Alton Purnell, Jazz Pianist in L.A. for Many Years, Is Dead at Age 75
Alton Purnell, 75, whose jazz piano was a regular feature of Los Angeles’ annual Labor Day jazz festivals, is dead--and friends said they will stage a true “New Orleans-style” funeral for him at Inglewood Cemetery today.
“There will be a brass band to play dirges going in,” said Purnell’s longtime agent, Robert Allen, “and happy music coming back. Just the way it should be for a man like him.”
Allen said Purnell was born in 1911 in New Orleans and began playing piano when he was 12, eventually becoming a regular with the Bunk Johnson Band, with whom he recorded one of the earliest versions of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” on Decca label in 1942.
He later toured Europe and Scandinavia with various bands, and was honored by the Hot Jazz Society of California in 1972.
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