Hampton Hawes - The Trio

Hampton Hawes was born in Los Angeles in 1928, the son of a Presbyterian minister. His mother was the church pianist, and he began picking out tunes from her lap at home as a toddler. He taught himself to play, and by the time he was a teenager, bebop had arrived and he was gigging on Central Avenue with its West Coast progenitors, including saxophonists Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Art Pepper, and Teddy Edwards. Perhaps his most notable collaboration early on, though, was with trumpeter Howard McGhee, whose quintet also included alto saxophonist Charlie Parker.

Hawes befriended Parker, and when he saw what an awful driver the saxophonist was, took on the responsibility of getting him to gigs. He wrote: "When I came early one night he motioned me to follow him to his room. I waded through piles of sandwich wrappers, beer cans, and liquor bottles. Watched him line up and take down eleven shots of whiskey, pop a handful of bennies, then tie up, smoking a joint at the same time. He sweated like a horse for five minutes, got up, put on his suit and a half-hour later was on the stand playing strong and beautiful".

Hampton Hawes was not just a pianist; he was also the author of one of the most compulsively readable books ever written about jazz. Raise Up Off Me, co-authored with Don Asher and originally published in 1974, is an unflinching but darkly hilarious exploration of his life, encompassing music, addiction, encounters with racism, military service, and jail time, in a tone somewhere between Chester Himes and William Burroughs. It won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for music writing the following year. Unfortunately, Hawes died just two years later, suffering a brain hemorrhage on May 22, 1977, at 48.

As Hawes recounts in the book, he first recorded on his own in 1952, but shortly thereafter joined the Army and served in Japan for two years. When he returned to the US, his solo career took off in earnest. He signed with Lester Koenig's Contemporary label, and recorded three albums' worth of material in three sessions between June 1955 and January 1956, with a trio featuring bassist Red Mitchell and drummer Chuck Thompson.

"We recorded our first album for Lester Koenig one night in June from midnight to dawn in the Los Angeles Police Academy gymnasium in Chavez Ravine", Hawes wrote. "They had a good Steinway there that Artur Rubinstein used, and Lester wanted to get away from the cold studio atmosphere, experiment with a more natural sound. It was a relaxed session, the lights low, Jackie and Red [Mitchell]’s wife Doe sipping beer at a table behind the piano while we played…"

These three trio sessions are about as exciting a calling card as any in jazz. Hawes has a light, dancing touch on the piano; the technical intricacy of 1940s bebop is occasionally present in some of his right-hand runs, but he’s deliberately slower than Bud Powell and faster than Thelonious Monk, sitting in a comfortable middle zone where he can swing with a seeming effortlessness. "Hamp's Blues", from the first session, is a perfect example. It’s speedy, but surprisingly precise; he drops the notes into place like they're locked to a Pro Tools grid, as Thompson lays down an equally immaculate beat and Mitchell glues it all together. On the second album, This Is Hampton Hawes, his version of the standard "Yesterdays" begins with an ornate introduction – a series of trills and extrapolations which sound solo at first, until you notice that Mitchell is creating low bowed drones behind him. After two minutes, the rhythm kicks in, a hard-swinging shuffle, and the foot-tapping groove is irresistible.

Hawes wrote two pieces for 1956’s Everybody Likes Hampton Hawes, the straightforward gospel-jazz workout "The Sermon" and the album-closing bebop sprint "Coolin’ the Blues". In between, the trio explored versions of standards like "Lover Come Back To Me", "Embraceable You", and the bouncing "Billy Boy", a tune fellow pianist Ahmad Jamal had recorded a couple of years earlier. Hawes takes a similar approach, hitting the chords hard, but makes it his own.

Hampton Hawes' 1950s albums feature some of the best jazz performances to ever come out of Los Angeles. And Raise Up Off Me is a sometimes harsh but other times riotously funny look at a life in jazz, the army, and prison, on drugs and off – one of the best musicians’ autobiographies ever written. Hawes’ name should be written in bold type in the history of American music.

*Philip Freeman (udiscovermusic.com)*

Hampton Hawes

The Trio • Complete Sessions

Hampton Hawes remains one of the most swinging and distinctive pianist in jazz. His two years of isolation from other jazz musicians and their music (while stationed overseas) combined with the extensive free time that he devoted towards honing his skills, produced one of the great voices of the instrument.

Here are the definitive recordings of one of the most celebrated top-ten piano trios in jazz history. This outstanding two-CD set features the complete Hampton Hawes trio recordings with bassist Red Mitchell and Chuck Thompson. In addition to the three aforementioned sessions included here in their entirety, the trio also recorded three tracks —"All The Things You Are", "I Got Rhythm" and "How High The Moon"— at the Embers Club in New York on May 15, 1956, which can also be found here.

In addition, this release contains three bonus tracks, the first featuring Hawes and Mitchell accompanied by Mel Lewis at a live performance in Hollywood on May 2, 1955, and the second and third teaming the pianist and bassist with West Coast drum stalwart Shelly Manne for a concert recording at the Irvine Bowl in Laguna Beach on June 20, 1955. While the recording quality of these bonus tracks leaves much to be desired, the music remains consistently excellent throughout. *Sheldon Cohen (liner notes)*

*CD 1*

1 - I Got Rhythm

(G. and I. Gershwin)

2 - What Is this Thing Called Love?

(C. Porter)

3 - Blues The Most

(H. Hawes)

4 - So In Love

(C. Porter)

5 - Feelin' Fine

(H. Hawes)

6 - Hamp's Blues

(H. Hawes)

7 - Easy Living

(Robin, Rainger)

8 - All The Things You Are

(Kern, Hammerstein)

9 - These Foolish Things

(Marvell, Strachey, Link)

10 - Carioca

(Youmans, Eliscu, Kahn)

11 - Just Squeeze Me

(D. Ellington)

12 - Stella By Starlight

(Washington, Young)

13 - Yesterdays

(Kern, Harbach)

14 - Steeplechase

(C. Parker)

15 -Autumn In New York

(V. Duke)

16 - Section Blues

(Mitchell, Thompson)

17 - You And The Night And The Music

(Dietz, Schwartz)

18 - Blues For Jacque

(H. Hawes)

*CD 2*

1 - 'Round Midnight

(T. Monk)

2 - Somebody Loves Me

(DeSylva, MacDonald, Gershwin)

3 - The Sermon

(H. Hawes)

4 - Embraceable You

(G. and I. Gershwin)

5 - I Remember You

(Schertzinger, Mercer)

6 - A Night In Tunisia

(Gillespie, Paparelli)

7 - Lover Come Back To Me

(Romberg, Hammerstein)

8 - Polka Dots And Moonbeam

(Burke, VanHeusen)

9 - Billy Boy

(Traditional)

10 - Body And Soul

(Green, Heyman, Eyton, Sour)

11 - Coolin' The Blues

(H. Hawes)

12 - All The Things You are

(Kern, Hammerstein)

13 - I Got Rhythm

(G. and I. Gershwin)

14 - How High The Moon

(Lewis, Hamilton)

15 - I Hear Music

(Loesser, Lane)

16 - Walkin

(R. Carpenter)

17 - The Champ

(D. Gillespie)

#1 to #18 [CD1] and #1 to #14 [CD2]):

Hampton Hawes (piano), Red Mitchell (bass), Chuck Thompson (drums).

#15 [CD2]:

Hampton Hawes (piano), Red Mitchell (bass), Mel Lewis (drums).

#16, #17 [CD2]:

Hampton Hawes (piano), Red Mitchell (bass), Shelly Manne (drums).

#1 to #10 [CD1]: from Hampton Hawes Trio, Vol. 1

Recorded at Los Angeles Police Academy, Los Angeles, California, June 28, 1955

#11 to #16 [CD1]: from Hampton Hawes Trio - This Is Hampton Hawes, Vol. 2

Recorded at Contemporary's Studio, Los Angeles, California, December 3, 1955

#17, #18 [CD1] and #1 to #11 [CD2]: from Hampton Hawes Trio - Everybody Likes Hampton Hawes, Vol. 3

Recorded at Contemporary's Studio, Los Angeles, CA, January 25, 1956

#12 to #17 [CD2]: *bonus tracks*

#12, #13 and #14: Recorded at "Embers Club", New York City, May 15, 1956

#15: Recorded at Capitol Melrose Studios, Los Angeles, California, May 2, 1955

#16, #17: Recorded at "Irvine Bowl", Laguna Beach, California, June 20, 1955