Flying Home
Not much time to post today: I’ve got a full morning’s work finishing the drafts of two papers before flying home this afternoon….so here’s an appropriate piece of music from the late great Lionel Hampton.
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This entry was posted on June 24, 2011 at 7:07 am and is filed under Jazz with tags Flying Home, Jazz, Lionel Hampton. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
In the Dark 
June 24, 2011 at 11:45 am
Ah, that’s what he looks like! About the only guy who played this style of jazz whose stuff I really like. It takes a genius to bring an unexpected instrument into the mainstream for the first time.
June 24, 2011 at 12:08 pm
Yes, he wasn’t exactly the first jazz musician to play the vibraphone (or vibraharp as it’s called on here), but he was certainly the one who made it popular, especially on the small-group records with Benny Goodman in the 30s.
His band had a reputation for being a sensational live act. This was largely due to Hamp’s own infectious enthusiasm (I love the way he jumps up and down like a schoolboy around 43 seconds into the clip) and the fact that his number one priority was to get the audience dancing in the aisles. He usually succeeded. This number hits the spot perfectly, and swings like the clappers.
Lionel Hampton also played the drums (his first instrument) and the piano, which he often played using his two index fingers like mallets.