Hirt, Al(ois Maxwell)

Hirt, Al(ois Maxwell), pop-jazz trumpeter and bandleader; b. New Orleans, Nov. 7, 1922; d. April 27, 1999. Hirt’s exuberant Dixieland- style trumpet playing was showcased on a series of pop-oriented recordings that found commercial success during the first half of the 1960s, including the singles “Java” and “Cotton Candy” and the albums Honey in the Horn, Cotton Candy, and Sugar Lips.

Hirt’s father was a policeman, and after taking up the trumpet at the age of six, AI Hirt Jr. played in the Sons of the Police Department Junior Police Band. In 1940 he entered the Cincinnati Cons, of Music, where he studied with Frank Simon. He graduated in 1941 and got married; he and his wife eventually had eight children. Following the U.S. entry into World War II, he joined the army, where he played in the Army Air Force Band. Upon his discharge in 1946, he worked in several big bands, including those of Tommy Dorsey and Jimmy Dorsey. He returned to New Orleans in the late 1940s and played at a local radio station while also working outside music.

In 1955, Hirt formed his own Dixieland band and began playing at the Pier 600 Club. He recorded for local labels, then for Verve Records, but it was not until 1960, when he signed to RCA Victor, that he began to gain a national following. His first album for the label, recorded in December 1960, was Al (He’s the King) Hirt and His Band, but it did not reach the charts until after his second RCA album, The Greatest Horn in the World, did so in March 1961. That record earned him two Grammy nominations, for Best Jazz Performance, Soloist or Small Group (Instrumental), and for Best Performance by an Orch., for Other than Dancing.

Hirt had another two albums in the charts in 1962 and three in 1963, the last of which was Honey in the Horn, released in August. In December, RCA released “Java” (music by Allen Toussaint, Alvin Tyler, Murray Sporn, and Marilyn Schack) from the album as a single; it reached the pop Top Ten and the top of the easy-listening charts in February, and Honey in the Horn hit #1 and went gold in April. In May, Hirt won a Grammy for Best Performance by an Orch. or Instrumentalist with Orch.—Not Jazz or Dancing, for “Java.” He had also earned three other nominations: Album of the Year for Honey in the Horn, and both Best Instrumental Jazz Performance, Soloist or Small Group, and Best Instru-

mental Jazz Performance, Large Group, for another of his 1963 LPs, Our Man in New Orleans.

Hirt’s follow-up to “Java,” “Cotton Candy” (music by Russ Damon), reached the Top 40 in May 1964, and that month RCA released a Cotton Candy LP that hit the Top Ten in June and went gold. The single brought the trumpeter a Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Performance, Non-Jazz; the LP was nominated for Album of the Year. Hirt’s next single, “Sugar Lips” (music and lyrics by William D. Killen and Billy Sherrill), reached the Top 40 in July, and the Sugar Lips album, released in August, hit the Top Ten in September and went gold. During this busy year, Hirt also released the chart albums Beauty and the Beard, recorded with actress/singer Ann-Margaret, and ”Pops” Goes the Trumpet, on which he was accompanied by the Boston Pops Orch. conducted by Arthur Fiedler.

In January 1965, RCA released the compilation The Best of AI Hirt; it hit the Top Ten in March and went gold. Hirt’s next single, “Fancy Pants” (music by Floyd Cramer), reached the Top 40 in February and was included in his album released the same month, That Honey in the Horn Sound, which spent six months in the charts. In April he appeared at Carnegie Hall, and the resulting Live at Carnegie Hall album, released in June, also remained in the charts half a year. From June to September he hosted the musical variety series Fanfare on network television.

Though his commercial success declined, Hirt continued to place records in the charts through 1969, when he left RCA and began recording for small independent labels. During the summer of 1971 he returned to network television as a regular on the musical variety series Make Your Own Kind of Music. He opened his own club in New Orleans and returned to playing in more of a jazz style. He was still active in the late 1990s.

—William Ruhlmann