and clarinetist.

Life and career

Luter, born in Paris in 1923, initially played the trumpet before he switched to clarinet. In 1938, he discovered for himself in the New Orleans Jazz. During the occupation, he played in clubs and on the then usual "surprise parties " and after the war became a fixture of the Paris jazz scene in St. Germain -des- Prés, at the same time the center of the existentialist movement. In 1946 he made ​​his first recordings with his trio, which played regularly in the basement of the hotel Lorientais. In 1947, he took for the label Swing ( " Careless Love Blues" ) and performed at the festival in Nice in 1948 with Louis Armstrong and shortly thereafter with Buck Clayton, Willie "The Lion" Smith and Rex Stewart. In the 1950s he had his own orchestra, with whom he subsequently toured Europe, the U.S., Russia and South America undertook and often Sidney Bechet accompanied, 1949 (Festival in Paris) until his death in 1959 (recordings, for example, from January 31, 1952 from the Salle Pleyel with the world famous Petite fleur, 1954 from the Olympia). In 1951 she undertook together a North African tour. But later he was joined him and took as his 1964 ballet " La colline du delta" on. In 1960 he played with Barney Bigard. Then he led until his death in his own band, with which he, inter alia, participated in the celebrations of Louis Armstrong's 70th birthday and 1997 for the 100th anniversary of Sidney Bechet in New Orleans. By the end of 2005 he played twice a month in the Paris jazz club " Le Petit Journal".

He died in 2006 in a hospital in Poissy near Paris to the long-term consequences of a fall. He was married to Annie Luter and had two children, including the 1953 -born trumpeter Eric Luter.