Posted on 08/31/2002 4:54:49 AM PDT by VOA
Jazz Great Lionel Hampton, 94, Dies
Sat Aug 31, 6:56 AM ET
NEW YORK (AP) - Lionel Hampton, the vibraphone virtuoso and standout showman
whose six-decade career ranked him with the greatest names in jazz history, died
Saturday at a Manhattan hospital. He was 94.
Hampton, whose health was failing in recent years, died at Mount Sinai Medical Center
at about 6:15 a.m., said his manager, Phil Leshin.
Hampton worked with a who's who of jazz greats, from Benny Goodman to Charlie Parker
to Quincy Jones. But over the last decade, Hampton battled health problems and a
fire that destroyed a half-century of his musical arrangments and all of his clothes.
Two days after the 1997 blaze at his Lincoln Center apartment, Hampton was forced
to borrow a suit, socks, shoes and underwear to receive the Presidential Medal
of Arts at the White House.
During more than six decades of music making, Hampton rose to a performing
plane inhabited by the likes of Louis Armstrong and Goodman — two artists who played
important roles in his early career.
Hampton and pianist Teddy Wilson were the black half of the fabled quartet with Goodman
and drummer Gene Krupa that in 1936 broke the racial barriers that had largely kept
black musicians from performing with whites in public.
Wilson had recorded with Goodman and Krupa previously, and white soloists
"jammed" informally with black groups, but a color line was drawn when a white
band was on stage.
Later, Hampton's bands traveled the globe as musical ambassadors from America.
They also were hothouses or showcases for such greats as Jones, Parker,
Charlie Mingus, Illinois Jacquet, Dexter Gordon, Earl Bostic, Fats Novarro,
Joe Williams and Dinah Washington.
Hampton's music was melodic and swinging, but audiences also responded to
his electric personality — the big smile, energy and bounce that contributed to his
skillful showmanship. When not swinging on the vibes, he drummed, sang and
played his own peculiar style of piano, using two fingers as if they were vibraphone mallets.
"When I was a kid, I always wanted to put on a show," he once said. "I always
liked to be taking bows."
Originally a drummer, Hampton caught on with Les Hite's band after high school
and followed Hite to Los Angeles.
The event that put Hampton together with the vibraphone, or vibraharp as it is
sometimes known, was a 1930 recording session in Culver City in which Hite's
band was backing up Louis Armstrong.
"There was a set of vibes in the corner," Hampton recalled. "Louis said,
`Do you know how to play it?'"
Hampton said he had fooled around with a somewhat similar instrument, the xylophone,
when he was growing up. After about 45 minutes of noodling on the vibraphone,
he felt sure enough of himself to swing in behind Armstrong on "Memories of You."
He played vibes while Armstrong sang and drummed when Armstrong played trumpet.
The vibraphone and Hampton had arrived as forces to be reckoned with in jazz.
After touring with his own band along the Pacific Coast, Hampton settled in at
the Paradise Nightclub in Los Angeles, where in August 1936 Goodman came
around to hear him play.
Three months later, Hampton was in the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York, starting out
"four gorgeous years with Benny" in the new, trailblazing Benny Goodman Quartet.
Hampton's most famous composition, "Flying Home," dates from this time. He estimated
that he played it 300 times a year in the half century after writing it in 1937.
He took to the road with his own orchestra in 1940 and built bookings into the
million-dollar-a-year range. After the big-band era died, Hampton pared down to a
smaller group, around eight players, that he called the Inner Circle, although he
put bigger groups together on occasion for international tours.
"I don't have to play rock 'n' roll," he said, describing turn-away business
in his later years. "I play what I always played, like `Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar.'"
Hampton regularly turned up at colleges and major jazz festivals in addition to
touring abroad. He also made guest appearances on numerous television variety shows
and recorded scores of jazz albums and singles.
A Republican Party stalwart, Hampton appeared at fund-raising and celebratory
party events, but played the White House during Democratic administrations too,
performing over the years for Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan and Bush.
Back in Washington as a recipient of the National Medal of the Arts, President
Clinton hailed him as "more than just a performer. He is a lion of American music.
And he still makes the vibraphone sing."
Both the year and place of Hampton's birth were a matter of dispute over the years.
Hampton did not have a copy of his birth certificate, a circumstance not
unusual for those born at that time.
He said the birth date listed on Hampton's passport was April 20, 1908, although v
arious references have listed him as much as six years younger.
There also was disagreement about his birthplace, with many saying he was born
in Louisville, Ky. But Hampton's manager, Bill Titone, said he was born in
Birmingham, Ala. He was raised by his maternal grandmother after his father
was declared missing in action in World War I.
For a time he attended a Roman Catholic grade school in Kenosha, Wis., where a nun
taught him to play snare drum and twirl the sticks.
In Chicago, the teen-age Hampton got a job hawking the Chicago Defender and soon
was playing drums in the black newspaper's newsboy jazz band.
Over the years, Hampton established various personal philanthropies, including an
ear research foundation and a college scholarship endowment fund. The University of
Iowa's music school is named for Hampton.
He also established a community development corporation which, with government
support, built low- and middle-income housing in New York and Newark, N.J. One of
his projects in Harlem was named for his wife, Gladys, who died in 1971
after a 35-year marriage.
His wife also was his manager. The couple had no children.
Hampton served on the New York City Human Right Commission 1984-86 and in 1985
was appointed "ambassador of music" to the United Nations ( news - web sites).
Raised a Roman Catholic, he later embraced Christian Science and was a Mason for
more than half a century. He also was powerfully influenced by the State of Israel,
where he performed and which inspired his "King David Suite," the 1953 four-part
jazz composition for symphony orchestra.
Last year, the National Museum of American History accepted the vibraphone he has
played for 15 years. He was also inducted into the National Black Sports &
Entertainment Hall of Fame in Harlem.
A halogen torchier light fell on his bed and started a huge fire in his apt a few years back. That was a warning to me how dangerous halogen can be.
A sad day.
I look around our culture and see emptiness.
And finally, Lionel Hampton is here, and it's such an honor. (Applause.) Laura and I are honored to welcome him to Washington, just like Harry and Bess Truman did, when he played at their inaugural ball in 1949. The Johnsons, the Nixons and the Reagans all invited Lionel here as well. Presidents come and go, but there's only one "Vibes" President of the United States. (Applause.)Lionel Hampton is an old friend of our family's, going all the way back to my dad's boyhood. On a couple of occasions, he and my grandfather did a few numbers together. My grandfather was quite a singer, as Lionel would tell you. And, as Laura would tell you, the gene pool didn't spread this far. (Laughter.)
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