Hot Lips Page

Jazz musician, blues vocalist and band leader Hot Lips Page (born Oran Page on January 27, 1908, in Dallas, TX) was much influenced and often overshadowed by Louis Armstrong. Page specialized on the trumpet from the age of 12. He first toured the vaudeville circuit with Ma Rainey, after a spell of manual labour in the Seminole oilfields in Texas. He joined Walter Page's Blue Devils in 1928 and, two years later, Bennie Moten. Building a reputation as a powerful lead trumpeter, Page remained with Moten for the next five years, then led a quintet in Kansas City. The improvisation in his playing continued to be based on the swing and blues riffs perfected as a soloist under Moten and, subsequently, Count Basie (who had assumed leadership of Moten's band following the latter's death in April 1935). Page eventually moved to New York, organizing his own big band in August 1937, with residency at the Plantation Club. He briefly worked with Artie Shaw and His Orchestra, 1941-42, before forming another band in 1944, recording for Commodore and Savoy. Until 1949, he led a smaller outfit, which had engagements at several top spots, including the Famous Door, the Savoy in Boston and at the Hotel Sherman in Chicago. He also occasionally worked as a single act, or as accompanist for singers like Ethel Waters. Page toured Europe extensively between 1949-52. Back in New York in 1953, he returned to work as a freelance musician. A year later he suffered a heart attack and died in New York's Harlem Hospital at the age of just 46. Page is perhaps best remembered for his excellent recordings of "St. James Infirmary" for Artie Shaw, and for the hit single "The Hucklebuck" and "Baby, It's Cold Outside" for Pearl Bailey.