Born
in Mansfield, Louisiana, Hall attended
Crispus Attucks middle school and later
moving to Houston, Texas where he attended
Worthing High School, where under the
direction from the school band director
Sammy D. Harris, tuned his interest to
jazz. Hall soon attended Texas
Southern University where he studied
piano and trumpet, with achieving many
soloist awards in big-band competitions.
He soon married Lula E. Baker-Hall in
1969, and with so much in common she soon
became his road manger. Arnett Cobb soon
after discovered him and took him to see
Duke Ellington. When the two were introduced,
Ellington asked, "How come you're
not playing in my band?
Hall joined the
Duke Ellington Orchestra on June 8, 1973.
After Ellington died the following year,
Hall continued to play with the band under
the direction Ellington's son, Mercer
Ellington. After Mercer Ellington died
in 1996, Hall conducted the Duke Ellington
Orchestra for one year after and remained
the replacement director when Paul Ellington
was unable to perform. During his time
with Mercer Ellington, Hall was given Cootie
Williams's last trumpet by Williams himself
before he died and was known as the inheritor
of Williams's style of playing
Later
in life, Hall was music director at Liberty
Baptist Church. With a background in gospel
music, he was able to lead the Duke
Ellington's Third Sacred Concert in
2001, in which he performed as bandleader
with a two hundred-voice choir.[4] Wishing
to see more of Ellington's works performed
in churches, he brought performances to
Yugoslavia to an audience of three thousand
in a cathedral, with the music broadcast
to an audience of ten thousand people
outside the church.
