Wilbur Hall (musician): Difference between revisions

 

Hall was born in [[Shawnee Mound]], [[Missouri]]. He was working in [[vaudeville]] when in 1924 he was hired by [[Paul Whiteman]]. Hall stayed with Whiteman's orchestra until 1930, mainly featured as a trombone player (his speciality on this instrument was a lightning-fast rendition of [[Felix Arndt]]'s ''Nola'', which he also recorded in 1929). However, Hall was apt a playing several other instruments - conventional as well as unconventional. Amongst the latter was his ability to play melodies on a [[bicycle pump]]. Whiteman's main [[arranger]] [[Ferde Grofé]] even wrote a special feature number for Hall on this "instrument" called ''Free Air: Based on Noises from a Garage''. Hall can also be seen playing his pump as well as some tricky novelty violin playing in the early color film ''[[The King of Jazz]]''. This routine, a frantically athletic rendition of "Pop Goes the Weasel", played while wearing "slapshoes", a common comedy prop from the days of Vaudeville, partly resembles the earlier work by vaudevillian [[Little Tich]].<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpoGy_WIcCY</ref>