Trumpeter, Travis Hill dies from dental infection

11th May 2015   ·   0 Comments

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

Travis “Trumpet Black” Hill was a genuine rising star in his hometown of New Orleans and was quickly gaining world-wide attention. The trumpeter and vocalist, who was a member of the musical Andrews family and the grandson of Jessie “Ooh Poo Pah Doo” Hill, burst with enthusiasm and talent. Hill appeared to be on a mission to re-introduce and make a name for himself after enduring over eight years in jail for an armed robbery he was charged with as a teenager.

“I was a young kid when I went in and I came out as a man,” Hill said soon after his release in 2011. Travis Hill tragically died on May 4, 2015 of a dental infection that reached his heart soon after arriving in Japan. Tokyo was to be the first stop of an extensive summer of touring that included appearances in Australia and at Switzerland’s acclaimed Ascona Jazz Festival. Hill was just 28 years old.

Trumpet Black, a name that was bestowed upon him by his cousin, trumpeter/vocalist James Andrews, could really blow a horn and could stun with some remarkably high notes. “That’s like one of my specialties,” he once conceded. “I listen to a lot of trumpeters that play a lot of high notes like Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown. I’m working every day to become a more modern jazz trumpeter.”

Hill’s singing and strong stage presence also made him a standout. He possessed a vivacity that couldn’t be denied. When he first came back on the scene and was playing with Andrews or trombonist Corey Henry’s Tremé Funktet, those who didn’t know Hill when he was a youngster were immediately impressed by his abilities and would often ask, “Hey, who is that?”

Hill’s first performance on his return in 2011 was with his cousin, the Grammy-nominated Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews at the House of Blues. In a way, it represented a full circle as it was with Shorty that Trumpet Black at age eight started his musical journey. As a member of the Trombone Shorty Brass Band, he honed his chops playing out on Jackson Square. His first “indoor” gig was at Donna’s Bar & Grill where Shorty’s band would often march through on its way back from the Square to their Tremé neighborhood. In retrospect, it is strangely sad and wonderful that Hill, a thoughtful and charming man, played “Happy Birthday” for the club’s co-proprietor, Charlie Simms’ 80th birthday celebration on April 13, 2015. Hill’s gift to Simms was a framed photo of the two of them back-in-the-day.

Just about six months ago, Hill solidified his own band, Trumpet Black & the Heart Attacks that was spurred on when trumpeter Kermit Ruffins gave up his long-standing Tuesday night show at Bullet’s Bar.

“Thanks to Kermit Ruffins for handing over a great gig,” the always enthusiastic Hill once exclaimed.
The guys that got the call were veteran players including bassist Chris Severin, pianist Thaddeus Richard, drummer Raymond Weber, guitarist June Yamagishi and saxophonist Andrew Calhoun.

Hill performed for the first time leading his own band, the Heart Attacks, at this year’s French Quarter Festival. He had also been booked to play with them as well as with the New Breed Brass Band, a young group he mentored, in Ascona. Hill played at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival with the New Birth Brass Band – a group he’d worked with as a youth — on Friday, April 24. Don’t we wish we had been there.

“You ask me the truth, I’ll tell you no lie, I’ll be a New Birth member ‘til the day I die,” Hill once waxed poetically of his experiences with the now-veteran brass band. “They showed me the way when I was just a young trumpet player trying to get it together. Those guys were always there to support me. Whatever they do, I’m down for it.”

Other bands that early on benefited from Trumpet Black’s big sound on the streets were the Lil Rascals and Hot 8 brass bands and more recently he’d pop up with an array of other groups including the Treme Brass Band. He was a member of Corey Henry’s Treme Funktet that took over Kermit Ruffins’ legendary Thursday night gig at Vaughan’s, a down home, corner bar in the Bywater. When Henry was on the road with Galactic, the gig was all Hill’s and with his vivacity and musicality he made it work big time. What’s not to love?

The thing about Trumpet Black was that he boasted the spirit and attitude to play some young hip stuff yet he was blessed with an old soul. He knew — and knew how to play — traditional jazz material as heard recently when he’d sit in with classic jazz bands such as the Palmetto Bug Stompers. His own group favored a lot of rhythm and blues of New Orleans’ heydays of the late 1950s and early 1960s as performed by the likes of his grandfather, the late great vocalist Jessie Hill, Ernie K-Doe and more. Every Monday, Trumpet Black would keep that R&B legacy alive at the small, energized, family-owned, Orleans Avenue club, Ooh Poo Pah Doo. On the Monday after hearing of Hill’s untimely death, that’s where family — including James, Trombone Shorty and vocal-ist/trombonist Glen David Andrews — friends, and fans congregated to find some consolation for their mutual grief and devastating loss.

A gloom fell over the Tremé community and beyond on learning about the death of Travis Hill, a young man in his prime and on the rise. He made it through the hardships of prison where he furthered his education only to be struck down so suddenly by something as seemingly innocuous as an infected tooth. People blink their eyes in the hope that when they open them again they find that what they know as a fact just isn’t true.

So, New Orleans’ reaction is to do what it’s always done in the time of death. It celebrates the life of Travis “Trumpet Black” Hill with the music that he loved, on the streets that he loved, with a second line that he loved and with the people — his people — who he loved and who loved him.

Funeral arrangements for Travis “Trumpet Black” Hill had yet to be announced as of press time.

This article originally published in the May 11, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.