The Seven Hot Air Men - Phil Napoleon (trumpet); Carl Loffler (trombone); Pete Pumiglio (clarinet and alto saxophone); Chauncey Gray (piano); Tommy Felline (guitar); Ward Lay (string bass); Stan King (drums) - were a studio group which recorded a handful of sides in 1929 and 1930. The band may have performed on radio, which would explain its name, but its members were all experienced and capable musicians who had worked in well-known bands of the time and continued to perform and record into the 1930s and beyond. The discographer Brian Rust described them as "a small 'hot' unit derived principally from the California Ramblers of the time" (in the sleevenotes to the LP New York Jazz 1927-30, VJM VLP 41, 1976) and their recordings demonstrate how musicians whose primary source of income dur