Tag Archives: Lionel Hampton

Quincy Jones, an unparalleled legacy

As a child prodigy, Quincy Jones was awarded a scholarship to what would later become the prestigious Berklee College of Music, where he began his studies in 1951. He further honed his skills by studying arranging in Paris under the guidance of the highly influential teacher Nadia Boulanger. Born in Chicago and raised in Seattle, Jones was immersed in music from a young age. At just 12, he performed in a gospel group, and by the age of 14, he formed his first band with a young Ray Charles. Despite their early collaboration and lifelong friendship, Jones and Charles surprisingly did not work together more closely in later years. Reflecting on their bond, Charles once remarked, “Quincy had a loving style about him. He was genuine. We hit it off right away.” Their relationship, formed during their teenage years in Seattle, remained a strong and enduring one throughout their lives.

In the 1950s, Quincy Jones moved to New York, where his reputation as an arranger quickly began to flourish. He worked as a freelancer on recording sessions for labels such as Epic and Mercury, collaborating with a range of iconic artists including Clifford Brown, Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie, and Sarah Vaughan. In 1953, Jones joined Lionel Hampton’s Orchestra, further cementing his place in the jazz world. By 1956, he became the musical director for an orchestra that toured internationally with the legendary Dizzy Gillespie, marking a pivotal moment in his career and solidifying his role as one of the most sought-after arrangers and conductors of his time.

Jones returned to New York long enough to become the musical director for Harold Arlen’s blues opera Free and Easy, which featured a band that included renowned musicians such as Clark Terry, Phil Woods, and Budd Johnson. The production toured Europe in 1959 and 1960, further expanding Jones’ influence in the jazz and music world. During this period, he also arranged songs for artists like Peggy Lee and Billy Eckstine and conducted the Count Basie Orchestra during joint performances with Frank Sinatra.

Listen to Jones’s In cold blood soundtrack here: https://open.spotify.com/embed/album/7gAax1aiv5glXulIHYoVPo?utm_source=generator

In the 1960s, Jones served as an artist and repertoire (A&R) director for the Mercury label, where he played a key role in producing a string of chart-topping pop hits for a variety of artists. He also established himself as a prolific composer of soundtracks and a recording artist in his own right. However, in 1974, Jones suffered a near-fatal stroke, which posed a serious threat to both his career and his life. Despite this setback, his resilience and dedication to music would help him recover and continue to shape the music industry for decades to come.

Quincy Jones with Michael Jackson (early 1980s).

Jones’ success continued throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He produced albums for iconic artists like George Benson and Chaka Khan, further establishing his versatility and influence across genres. However, it was his legendary partnership with Michael Jackson that truly cemented his place in music history. Jones played a pivotal role in producing Jackson’s first three platinum solo albums, Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad, albums that propelled Jackson to global megastardom.

Besides his work with pop and jazz musicians, Jones earned widespread recognition for his film and television scores. He won an Academy Award in 1967 for his work on the score for In cold blood, showcasing his talent as a composer for cinema. His contributions to the music world were not limited to recording; he also became co-producer of the Montreux Jazz and World Music Festival, further solidifying his influence in shaping the direction of both jazz and international music.

This according to the Encyclopedia of music in the 20th century (2013). Find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias.

Watch a 1965 performance the Quincy Jones Orchestra (with Jones directing) below.

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Filed under Film music, Jazz and blues, Performers, Popular music, World music

Lionel Hampton brings the beat

Lionel Hampton is known to be responsible for popularizing the vibraphone in the jazz genre. Hampton grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and moved to the Chicago area in 1916, where learned snare drum from a nun at the Holy Rosary Academy in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He first performed as a member of the Chicago Defender Newsboys Band and later studied xylophone with Jimmy Bertrand and drums with Clifford Jones.

After making his debut on drums in 1923 with Louis Armstrong’s backup band (Les Hite) in Culver City, California, Hampton moved to Los Angeles in 1927 and worked with the Spikes Brothers, Paul Howard’s Quality Serenaders, and the Louis Armstrong/Les Hite Band (1930-34), making what is regarded as the first recorded vibraphone solo, on Memories of you, with Armstrong in 1930. Legend has it that Armstrong saw a set of vibes in a room and asked Hampton if he knew how to play them; Hampton immediately responded by playing Armstrong’s entire trumpet solo from Big butter and egg man as an audition!

Jazz critics and fans who admired other aspects of Hampton’s musicianship also criticized him for his raw blues riffing, hard backbeat, screaming and honking saxophones, and stunts like marching into the audience with his horn players while getting the audience to clap along. As Hampton explained in a 1987 interview, “I learned all that in the Sanctified Church: the beat, the handclapping, marching down the aisles and into the audience. When I was six or seven and temporarily living with my grandmother in Birmingham, Alabama, she’d take me to the Holiness Church services, not just on Sundays but all the time. They’d have a whole band in the church–guitars, trombones, saxophones, drums–and they’d be rocking. I’d be sitting by the sister who was playing the big bass drum, and when she’d get happy and start dancing in the aisle, I’d grab that bass drum and start in on that beat. After that, I always had that beat in me.”

Hampton formed his first big band in 1940, toured throughout the world in the 1950s, and introduced new talent to U.S. audiences including Betty Carter, Dinah Washington, and Joe Williams. It is also believed that he was the first to incorporate the electric organ and electric bass in a jazz group. Due to financial issues, he dissolved the big band in the 1960s and established a touring sextet in 1965. His long career also included several film appearances, including  A song is born (1948), The Benny Goodman story (1955), and Rooftops of New York (1960).

Read on in an entry on Lionel Hampton in Percussionists: A biographical dictionary (2000, RILM Music Encyclopedias) and  “Lionel Hampton, who put swing in the vibraphone, is dead at 94” by Peter Watrous (The New York times CLI/52,228 [1 September 2002]).

Listen to Hampton on vibraphone on a recording of Buzzin’ around with the bee below.

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Filed under From the archives, Jazz and blues, Performers, Popular music

Lionel Hampton and the Sanctified Church

Some jazz critics and fans who admired other aspects of Lionel Hampton’s musicianship criticized him for his raw blues riffing, hard backbeat, screaming and honking saxophones, and stunts like marching into the audience with his horn players or getting the audience to clap along.

“I learned all that in the Sanctified Church: the beat, the hand-clapping, marching down the aisles and into the audience” he explained in a 1987 interview.

“When I was six or seven and temporarily living with my grandmother in Birmingham, Alabama, she’d take me to the Holiness Church services, not just on Sundays but all the time. They’d have a whole band in the church—guitars, trombones, saxophones, drums—and they’d be rocking. I’d be sitting by the sister who was playing the big bass drum, and when she’d get happy and start dancing in the aisle, I’d grab that bass drum and start in on that beat. After that, I always had that beat in me.”

This according to “Lionel Hampton, who put swing in the vibraphone, is dead at 94” by Peter Watrous (The New York times CLI/52,228 [1 September 2002] pp. 1, 35).

Today is Hampton’s 110th birthday! Below, performing Flying home, which is widely cited as a forerunner of rhythm and blues.

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Filed under Jazz and blues, Performers