- Had a popular jazz club in the french quarter (Bourbon Street) of New Orleans up to 1983.
- Hirt had 21 Grammy nominations in a career spanning more than 50 years, winning in 1964 for best non-jazz instrumental for "Java."
- Trumpet player.
- Began his career in the Benny Goodman and His Orchestra. (1946)
- His most successful albums were 'Greatest Horn', "He's the King" and 'Bourbon Street'.
- One of the most popular instrumental performers of the Rock Era (1955 - present), he had a string of best-selling albums for RCA Victor during the 1960s, including: "Honey in the Horn," "Al Hirt at the Mardi Gras," "Our Man in New Orleans," "Sugar Lips," "That Honey Horn Sound," "Cotton Candy," "Live at Carnegie Hall," "Music to Watch Girls By," "Sugar Lips," "The Horn Meets 'The Hornet,'" "'Pops' Goes the Trumpet" (with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops), and, perhaps inevitably, "The Best of Al Hirt."
- Inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
- In 1940, Hirt went to Cincinnati, Ohio, to study at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music with Dr. Frank Simon (a former soloist with the John Philip Sousa Orchestra).
- From the mid-1950s to early 1960s, Hirt and his band played nightly at Dan's Pier 600 at the corner of St. Louis and Bourbon Street. The club was owned by his business manager, Dan Levy, Sr.
- In 1987, Hirt played a solo rendition of "Ave Maria" for Pope John Paul II's visit to New Orleans.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content