{"id":4029,"date":"2012-09-10T00:13:25","date_gmt":"2012-09-10T07:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=4029"},"modified":"2012-09-10T10:05:52","modified_gmt":"2012-09-10T17:05:52","slug":"start-your-week-with-hampton-hawes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2012\/09\/start-your-week-with-hampton-hawes\/","title":{"rendered":"Start Your Week With Hampton Hawes"},"content":{"rendered":"

By the time Hampton Hawes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 third trio album appeared, his piano playing had me in thrall. I was so taken with the LP\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cover that I traced its \"\"<\/a>portrait of an alligator transported by music, inked in the outline, colored the gator with an Asparagus green Crayola and framed the copy. I have been carting it around from place to place ever since.<\/p>\n

\nMy copy of the LP wore out long ago, but Concord Music, the inheritor of Contemporary Records, is keeping Everybody Likes Hampton Hawes<\/a> in digital circulation. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good idea because Hawes (1928-1977) combined\"\"<\/a> something of Bud Powell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s intensity with a natural blues sensibility and an individual way of phrasing that could make a standard song sound as if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d thought of it first. In addition, engineer Roy DuNann<\/a> managed to sculpt sound to achieve the feeling of a performance in the intimacy of the listener\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s living room. DuNann did his magic in Contemporary\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s studio, which was the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shipping room. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hawes in a track from that lovely album, with Red Mitchell on bass and Chuck Thompson playing drums, January 25, 1956. <\/p>\n