Fred Hall (actual name Fred Arthur Ahl, 1898-1954) was an American pianist, bandleader and composer.
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Fred Hall was born in New York and began his musical career working as a song-plugger for various music publishers.
As a bandleader Hall and his men from recorded prolifically for many labels (see below) from 1925 onwards. Many recordings featured vocalist Arthur Fields with whom Hall enjoyed a lengthy partnership, co-writing several songs, the better known ones including Eleven More Months And Ten More Days and I Got A Code In My Dose. Hall and Fields also appeared together on the NBC radio show The Sunday Driver.
Notable musicians in Hall's band included trumpeters Mike Mosiello and Leo McConville. Apart from playing piano, conducting and composing Hall himself sometimes performed scat singing on his records. A selection of Hall's recorded work has been reissued on CD by The Old Masters label.
Little is known of Hall's musical activities after 1932 when he made his last records, but he did join ASCAP in 1939. He died in New York on October 6, 1954 at the age of merely 56.
Hall's records were issued under a variety of names (including pseudonyms). Discographer Brian Rust reports the following:
There were also several Hall recordings issued anonymously on Grey Gull and related labels. The records issued on the Harmony, Diva and Velvet Tone labels as "Jerome Conrad and His Orchestra" were also earlier ascribed to Hall by Rust, but has in later editions been revised as being by a Harry Reser group.
Hall also recorded and broadcasted with Fields as a country ensemble called Rex Cole's Mountaineers.