Hot Lips Page

Oran Thaddeus Page (January 27, 1908 – November 5, 1954) was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and bandleader born in Dallas, Texas, United States. He was better known as Hot Lips Page by the public, and Lips Page by his fellow musicians. He was known as a scorching soloist and powerful vocalist.

Page was a member of Walter Page's Blue Devils, Artie Shaw's Orchestra and Count Basie's Orchestra, and he worked with Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Ida Cox.

Life and career

In his early years, Page, who moved to Corsicana, Texas in his early teens, traveled across the Southwestern United States and toured as far east as Atlanta and as far north as New York City. He played in circuses and minstrel shows and backing such blues singers as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Ida Cox. Page's main trumpet influence was Louis Armstrong, though throughout his career he cited other local trumpeters, including Harry Smith (Kansas City) and Benno Kennedy (San Antonio) as being early influences.

In the mid-1920s, while still a teenager, he is believed to have appeared with Troy Floyd and His Orchestra in San Antonio, Texas and with Eddie and Sugar Lou, a dance band headquartered in Tyler, Texas, though no documentation has been unearthed to support his presence in either band. He also claimed to have appeared around 1925 with a band in Shreveport, Louisiana known as Goog and His Jazz Babies and with a band in New Orleans known as French's Jazz Orchestra, though no documentation has been discovered.