[Dixielandjazz] Jack Purvis

[Steve Voce]

Here are two bits on Jack Purvis from the November 2015 Jazz Journal and 
from the January 2016 edition.


Steve Voce

John Chilton was an admirable and amiable man who could, when the 
occasion required, be a pretty tough nut. It was he who described Jack 
Purvis as 'the most eccentric jazzman of them all.' You may not have 
heard of Purvis. He was one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of the '30s 
and I have the handful of records that he made in the winter/spring of 
1929-30. The most spectacular is /Copying Louis/, which, as its title 
might imply, has Jack flying in the Louis skies. He had a phenomenal 
technique. He was a mysterious man from a wealthy family whose career 
bloomed for only a few years before, despite his wonderful recordings, 
he chose obscurity

At some point Benny Green had done John Chilton a grievous wrong, to the 
point that the amiable man became enraged and held a grudge. By 
coincidence Benny Green wrote and had published a piece mocking Jack 
Purvis (who, unbeknown to Green, had died in March 1962).

At the time Benny had a weekly column in the Saturday Mirror. On one 
occasion he took an entry from John Chilton's 'Encyclopedia Of Jazz' and 
published italmost verbatim as his column for that week. It carried 
Green's byline and there was no acknowledgement that the piece came from 
Chilton.It was of course John's entry on the magnificent Jack Purvis.

I dug John's piece out and it is so breathtakingly revealing that I 
would like to reproduce it here, augmented by what little extra 
information I had collected myself. John was a friend of mine for  more 
than 60 years, so his family had no hesitation in  permitting me to use 
his piece. I'm grateful to them.

So John's piece begins:

Characters abound in the Jazz World, but surely Jack Purvis must rank as 
the most eccentric jazzman of them all. A summary of his exploits is 
given here, a full account-if available-would probably fill the volume. 
Jack, who played trumpet, trombone and piano as well as singing and 
composing, was born in Kokomo, Indiana on 11 December 1906. His father 
was an estate agent. When his mother died in 1912 Jack became a 
small-time thief and, after committing many crimes, he was sent to a 
reformatory. Whilst he was there he was given music lessons, progressed 
rapidly and by the time he was released he had learned to play trumpet 
and trombone at professional standards. He went back to Kokomo and 
played trumpet and trombone in local high school orchestras. He also 
worked with a Royal Canadian Mounted Police band.

He moved to Lexington, Kentucky worked for a long spell in the Original 
Kentucky Night Hawks. At this time he qualified as a pilot and also 
studied music in Chicago. He left the Original Kentucky Night Hawks in 
the autumn of 1926 to work as a free-lance arranger and trumpeter, then 
moved to New York to join Whitey Kaufman's Original Pennsylvanians and 
worked with them in New York and Pennsylvania. In July 1928 he sailed to 
Europe with George Carhart's Band (playing trumpet and trombone). He 
only played with the band during their first evening aboard the 'Ile de 
France', then moved into a first-class lounge with fellow-aviators 
Levine and Acosta. He rejoined' the band in France and played with them 
in Aix-les-Bains and Nice. Some weeks later he left his colleagues 
(somewhat hurriedly) via the roof of their Paris hotel. Back in the USA. 
he joined Hal Kemp on trombone (c. October 1929), then switched to 
trumpet and remained with the band until the spring of 1930. He didn't 
travel to Europe with Kemp's Band, but did meet up with them briefly in 
Paris during the summer of 1930. By September 1930 he was back in New 
York playing with the California Ramblers at a restaurant on 47th 
Street. He led a couple of racially mixed recording sessions which 
included J C Higginbotham, Adrian Rollini and possibly Coleman Hawkins. 
Through 1931 he continued to play in Ed Kirkeby's radio and recording 
bands, broadcasting from the Ferenze Restaurant six nights a week. He 
also made recordings with the Dorsey Brothers, Boswell Sisters, etc. He 
occasionally sat in as fourth trumpeter with Fletcher Henderson's Band. 
Mainly with Fred Waring in 1932 and 1933, during this period he very 
briefly became a harpist. He played in Kilgore, Texas (c.1933) - Charlie 
Barnet was also in that band. He briefly toured the South and set out 
for California with Barnet, but left him in El Paso. He managed to get a 
job with the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra, where he was featured on 
/Carnival Of Venice./

//At this time it seems he utilised his skill as a pilot by flying cargo 
between Mexico and the USA. His exploits as a mercenary in South America 
and as a chef in Bali are, as yet, undated. In 1933 he rejoined Charlie 
Barnet's Band for the last week of their residency at the Paramount 
Grill, New York, then worked in California, arranging for George Stoll's 
Orchestra and scoring for Warner Brothers' studio orchestras. One of his 
compositions, /Legends of Haiti/, was written for a 110-piece ensemble.

He also worked as a chef in San Francisco. In 1935 he drove back to New 
York in a baby Austin (hauling a trailer full of cookery books and 
orchestral scores). He led his own quartet at the Club 18 and `The 
Looking Glass', and also recorded with Frank Froeba in December 1935. 
After touring for two weeks in Joe Haymes' Band he again disappeared 
(possibly at this juncture he organised his ill-fated School of Grecian 
Dancing in Miami.) In 1937 he worked briefly in Los Angeles, then played 
in Marysville, California, with a night-club quintet. After a temporary 
absence from music he rejoined the quintet in Medford, Oregon, but left 
after two weeks. He next worked (under the name Jack Jackson) with 
Johnnie Wynn's Band in San Pedro, California, but left after a week and 
later played in a Fresno Burlesque Hall.

In June 1937 he began serving a prison sentence in Huntsville Prison for 
a robbery he'd committed while working as a cook in El Paso, Texas. In 
prison he directed and played piano with The Rhythmic Swingsters who 
broadcasted on Station WBAP in 1938. He was temporarily released from 
prison in 1940, but violated his parole ( some claimed it was done 
deliberately because he missed the prison band) and returned to 
Huntsville until his release on 30 September 1946. It is suggested that 
he resumed regular flying in Florida, but in the spring of 1948 a man 
resembling Purvis's description was seen sitting in a garden in Royal 
Place, Honolulu, giving renderings of T/he Flight of the Bumblebee 
/alternately on trumpet /and /trombone. In 1949 he lived briefly in 
Pittsburgh, the city in which his daughter, Betty Lou, was then working 
for a local radio station. After working as a carpenter he took a job as 
a chef on a boat sailing from Baltimore. At one point he worked as a 
mercenary in South America.

Although he was reported to have gassed himself in San Francisco on 30 
March 1962 (Purvis attempted suicide many times during his life) his 
death certificate gave the cause of death as 'fatty degeneration of the 
liver'. To compound the mystery it was reported that he turned up at a 
band date led by cornettist Jim Goodwin and that the two men had a long 
talk about Purvis's life on two occasions in 1968.



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