Luck s in My Corner is a comprehensive biography of one of the most compelling jazz musicians of the Swing Era, Oran "Hot Lips Page. Page was the greatest of the Kansas City trumpeters, whose crackling, growling solos made him the go-to man during Count Basie s earliest days as a bandleader. Page went on to be a featured trumpeter with Artie Shaw, a star of New York s 52nd street, and a pioneer of the R & B scene of the 1950s. This book presents an in-depth chronology of Page s career, with special attention paid to the development of his trumpet style.

Luck s in My Corner examines the life and music of a forgotten figure of the Swing Era and returns him to his rightful place as a leading light in the world of jazz. Todd Bryant Weeks has combined genealogical, musicological, discographical and historical research, resulting in a revealing and entertaining examination of a life that spanned major changes in American popular music. This book includes a new and complete discography by the author and dozens of unpublished photos. "

Hot Lips Page was a seminal figure in the history of jazz trumpet. After making his name as the top trumpeter in Kansas City in the middle 1930s, he moved to New York City and performed in Harlem and on 52nd Street, headlining at the Apollo Theater and in Greenwich Village. He was a star trumpet soloist with Artie Shaw's Orchestra in 1941. He recorded with Billie Holiday and Pearl Bailey and made many early TV appearances in the 1950s. Perhaps most significantly, Page was also one of the greatest blues players of his generation. Dizzy Gillespie may have said it best, When it comes to the blues, don't mess with Lips, nobody not Louis, not Roy, not me.Despite his many successes, Page's personal life was fraught with troubles. His father died when his son was eight, and the boy was forced to leave school and go to work to help support his family. Page's second wife, Myrtle, who by all accounts was the love of his life, died suddenly in New York in 1946 at the age of twenty-eight, leaving Hot Lips as the sole parent of their young son, Oran Jr. Throughout the 1940s, he struggled to maintain his audience as the popular style of music changed from Swing to Bebop to Rhythm and Blues.He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1954, at age forty-six. Through the use of interviews, anecdotes and oral histories, author Todd Bryant Weeks has pieced together Page's personal story. He has contacted dozens of people (many in their eighties and nineties), who knew Page personally, and has spent many hours interviewing several of Page's family members, including his son, Oran Page, Jr., who is now a Municipal Judge in Jackson, Mississippi. Weeks has also been granted access to files, photographs and personal scrapbooks belonging to Page at the Institute of Jazz Studies in Newark, New Jersey. Luck's In My Corner: The Life and Music of Hot Lips Page is the definitive work on this legendary jazz figure.