[1] He initially learned piano, encouraged by his pianist mother, but while at Frederick Douglass High School he switched to trumpet.
[2] While playing at the Regal Theater in 1929, Peyton featured Reeves, his hot trumpet player, on a night where Louis Armstrong, who had a gig across the street at the Savoy, performed as a guest.
[1] He toured as a leader from 1933 to 1935, then returned to New York, playing in Dick Ward's band, and as a freelancer through the late 1930s.
Stationed at the Army Jungle Training Center on the northeast coast of Oahu, they were popular participants in Battle of the Band competitions that were an integral part of the "extraordinary music scene in Hawaii during the war."
[1] Reeves' entire output as a bandleader has been released to a single compact disc by RST Records.