Carl Fontana

An excellent trombonist that has spent a lot of days gone by 40 years using business music in NEVADA, Carl Fontana sometimes emerges to remind listeners precisely how technically skilled he’s. The son of the saxophonist, Fontana began playing in his father’s group during 1941-1945, but didn’t gain prominence until he was with Woody Herman’s Orchestra (1952-1953). Fontana spent amount of time in the big rings of Lionel Hampton (1954), Hal McIntyre (1954-1955), & most significantly Stan Kenton (1955-1956), becoming well-featured using the second option. After playing in Kai Winding’s four-trombone music group (1956-1957), Fontana relocated to NEVADA but he surfaced on an intermittent basis, touring with Woody Herman in 1966, documenting with Supersax (1973), co-leading an organization with Jake Hanna (1975), using the World’s Greatest Jazz Music group, and showing up at jazz celebrations. In 1995, Fontana documented a fine recording with Bobby Shew. 2 yrs later, Fontana combined up with fellow trombone veterinarian Jiggs Whigham for the bop workout Good ‘n’ Easy. The duo documented once again in 1999 for Keepin’ Up With the Boneses. Fontana was identified as having Alzheimer’s the next year and consequently stopped documenting. He passed on Oct 10, 2003 at age 75.