Sylvester Ahola (May 24, 1902 – February 13, 1995),
a.k.a. Hooley, was a
classic jazz
Inner City Records was a jazz record company and label founded by Irv Kratka in 1976 in New York City.
The company was a division of Music Minus One and also owned the label Classic Jazz. It started with reissues, then moved on to new recordin ...
trumpeter
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B ...
and
cornetist
The cornet (, ) is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B, though there is also a sopra ...
born in
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
,
. His parents, Sophia and John Ahola, were born in Finland. He became most popular in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
rather than the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, and he first began performing with Frank Ward and His Orchestra. In 1925 he started playing with
Paul Specht and His Orchestra, with whom he did a two-month-long tour of England that following year. For the next couple of years he performed with bands like
The California Ramblers
The California Ramblers were an American jazz group that recorded hundreds of songs for many different record labels throughout the 1920s. Four members of the band – Red Nichols, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, and Adrian Rollini – went on ...
and
Adrian Rollini
Adrian Francis Rollini (June 28, 1903 – May 15, 1956) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played the bass saxophone, piano, vibraphone, and many other instruments. Rollini is also known for introducing the goofus in jazz music. As ...
and his band.
In 1927 he moved to England and landed a job playing with the
Savoy Orpheans
The Savoy Orpheans is a British dance band currently led by Alex Mendham. They were resident at the Savoy Hotel, London.
The band was formed by Debroy Somers, an ex-army bandmaster, in 1923. Both the Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band were und ...
and then gigged with
Bert Firman
Bert Firman (born Herbert Feuerman; 3 February 1906 – 9 April 1999) was an English bandleader of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.
He was born in London. His mother was of Polish stock and his father was a professional musician who had settled ...
and
Bert Ambrose
Benjamin Baruch Ambrose (11 September 1896 – 11 June 1971), known professionally as Ambrose or Bert Ambrose, was an English bandleader and violinist. Ambrose became the leader of a highly acclaimed British dance band, ''Bert Ambrose & His Orc ...
. The
British Musicians' Union, unhappy to see a foreigner land so many jobs and attain so much success, effectively prohibited him from playing with anyone other than Bert Ambrose. This forced him to eventually leave in 1931 and return to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, where he never again achieved the level of success he had enjoyed during his time in England.
References
American jazz trumpeters
American male trumpeters
American jazz cornetists
People from Gloucester, Massachusetts
American people of Finnish descent
1902 births
1995 deaths
Dance band trumpet players
20th-century American musicians
20th-century trumpeters
Jazz musicians from Massachusetts
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians
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