Hal Kemp and His Orchestra 1927-29

Jazz Focus

Hal Kemp led an excellent student band at the University of North Carolina in the early 1920's that stayed together after graduation, travelling to England in 1925 and making their first recordings. By late 1927 the band was a professional unit in New York, highly regarded for its precision ensemble work and hot dance stylings - while there were no significant soloists (although trumpeter Bob Mayhew, reed players Joe Gillespie and Saxie Dowell and pianist John Scott Trotter were effective), the band was influential through its early, jazz-oriented recordings as opposed to its later career as as "sweet" band in the middle to late 1930's.