Hal Kemp (March 27, 1904 – December 21, 1940) was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, composer, and arranger.
Born James Hal Kemp in Marion, Alabama in 1905, he became focused on music early in life and put together his first band in 1919, at around the same time he entered high school. An alto sax player and clarinetist, he ended up leading the Carolina Club Orchestra -- the band of the University of North Carolina -- as a student, all of 19-years-old. A booking on a transatlantic ocean cruise led them to make their recording bow in London (where visiting American bands were a hot commodity, even then). The cruise itself was as much a lark as a professional stepping stone for the student band, whose members all figured to be doing something else professionally.
But then fate played a hand: on the return trip, they were lucky enough to have the Prince of Wales (later the abdicated Edward VIII) as a fellow passenger who was a music enthusiast and drummer, and he sat in with them; in those days, the United States had such an inferiority complex that anything the British "royals" did was news -- the Carolina Club Orchestra didn't know it, but every day they were at sea they were getting mentioned in the press in every major city in America, and the capper was when the prince praised their music.
Upon docking, Kemp and company found offers waiting for them, and agents eager to represent them. Once the little matter of finishing his education was completed in 1926, he formed Hal Kemp & His Orchestra, whose ranks included Skinnay Ennis, Bunny Berigan, and John Scott Trotter. The group was a jazz outfit plain and simple during the second half of the '20s, and earned a good living at it. Only with the advent of the '30s, and the accompanying economic upheaval of the Great Depression did they move into more subdued, directly dance-oriented work.
It suited the mood of the public which, between the wrecked economy and the uncertain politics -- a detached, inept president and a divided Congress -- and Prohibition making much entertainment a criminal enterprise, started buying less challenging, more soothing dance records; jazz still sold, but sweet sounds were easier to put over, and Kemp & His Orchestra proved every bit as adept at that as they'd been at the hotter music of the prior decade. An engagement at the Blackhawk Restaurant in Chicago from 1932 through 1934, coupled with eight hours of radio broadcasts each week, turned them into a national phenomenon and opened their way to the best night spots in the country, at the very time when they landed a recording contract with Brunswick.
Most of the vocals on their recordings were by Skinnay Ennis, whose vocal style and the arrangements by Trotter, which featured staccato triplets by the trumpeters and clarinets played through megaphones, gave Kemp's records a distinctive sound. The group thrived in the second half of the '30s, until the departure of Trotter in 1936-- who became Bing Crosby's music director -- deprived them of his arrangements, and Ennis' exit took away a popular vocalist.
Kemp and his orchestra had a number of hit records, including "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" (1933), "In the Middle of a Kiss" (1935), "There's a Small Hotel" (1936), "When I'm With You" (1936), "This Year's Kisses" (1937), and "Where or When" (1937). From 1937, Kemp recorded for Victor Records. His other recordings included "Got A Date With An Angel", "Heart Of Stone", "Lamplight", "The Music Goes 'Round And Around", "You're The Top", "Bolero", "Gloomy Sunday", "Lullaby Of Broadway", and many others.
Kemp made a brief foray into Hollywood when the band appeared in the moderately successful RKO movie "Radio Revels", released early in 1938 that helped sustain his following, and the addition of the singing group the Smoothies added new variety to their sound, but inevitably the tide ran against the group. Kemp saw his bookings and record sales decline, and by the end of '40s was in the process of trying to decide whether to adopt a swing sound during the approaching new year, At 35, he was still a young man and had a long future to look forward to, and he'd almost completely altered the band's lineup between 1938 and 1940. In the latter year he served as a guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony, partially fulfilling his secret ambition to be a symphony conductor.
Kemp’s last engagement was at the Cocanut Grove in Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel in 1940. The band closed on December 19 and Hal decided to drive overnight to be in San Francisco the next day where they were due to open at the Mark Hopkins Hotel. While driving to the gig in San Francisco that night in a thick fog, his car was hit head-on by a truck, and he died two days later. Ironically, the Kemp Orchestra charted three hits in the first half of 1941, "It All Comes Back to Me Now,""So You're the One," and "Walkin' by the River," and singer Bob Allen held the band together for part of this period. By 1942, however, the Kemp Orchestra, like its late leader, were part of history, though their sound was never totally forgotten -- their records were too good for that. In 1992, Hal Kemp was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.
(Edited from A|llMusic article by Bruce Elder & Wikipedia)