Jack Purvis - Early Years

Early Years

John "Jack" Purvis was born in Kokomo, Indiana on December 11, 1906 to Sanford B. Purvis, a real estate agent and his wife Nettie (Jackson) Purvis. He has a living brother who lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The song "Poor Richard" was written for him. Jack's behavior became uncontrollable after his mother's death in 1912, and, as a result of many acts of petty larceny, he was sent to a reform school. While there, he discovered that he had an uncanny musical ability, and soon became proficient enough to play both the trombone and trumpet professionally. This also enabled him to leave the reformatory and continue his high school education, while he was playing paying gigs on the side. One of the earliest jobs he had as a musician was with a band led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Not long afterward, he worked with the dance band of Hal Denman.

After high school he worked in his home state for a time then went to Lexington, Kentucky where he played with the Original Kentucky Night Hawks. Around this time he learned to fly planes. In 1926 he was with Bud Rice and toured New England. He then worked the remainder of 1926 and the beginning of 1927 with Whitey Kaufman's Original Pennsylvanians. Purvis married in Pittsburgh, in 1927, and soon became a father. His daughter, Betty Lou, was, for a time, a disc jockey in Pittsburgh in the late 1940s, and a correspondent for Down Beat magazine. This was Purvis' only verified marriage, and rumors persist that he committed bigamy on several occasions. For a short time he played trumpet with Arnold Johnson's orchestra, and by July 1928 he traveled to France with George Carhart's band. It is reported that he had an early brush with the law when he cheated a tourist out of his travelers checks and was forced to leave the band and flee France. Ship's passenger list information reports "Jacques F. Purvis" returning to New York, from Le Havre, France, on November 19. 1928.

In 1929 he joined Hal Kemp's band. From 1929 to 1930 Purvis recorded with Kemp, Smith Ballew, Ted Wallace (a pseudonym for agent Ed Kirkeby), Rube Bloom, the California Ramblers, and Roy Wilson's Georgia Crackers. On December 17, 1929 Purvis led his own recording groups using Hal Kemp's rhythm section to produce Copyin' Louis, and Mental Strain at Dawn.