(December 11th 1906 - March 30th 1962)

Born in Kokomo, Indiana in 1906 John 'Jack' Purvis was gifted with impressive natural musical ability. As a troubled youth charged with petty larceny he was shipped off to a reformatory in Lexington, Kentucky where he began playing trumpet at local venues after graduation.

While working as a member of the "Original Kentucky Night Hawks" he leaned to fly airplanes, and in 1926 and '27 performed with Bud Rice and then "Whitey Kaufman's Original Pennsylvanians". In 1929 the trumpeter joined Hal Kemp's band and produced recordings with members of the group under his own name.