Oran Thaddeus "Hot Lips" Page (January 27, 1908 – November 5, 1954) was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and bandleader. He was known as a scorching soloist and powerful vocalist. He was one of the most flexible of trumpeters, demonstrating a broad tone and a wide range on the instrument. He is considered by many to be one of the founders of what came to be known as rhythm and blues. From 1929, he made over 200 recordings, most as a leader, for Bluebird, Vocalion, Decca and Harmony Records, among others.
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.
He played with Walter Page’s Blue Devlis from 1928 to 1931, then joined Bennie Moten Orchestra, then freelanced in Kansas City where in 1936 he was briefly with Count Basie. Although not a regular member of the band, Page appeared as a vocalist, emcee and hot trumpet soloist in Basie's Reno Club orchestra. The Reno Club, in downtown Kansas City, had a floor show, which included Page and vocalist Jimmy Rushing. Basie's band was just starting to build their reputation, but that summer of 1936., on the eve of Basie's national success and at the beckoning of Louis Armstrong's manager, Joe Glaser, Page decided to become a solo artist- a move generally regarded as having crippled a potentially illustrious career.
Page's career as a bandleader had an auspicious start, with sold-out appearances and an extended run at Harlem's Smalls Paradise in the summer of 1937, but by 1939 he was struggling to maintain a regular working band. Nonetheless, he led several bands and combos of his own, particularly on New York's 52nd Street, where he appeared from 1938 or 1939, and in many venues in Harlem.
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| Hot Lips with Artie Shaw |
Page toured extensively throughout the southern United States, and throughout the northeast and Canada at the head of as many as 13 different big bands during the 1930s and 1940s. He appeared briefly with Bud Freeman's Orchestra in 1938, and was a featured vocalist and hot soloist with Artie Shaw's Symphonic Swing Orchestra in 1941 and 1942, with whom he recorded over 40 sides, during which time he attracted much publicity.
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| Hot Lips with Sidney Bechet |
He was the leader of the house band at the Apollo Theater during the early 1940s. Page was known as "Mr. After Hours" to his many friends for his ability to take on challengers in late night impromptu jam sessions, and he was recorded at Harlem's Minton's Playhouse in 1941 playing in a proto-bebop style. He recorded for the Mezzrow-Bechet Septet on two consecutive dates in 1945, as Pappa Snow White, with Mezz Mezzrow, Sidney Bechet, Jimmy Blythe, Jr., Danny Barker, Pops Foster, and Sid Catlett, and on the second session with Cousin Joe on vocals.
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| Louis Jordan with Hot Lips |
Between 1938 and 1954 he cut several tracks, including the 1938 record "Skull Duggery" on the Bluebird label. He recorded "Pagin' Mr. Page" in 1944 and "St. James Infirmary" in 1947. His band backed the singer Wynonie Harris on the session that produced the hit "Good Rocking Tonight", though Page was never credited as the leader. He recorded duets with Pearl Bailey on "The Hucklebuck" and "Baby, It's Cold Outside" in 1949. He traveled to Europe in 1949 and appeared at Salle Pleyel in the first international jazz festival there, and returned to Europe at least twice for extended tours in the early 1950s mainly as a soloist.
In 1953 his health began to deteriorate and in October 1954 he suffered a heart attack .Seven days later, on November 5, he died of complications from pneumonia in New York City. He is buried in Dallas Cemetery. Page was married twice. He had one child with his first wife, Myrtle, and two children with his second wife, Elizabeth. Page is an inductee in the Houston Institute for Culture's Texas Music Hall of Fame. His premature passing left a large hole in the jazz world.
(Edited from Wikipedia, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, THSA on line)
Here’s a clip of Pearl Bailey & Hot Lips Page singing "Baby, It's Cold Outside" on The Ed Sullivan Show, October 9, 1949.