He was a bandleader and trumpeter born Alois Maxwell
Hirt in New Orleans.He
learned to play the trumpet after receiving his first one when he was six
years old and as he father was a police officer he went on to play in the
Junior Police Band.Teaming up
with his friend, the clarinettist Pete Fountain, they were playing together
professionally by the time he was sixteen at various New Orleans venues
including the horse racetrack.When he was eighteen he took further studies at the Cincinnati
Conservatory in 1940 and when WWII came along the U.S. Army gave him the
post of bugler.After
completion of his service his career really took off and he was heard with the
orchestras and bands of Benny Goodman, Horace Heidt, Monk Hazel and Tommy and
Jimmy Dorsey among many others.After returning to New Orleans in the early 1950s he led several of
his own bands, such as the Dixieland Six, as well as working with others
and it was in these years that he was beginning to receive recognition from
record labels.His success in
the recording industry saw him receive a Grammy Award and hit single for "Java"
and the 1950s and 1960s saw him with 22 albums appearing on the Billboard
charts.Seen as carrying on
the New Orleans tradition of jazz trumpeters, he always denied that this
was his main genre and is known to have said "I'm not a jazz trumpet and
never was a jazz trumpet."Often
being heard in the movies and on TV theme tunes, his work was featured on such
programmes as The Green Hornet and Eye Guess and in films
that include Kill Bill, Brown Sugar, Number One and Fanfare for a
Death Scene.Investing in
his own community, he would contribute to the New Orleans Saints as a
minority holder and also established a club in the French Quarter's Bourbon
Street, which he ran until 1983.Sadly in 1970 there was an accident on a float he was on at the
Mardi Gras where his mouth was injured.Surgery ensued, but with a long convalescence he
gradually made a return to playing and this would later lead to what he deems
his most important performance when he played for "Ave Maria" for Pope John
Paul II during his visit to New Orleans in 1987.Wheelchair bound from 1998, he died of liver failure, in
1999 aged 76.
