[Dixielandjazz] Jack Purvis

Fri Apr 14 12:47:57 EDT 2017

What an account!
Whatever his exploits, Jack Purvis was a wonderful trumpeter, and his sound
certainly could have fooled me - when he tried to sound like Armstrong, he
got closer than any other trumpeter I've heard.  When I first heard him as
a blindfold test, I was sure it WAS /Armstrong, something that's never
happened with other Armstrong copyists.
Cheers

On 14 April 2017 at 14:09, Steve Voce <stevevoce at virginmedia.com> wrote:

> 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 it  almost 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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