Trumpet played by Bill Hunt of the Woody Herman Band.

AJM has just received a very generous donation of a trumpet played by Bill Hunt of the Woody Herman Band.

trumpet played by Bill Hunt

From what we have been able to find out at this stage, it is  a C.G. Conn Conqueror 40B Vocabell beadless trumpet, serial number 293769, manufactured around 1933/34 by Elkart, Indiana, U.S.A.. (established in 1875).

The generous donor is Charles Leng, who discovered it for sale on ebay, and was successful in getting it, after a couple of bids,

Charles has been learning the trumpet for a couple of years, but after acquiring the prestigious instrument , decided that he would prefer for it to be looked after by someone who would take special care of it, and share it with other Jazz enthusiasts.

As a result, you will soon be able to view and appreciate this item at our Australian Jazz Museum.

Charles playing the donated trumpetTrumpet played by Bill Hunt

If you would like to see Bill Hunt playing that particular trumpet, you can see a clip on Youtube  of “Woody Herman Days Of Wine And Roses”. Unfortunately, this clip wrongly name  Bill Chase as playing the trumpet, when it is in fact Bill Hunt, as some of the comments corrected. Charles playing the donated trumpet.

The AJM is still doing some more research on the history of this item, and we will keep you posted.