Claude Luter was a Paris clarinettist and bandleader who became the central figure of the New Orleans revival in France and the leader of the band that stood behind Sidney Bechet during his years in the French capital. Born Claude Gérald Georges Luter on July 23, 1923, in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, he was the son of a professional musician and started out on trumpet before switching to clarinet. He discovered New Orleans jazz as a teenager and played private parties and clubs during the German occupation. French Wikipedia, citing the writer Boris Vian, dates his clarinet playing to about 1941.

After the Liberation he became a fixture at the Caveau des Lorientais, a cellar club in the Latin Quarter, and his trio was soon playing to the intellectual crowd of Saint-Germain-des-Prés; AllMusic notes that Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre were among those in the audience. His trio made its first recordings in 1946, Claude Luter et ses Lorientais recorded "Pimlico" in 1947, and in 1948 and 1949 the band appeared on a run of 78 rpm issues for labels including Swing, Blue Star, Circle, Summit and Esquire, one pair of Esquire singles billing it as Claude Luter's Crescent City Jazz Band. The three-CD set Intégrale 1947-1949 (Memories, 2003) credits the pianist Christian Azzi, the drummer François Galépidès, known as Moustache, the bassist Roland Bianchini, the banjoist Claude Philippe and others as performers. In 1948 the band played at the first Nice Jazz Festival, where, according to AllMusic, Luter befriended Louis Armstrong, and in the months that followed he recorded with visiting American musicians including Willie "The Lion" Smith, Rex Stewart and Buck Clayton.

His defining partnership began in 1949, when the American soprano saxophonist and clarinettist Sidney Bechet, then living in France, joined Luter's orchestra at the Vieux Colombier, the Paris club where the band played from 1949. French Wikipedia lists the orchestra of the time as Pierre Dervaux on trumpet, Bernard Zacharias on trombone, Christian Azzi on piano, Roland Bianchini on bass and Moustache on drums. A Paris session of October 14, 1949 produced "Les Oignons" and "Ridin' Easy Blues". Luter and Bechet went on working together until Bechet's death in May 1959, toured North Africa in 1951 and recorded for Vogue throughout the decade, including the Salle Pleyel concerts of January 31 and March 12, 1952, the Olympia concert, and the Bechet tune "Petite Fleur". On October 30, 1951, Luter's orchestra also recorded in Paris with the American clarinettist Mezz Mezzrow. French Wikipedia quotes Luter as saying Bechet taught him everything; Bechet's example moved him away from the hard-driving manner of Johnny Dodds toward collective improvisation, and in 1960 he added the soprano saxophone.

The rest of his career was spent keeping the style in front of audiences. In 1957 he led a tour of South America with recordings in Buenos Aires, and in 1959 he played at the Slow Club and the Petit Journal in Paris. In December 1960 he recorded the two-clarinet album Clarinet X 2 in Paris with Barney Bigard, formerly of Duke Ellington's orchestra, and in 1962 he toured the Soviet Union with the French exhibition in Moscow. In 1964 he recorded the Vogue album Mon ami Sidney Bechet, and AllMusic adds that he recorded Bechet's ballet La Colline du Delta that year. He stayed on Vogue into the 1980s, with Claude Luter joue Sidney Bechet (1966), Parade (1968), The Pearls (1979), The Sidney Bechet Legacy with the clarinettist René Franc (1980) and Blue Clarinet (1984), and he made records with the clarinettist Jacky Milliet. In 1970 he travelled to Los Angeles for the celebrations of Louis Armstrong's 70th birthday, and later in life he went to New Orleans for events marking the Bechet centenary. He also worked with the writer and trumpeter Boris Vian, and appeared as himself in French films including Rendez-vous de juillet (1949) and La Route du bonheur (1953).

Luter led his own band until late in life. He passed away in Paris on October 6, 2006, at the age of 83; Le Monde carried an obituary, and he was cremated at the Père-Lachaise crematorium. The Esplanade Claude-Luter at the Porte des Lilas, in the 20th arrondissement where he was born, is named for him.

Luter played in the New Orleans revival manner, with a collective front line of clarinet, trumpet and trombone over a banjo-led rhythm section, and he kept to that repertoire for the length of his career, despite the succession of newer styles around him. His first model was the clarinettist Johnny Dodds, and Sidney Bechet reshaped his approach toward collective improvisation and led him to the soprano saxophone, which he took up in 1960. AllMusic describes him as a leading figure of postwar Parisian jazz who championed traditional jazz into the twenty-first century. His band was the house group of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés cellar scene of the late 1940s, and its Bechet records for Vogue, among them "Les Oignons" and "Petite Fleur", carried the repertoire to a wide public. Vogue also issued Charleston and Shimmy EPs under his name in 1958 and 1959.