Really hot! - Hal Kemp & His Orch.: Loveable, 1928

Hal Kemp & His Orch., voc. Skinnay Ennis: Loveable, Brunswick 1928--------------------------------Hal KEMP (1904 1940) studied piano, trumpet, alto sax, and clarinet as a youth. He worked local movie theaters as a teen and formed his own orchestra in high school. In 1922 he entered the University of North Carolina, where he formed his own campus jazz group, the Carolina Club Orchestra. The band recorded for Okeh Records and toured Europe during summers. He also formed a smaller seven-man combo which featured future stars John Scott Trotter, Saxie Dowell, and Skinnay Ennis. In 1927 Kemp turned leadership of the Carolina Club Orchestra over to fellow UNC student Kay Kyser and formed a professional jazz orchestra of his own, which included Trotter, Dowell, and Ennis. The early orchestra also featured, at various times, trumpeters Bunny Berigan and Jack Purvis. Based in New York, the group often toured Europe. Though it never achieved commercial success it did include among its fans Fred Waring, who gave the band financial and spiritual support, and Prince George of England, who would later become King George VI. In 1932 Kemp's orchestra settled at the Blackhawk Restaurant in Chicago for an extended stay. Kemp fiddled with the group's sound, and it eventually emerged as a sweet orchestra. The new sound proved popular with the crowds, and Kemp was ready to take the band back on the road in 1934. One of the main reasons for the band's success was arranger John Scott Trotter. The orchestra did not feature any outstanding musicians, and no one, save Trotter and Kemp, could read music particularly well. Kemp and Trotter often hummed their parts to the musicians. Trotter was brilliant in working around this limitation. None of the trumpeters could sustain notes and play legitimate tones, so Trotter muted the trumpets and introduced staccato triplets into the charts. This gave the band a unique sound, which Johnny Mercer jokingly referred to as like a ''typewriter.'' The orchestra's heyday ended when Trotter left in 1936. In December 1940, while driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco, Kemps car hit another head on. Kemp suffered multiple broken ribs and a punctured lung. He developed pneumonia while in the hospital and two days later passed away.------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Skinnay ENNIS was picked to play drums by Hal Kemp in 1927, while both were attending college at the University of North Carolina. When Kemp left UNC to form a professional jazz band later that year Ennis went with him. Kemp also encouraged him to sing. His singing style was shy and breathless and proved a perfect match for the unique style of sweet dance music that Kemp's orchestra came to play by the mid-1930s. He quickly became popular with female audiences and was soon the band's biggest star. He died in 1963 while choking on food in a Beverly Hills restaurant.

Channel: Music
Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am
Author: 240252

Length: 02:46
Rating: 5.00
Views: 541

Tags: 1920s  age  America  band  dance  Ennis  Hal  hot  Jazz  Kemp  Roaring  Skinnay  Twenties  

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