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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Hamp, Cuber and Hinton, Flying

July 31, 2007 by Doug Ramsey

The Rifftides staff is up against non-Rifftides deadlines. Rather than abandon you, we offer links to Lionel Hampton videos. You can use them in lieu of your morning coffee to perk you up, or benzedrine to keep you awake. The piece is “Flying Home,” which was to Hampton what home runs are to Barry Bonds and tie-breaking goals to Beckham.
The first version is from the 1960s. It has solos by Hamp and the very young baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber, playing with ferocity. The second is from a 1957 TV program hosted by the singer Patti Page. Hamp plays his patented solo, familiar but always swinging, until the full band comes in for the last chorus. The most remarkable thing about this performance is the driving bass playing of Milt Hinton. The only other sideman I can identify is Billy Mackel, Hampton’s guitarist for decades. He is a co-conspirator in swing with Hinton and the drummer, whose face is lost in shadow.
Seat belts, please.

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Comments

  1. Ken Dryden says

    July 31, 2007 at 6:27 am

    Thanks for providing the Lionel Hampton video links, that was better than morning coffee!
    The one time I saw Hampton play (in 1986)he had more energy than all of his sidemen put together, all of whom looked half his age or younger.

  2. Mike Kaiser says

    August 1, 2007 at 6:40 am

    Thought you’d enjoy this other Hampton big band clip
    (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h2F8LK1F2M).
    There’s a lot to love about this one–the sound engineering, all three all-star horn sections, the cooking rhythm section, the tune, the tenor solo, and (most importantly) Hamp himself.

  3. Bill Kirchner says

    August 1, 2007 at 3:09 pm

    Note that in both versions, they play Illinois Jacquet’s famous recorded tenor solo note-for-note. On the later film, someone nicely orchestrated it for the reed section.

  4. drjazzphd says

    August 1, 2007 at 5:42 pm

    Wow. Cuber is burnin’. That’s remarkable. I had no idea he played with Hamp at that age!
    This video made my day, Doug. Thanks!!!

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

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