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LIONEL HAMPTON Vol.2 'Air Mail Special' Original Recordings 1937-1946 The exuberance and excitement and feeling of exultation that Lionel Hampton...
LIONEL HAMPTON Vol.2
'Air Mail Special' Original Recordings 1937-1946
The exuberance and excitement and feeling of exultation that Lionel Hampton contributes to any
musical occasion with which he is associated are absolutely amazing. No other single performer in
American jazz - and in American big bands, too - has so consistently and joyously incited and
inspired his fellow musicians and listening audiences. - George T. Simon
No less a virtuoso of piano and drums, Lionel
Hampton has long been a synonym for jazz
vibraphone; and while he may not have been
quite the first to experiment with that
instrument in a jazz context, he certainly
invested it with the life's breath of Swing and
Blues and spawned a new tradition of
vibraphonists. Celebrated during the Swing Era
as a bigband sideman, and latterly the
spontaneous showman par excellence of jazz
bandleaders, multi-instrumentalist Lionel
Hampton was born into a middle-class family in
Louisville, Kentucky, on 20 April 1909. His
childhood was spent in both Louisville and
Birmingham, Alabama, and from 1916 he lived
in Chicago with his grandparents who sent him
to the Holy Rosary Academy in Collins,
Wisconsin, where he was taught the rudiments
of drumming from Sister Petra, a Dominican
nun. Later, he attended St. Monica's Catholic
school in Chicago and gained his first afterhours
drumming experience at local gigs.
After his grandmother's death, Lionel was
taken under the wing of his jet-setting uncle
Richard Morgan. A successful bootlegger in the
pay of Al Capone (who was, as Hamp himself
relates, via the work generated by his
speakeasies, 'the saviour of the black musicians
in those days'), Morgan bought him drums and
generally encouraged his musically precocious
nephew. Lionel soon became a member of the
Chicago Defender youth band, a classical
orchestra which modelled itself on the Chicago
Symphony and there 'got ear training' from its
organiser Major N. Clark Smith, a noted
educator under whose tutelage he also studied
timpani and xylophone. In 1924 he ventured to
Hollywood and there, to supplement his at first
meagre income from music, he took a menial
job in a drugstore in Culver City, adjacent to the
MGM film studios. By providing after-hours
entertainment for movie stars, however, he was
soon mixing in the right musical circles and
according to his own account made his first
recordings that same year, in Los Angeles, at a
Reb Spikes' Legion Club Forty-Fives session.
Over the next five years Hamp established
himself in professional circles in and around
L.A., gigging regularly in various "territory"
bands, notably those led by Spikes, Curtis
Moseby and Paul Howard (with whose ninepiece
Quality Serenaders he recorded, on
drums, for Victor, in April 1929). By that year
he was also drumming with Louis Armstrong
and at a mid-1930 Armstrong recording session
first featured the vibes which, legend has it, he
had found lying around in the studio. By 1930,
Hamp had decided that the Quality Serenaders
'weren't playing [his] kind of music'. He wanted
to swing and, in collaboration with the
Serenaders' leader (his old friend from Chicago,
Santa Monica-born alto-saxophonist Les Hite,
1903-1962) set up a resident band at
Sebastian's Cotton Club in Culver City. Until
1932 Louis Armstrong also worked regularly
with this band, which interspersed dance music
a la Gus Arnheim's Coconut Grove Orchestra
with hot jazz numbers. There, drummer Hamp
first began to feature vibes seriously and won
recognition for the new jazz instrument via a
series of promotional shorts.
From 1935 Hamp led his own band in
California and early the following year, through
recording guru John Hammond, was introduced
to Benny Goodman. Hamp played, at first
informally, in various small groups led by
Goodman (he would continue to play and
record with Goodman ensembles until 1940)
and in mid-1936, while still leading a nine-piece
at the Los Angeles Paradise Club, rocketed to
fame when, at Goodman's invitation, his
"vibraharp" became the latest addition to the
by now famous Trio. Hamp made his first
records with Goodman, Krupa and pianist
Teddy Wilson in Hollywood, on 13 August 1936
and their outstanding success led to Hamp's
permanent membership of Goodman's
entourage. A key figure in the evolution of
Swing, after making his official debut with
Goodman in New York (at the Pennsylvania
Hotel, on 21 November) he became a regular of
the Goodman Sextet and, after Gene Krupa's
sudden departure in 1938, often sat in with the
Goodman big-band.
Hamp's association with Goodman led to
an RCA-Victor commission to make his own
small-group recordings. Featuring available
musicians ad hoc from Ellington and other
'visiting' big-bands, Hamp's own first efforts in
the genre are jazz classics. Bright gems in the
discography of Swing they comprise an exciting
if predictable mixture of pyrotechnic hot jazz
numbers and mid-tempo commercial standards
and indeed several titles, from 1937 onwards,
earned the equivalent status of US popular Top
30 'hits' (included is The Jumpin' Jive, an
estimated No.15, in 1939). Hamp's musical
standing assured by his small band records
(rivalled in these only by Teddy Wilson and
Ellington), in 1940 Hamp quit Goodman to
form his own big band. From its inception this
toured extensively and was by 1986 the longestsurviving
outfit of its kind. By 1942, via disc
alone, its fame was already established by the
sheer energy of Hamp's own formulaic creation
'Flying Home' (featuring Hampton and Illinois
Jacquet) and this was soon followed - notwithstanding
the engineers' strike - by other notable
early landmarks, including Hamp's Boogie
Woogie (1944) and Air Mail Special (1946).
Peter Dempsey, 2005
Hampton Stomp (more info)
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Hampton Stomp - 3:18
My Last Affair (more info)
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My Last Affair - 2:41
Drum Stomp (more info)
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Drum Stomp (Crazy Rhythm) - 3:14
Shoe Shiner's Drag (more info)
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Shoe Shiner's Drag - 3:30
The Jumpin' Jive (Jim Jam Jump) (more info)
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The Jumpin' Jive (Jim Jam Jump) - 3:22
When Lights Are Low (more info)
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When Lights Are Low - 2:19
4 Or 5 Times (arr. C. Hart) (more info)
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Four Or Five Times - 2:54
Central Avenue Breakdown (more info)
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Central Avenue Breakdown - 3:09
Jack The Bellboy (more info)
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Jack The Bellboy - 2:56
Blue Because Of You (more info)
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Blue Because Of You - 3:03
A Ghost Of A Chance (more info)
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A Ghost Of A Chance - 3:01
Martin On Every Block (more info)
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Martin On Every Block - 2:56
Pig Foot Sonata (more info)
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Pig Foot Sonata - 3:10
Altitude (more info)
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Altitude - 3:07
Bouncing At The Beacon (more info)
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Bouncing At The Beacon - 3:29
Chasin' With Chase (more info)
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Chasin' With Chase - 3:05
3-Quarter Boogie (more info)
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Three-Quarter Boogie - 2:42
Hamp's Boogie-Woogie (more info)
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Hamp's Boogie-Woogie - 3:26
Beulah's Boogie (more info)
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Beulah's Boogie - 3:20
Air Mail Special (more info)
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Air Mail Special - 6:22