<div dir="ltr"><div><div>What an account!<br></div>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.<br></div>Cheers<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 14 April 2017 at 14:09, Steve Voce <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:stevevoce@virginmedia.com" target="_blank">stevevoce@virginmedia.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:11.4pt;text-autospace:none">Here
are two bits on Jack Purvis from the November 2015 Jazz Journal
and from the January 2016 edition.</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:11.4pt;text-autospace:none">Steve
Voce<br>
</p>
<p></p>
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</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif""><span> </span>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 <i>Copying
Louis</i>,
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<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif""><span> </span>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).<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p></p>
<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:11.4pt;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US"><span> </span>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<span>
</span>almost verbatim as his column for that week. It carried
Green's byline
and there was no acknowledgement that the piece came from
Chilton.<span> </span>It was of
course John's entry on the
magnificent Jack Purvis.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:11.4pt;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US"><span> </span>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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:11.4pt;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US">So John's piece begins:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:11.4pt;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US"><span> </span>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. </span><span lang="EN-US">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.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US"><span> </span>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 <span>didn't
</span>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 <i>Carnival
Of Venice.<u></u><u></u></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"><i><span lang="EN-US"><span> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US"><span> </span>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, <i>Legends
of Haiti</i>, was written for a 110-piece ensemble.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US"><span> </span>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. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US"><span> </span>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<i>he Flight
of the Bumblebee </i>alternately
on trumpet <i>and </i>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.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US"><span> </span>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.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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