Artist / Band

Bobby Hales Big Band

Origin Avonlea, Saskatchewan - Chilliwack, British Columbia, 🇨🇦

Websites

Biography

Bobby Hales was born in Avonlea, SK in 1934. He moved to the West Coast when he was 15 years old and continued his music studies graduating from Westlake College of Music, Hollywood. Following his graduation in 1957 Bobby became a Vancouver resident trumpet player, composer, arranger and conductor. He formed a big band in 1965 consisting of Vancouver’s top instrumentalists.

For several years, his Jazz Band played on a CBC radio series called “Jazz Radio Canada.” In the dramatic field, he composed, arranged and conducted music for the TV series “The Beachcombers” and “Leo and Me”. He scored the music for two movies – “Dogpound Shuffle” (in which his band appeared) and a feature length television movie entitled “The Overlanders”. In 1975 Bobby became the musical director and arranger for the Rolf Harris T.V. shows for C.T.V. He was the musical director from 1978- 84 for the Pacific National Exhibition. Bobby was musical director for CBC’s “Timmy’s Christmas Telethon” from 1977 to 1998 when the telethon ceased production.

Bobby took his big band back to the studios in 1987 and, along with the talented vocalist Patti Hervey, produced a commercial album. The Bobby Hales orchestra has accompanied many of Broadway’s greatest stars who have appeared in Vancouver at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

Bobby was elected president of the Vancouver Musicians’ Association in January of 1995, and retired from the position in January of 2012. The seventeen hundred member Professional Association is part of the hundred thousand members of the North American Federation of Musicians.

In 1996, he was made a member of The British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame.

He continues with engagements in the Vancouver area with his Big Band and keeps busy composing and writing arrangements for many of Vancouver’s Pop and Jazz vocalists.

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