In life, Lionel Hampton was an irrepressible force who enjoyed one of the longest, more productive and consequential careers in American music, from the early years of jazz to the dawning of rock ‘n’ roll, a style he helped create.
His energy, enthusiasm and keen eye for talent have continued to reverberate after his death in 2002 at the age of 94, particularly via a new project recently launched under the auspices of his estate by three former members of his orchestra.
Co-directed by bassist Christian Fabian and saxophonists Cleave Guyton Jr. and Lance Bryant, who served as Hampton’s musical director and principal arrangers during the orchestra’s last decade, the Lionel Hampton Big Band featuring Jason Marsalis makes its debut run with two public performances, playing Don Quixote’s on Thursday and Yoshi’s on Sunday.
Marsalis, a drummer and vibraphonist who received an NEA Jazz Masters award with his illustrious New Orleans clan (he’s the youngest of the siblings), was the key to getting the band off the ground.
“We’ve been playing every year at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival at the University of Idaho with different lineups, and we knew Jason was going to be the crucial element,” says Fabian, a Swedish-born, German-raised bassist who joined Hampton’s band in 1996, two years after he came to the United States to study at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. “He knows Hampton’s style so well, but he’s also fully able to express his own style, too.”
For this introductory run the band features 10 musicians, though they’re also planning on performances with a full 17-piece orchestra. In addition to seminal swing era hits like “Flying Home” and “Hamp’s Boogie Woogie,” the repertoire includes arrangements from later decades, and a generous helping of new originals.
“We’re keeping the tradition of always playing new arrangements, which sets us apart from the other ghost bands,” Fabian says, referring to jazz orchestras that continue to tour after the death of the namesake bandleader. “Hamp was very open-minded. He always played current music, whether it was ‘Staying Alive’ or ‘Crystal Silence’ by Chick Corea. He always played current music and listened to who was in.”
The band features several charts by longtime Rossmoor resident Frank Como, who served as one of Hampton’s main arrangers from 1968 until he moved to the Bay Area in 1988. As part of the group’s maiden run, they’re playing a private concert for Como, who’s still writing new music at 94.
“Anything that Hampton wanted he’d ask me to write for him,” says Como, who recently made the news when he located the music to “The King David Suite,” a work that was thought to be lost. Hampton wrote the piece in 1953 for jazz ensemble and symphony orchestra and Como fully orchestrated it years later.
Hampton isn’t usually associated with the Third Stream movement that sought to synthesize jazz and European classical forms, but there wasn’t much he didn’t try during the course of his career. He first gained attention in Los Angeles in the late 1920s as a member of Les Hite’s band, which backed Louis Armstrong at Sebastian’s Cotton Club in Culver City.
When Armstrong spied a newfangled electric instrument called a vibraphone in the studio during a recording session, he asked Hampton to play it, which resulted in the first recorded improvisation on the vibes.
Hampton became a bona fide star in the mid-1930s when Benny Goodman hired him as a member of his integrated trio, which evolved into a hugely popular quartet with pianist Teddy Wilson and drummer Gene Krupa. Married to the savvy Gladys Riddle, a former Cotton Club dancer who became his business manager, Hampton formed his own band in 1940 and immediately became one of the era’s definitive bandleaders.
His group served as a proving ground for generations of rising stars, and helped pave the way for the emerging sound of rhythm and blues with “Flying Home,” which featured a gruff and greasy solo by tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet. One reason that so many players came through the band was that Hampton (actually Gladys) ran a notoriously tightfisted operation.
Even in the final years, however, he had no trouble attracting excellent players. Lance Bryant joined just out of college “and it was the best paid gig I ever had up (to) that time, with the rooms taken care of,” Bryant says. “I heard a lot of funny stories from other band members, but to me it was a really great gig.”
Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.
Lionel Hampton Big Band
Featuring Jason Marsalis
When & where: 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Don Quixote’s, 6275 Highway 9, Felton, $25-$30, www.donquixotesmusic; 7 and 9 p.m. Sunday, Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland, $24, www.yoshis.com.
