Pee Wee Hunt

Pee Wee Hunt (b. May 10, 1907, Mt. Healthy, Ohio – d. June 22, 1979 in Plymouth, Massachusetts) born Walter Gerhardt Hunt was a jazz trombonist, vocalist and band leader.

At an early age Pee Wee developed musical interest since his mother played the banjo and his father played violin. The teenage Hunt was a banjoist with a local band while he was attending college at Ohio State University, and during his college years he switched from banjo to trombone. He joined Jean Goldkette's Orchestra in 1928.

Pee Wee Hunt was the co-founder and featured trombonist with the Casa Loma Orchestra, but he left the group in 1943 to work as a Hollywood radio disc jockey before joining the Merchant Marine near the end of the war. He returned to the West Coast music scene in 1946. His "Twelfth Street Rag" was a number one hit in September, 1948. He was satirized as Pee Wee Runt and his All-Flea Dixieland Band in Tex Avery's animated MGM cartoon, "Dixieland Droopy" (1954).

At age 72, Hunt died after a long illness in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where his Casa Loma partner Glen Gray also lived.

External links

* [http://www.hnwhite.com/famous%20players.htm#hunt Famous King players: Pee Wee Hunt]
* [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:jifpxqu5ldfe~T1 All Music Guide]