the midwest around this time. It is also speculated that he worked as a ship's cook on a freighter at the time. He was arrested in Texas in June 1937, while working as a cook, for his involvement in a robbery in El Paso, Texas. He was tried and convicted and sentenced to jail time in Huntsville Prison. While in prison he directed the Rhythmic Swingsters, the prison band and also played piano with them. The band regularly broadcast on radio station WBAP in 1938. Later life In August 1940, Purvis was conditionally pardoned from prison, but he quickly broke his parole and was sent back to prison for six more years. Some sources claim he did this deliberately because he missed the prison band. On September 30, 1946 Purvis was released from prison one last time. He had a wild reputation and is said to have set hotel rooms on fire. He seldom stuck with one band for very long and was known to hit the streets as a busker. From this time onward he worked at non-musical careers which included working as a chef, an aviator in Florida, a carpenter, a radio repairman in San Francisco. At sometime in his checkered life he was also a mercenary in South America. According to researcher Paul Larsen, Purvis gassed himself to death in San Francisco on March 30, 1962. Yet Purvis' death certificate indicates the cause of death to be "fatty degeneration of the liver" rather than death by gas poisoning. Cornetist Jim Goodwin claimed that a man who looked like (and introduced himself as) Jack Purvis showed up at a band date a couple of times in about 1968 and that they had a long talk about his life. References External links The Many Lives of Jack Purvis Find A Grave 1906 births 1962 suicides American jazz trumpeters American male trumpeters American jazz composers American male jazz composers Okeh Records artists American jazz trombonists Male trombonists American street performers American aviators People from Kokomo, Indiana Prison music Suicides in California 20th-century American composers 20th-century trumpeters 20th-century trombonists 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century jazz composers Suicides by gas