Louis Stanley Hooper was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 pianist.

Hooper was raised in Ypsilanti, Michigan

Ypsilanti, Michigan

Ypsilanti is a city in Washtenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 22,362. The city is bounded to the north by the Charter Township of Superior and on the west, south, and east by the Charter Township of Ypsilanti...

 and attended the Detroit Conservatory, where he played locally in dance orchestras in the 1910s. He then moved to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 around 1920; he recorded with Elmer Snowden

Elmer Snowden

Elmer Snowden was a banjo player of the jazz age. He also played guitar and, in the early stages of his career, all the reed instruments. He contributed greatly to jazz in its early days as both a player and a bandleader, and is responsible for launching the careers of many top musicians...

 and Bob Fuller

Bob Fuller

Bob Fuller was an American blues and jazz saxophonist and clarinetist, best known for his recordings accompanying female singers of the 1920s....

 frequently in the middle of the decade, and performed with both of them in Harlem

Harlem

Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...

 as well as with other ensembles. Hooper served for some time as the house pianist for Ajax Records and accompanied many blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 singers on record, including Martha Copeland

Martha Copeland

Martha Copeland was an American classic female blues singer, who recorded thirty four songs between 1923 and 1928. Her best known offerings are "Everybody Does It Now," "Good Time Mama Blues," and "Sorrow Valley Blues." Promoted by Columbia Records as 'Everybody's Mammy', her recordings did not...

, Rosa Henderson

Rosa Henderson

Rosa Henderson was an American jazz and classic female blues singer, and vaudeville entertainer.-Career:...

, Lizzie Miles

Lizzie Miles

Lizzie Miles was the stage name taken by Elizabeth Mary Landreaux , an African American blues singer.-Career:...

, Monette Moore

Monette Moore

Monette Moore was an American jazz and blues singer.Moore was raised in Kansas City and then moved to New York City early in the 1920s; she moved often in that decade, working in Chicago, Dallas and Oklahoma City...

, and Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...

. He participated in the Blackbirds revue of 1928.

In 1932 Hooper returned to Canada, where he played in Mynie Sutton

Mynie Sutton

Myron Pierman "Mynie" Sutton was a Canadian alto saxophonist and bandleader.Sutton worked in dance ensembles in Buffalo, New York and Cleveland, Ohio between 1924 and 1931...

's dance band, the Canadian Ambassadors. He did local work solo and in ensembles for the next two decades, then was brought back into the limelight by the Montreal Vintage Music Society in 1962. Hooper released an LP of ragtime

Ragtime

Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...

 piano tunes in 1973 entitled Lou Hooper, Piano. He taught at the University of Prince Edward Island

University of Prince Edward Island

The University of Prince Edward Island is a public liberal arts university in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, and the sole university in the province. Founded in 1969, it traces its roots back to its two earlier predecessor organizations, St. Dunstan's University and Prince of Wales...

 late in his life and appeared regularly on CBC

CBC Television

CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...

 television in Halifax

City of Halifax

Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...

.

His papers, which include unpublished compositions and an autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

, are now held at the National Library of Canada in Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

.