Harvey Belair: A Tale of a 1920s Drummer

In my musings of New England’s often untapped early jazz history over the past couple of years, I made the pleasant discovery of a percussionist by the name of Hervé (also called Harvey) Belair. A drummer originally from the small city of Biddeford, Maine.

Hervé Belair made his way to Connecticut’s capital city, Hartford, about 1926, where he found success as one of the city’s jazz and dance band drummers.

Belair, making a name for himself as a drummer down east before moving to Hartford, could be found at nearby Sanford, Maine, in the early part of the 20th century, where he was a member of Firth’s Orchestra, led by Everett E. Firth of the same city, local bandleader and veteran of the 303rd Field Artillery Regiment band.

He must have been pretty good, because by the late 1920s, Hervé could be found playing in Emil Heimberger’s Orchestra, one of the premiere hotel orchestras in the region, of the noted Hotel Bond in Hartford, Connecticut. This orchestra, also heard throughout New England and at times nationally through WTIC radio, an NBC Red Network affiliate. Heimberger, a violinist originally from Brooklyn, and a more well known figure in the city of Hartford who led the first instrumental ensemble on WTIC in 1925, who was a mainstay with his hotel orchestras for more than five years. Although initially styled after the salon type of music found in New York ballrooms, Emil Heimberger’s Orchestra had their share of the latest jazz repertoire primed to appease all who came through the Bond.

Not much is known about Belair’s professional career in Hartford besides his membership in the Local 400 at Hartford, Connecticut and Emil Heimberger’s hotel orchestra. Belair was an active local member of the AFofM in his hometown of Biddeford, and later in Hartford. We know from obituaries that he also played in the Connecticut National Guard’s 169th Infantry Band, a unique regiment sharing U.S. Army and Connecticut ties.

Harvey Belair met a tragic end on June 30, 1929, at the height of the Jazz Age and at a time of a colorful Hartford nightlife, when he and one other were killed when their vehicle overturned. Hervé was only 24, at what was the height of his career as a drummer. There would be little to tell of this percussionist’s existence if it were not for his grandson, poet Mark Belair. I just happened across this writer’s poem, “all i knew,” from The Sun magazine in my search of the orchestra founded by Emil Heimberger at Hartford, mulling over the mystery of his grandfather’s life as a musician, cut short.

Mark Belair, himself a drummer, unlike his grandfather went onto a storied career in New York on Broadway and even played ragtime with the original New England Ragtime Ensemble, with a great appreciation for classic jazz styles.

From Mark’s writings and retellings, his grandfather’s story lives on, unlike so many with an ancestor in the jazz and dance band era.

Mark recalls stories of his grandfather, including one that suggests Hervé was the lucky substitute for Paul Whiteman’s drummer during a sick leave at one of Pops’ many visits to the “Insurance Capital of the World.”

If only Hervé could have been around to see what musical inroads were made past 1929. But in another sense, Harvey Belair was a bright ember that got to enjoy Hartford during one of its brightest musical eras, that was destined to only burn so long.

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Sources

The Hartford Courant, (Jul. 1, 1929)

Biddeford Weekly Journal, (Jul. 5, 1929)

Sanford Tribune and Advocate, (Jul. 11, 1929)

The Sun, (August, 2008)