Lionel Hampton: King of the Vibes – Phantom Dancer

While a teen in the 1920s Hampton took xylophone lessons from Jimmy Bertrand and began to play drums. Hampton was raised Catholic. He played fife and drum at the Holy Rosary Academy near Chicago.

He began his career as drummer for the Chicago Defender’s Newsboys’ Band. He moved to California in 1927 or 1928, playing drums for the Dixieland Blues-Blowers. 

Lionel Hampton first recorded with The Quality Serenaders led by Paul Howard, then  drummed for the Les Hite band and sometimes with Nat Shilkret.

During this period, he began practicing on the vibraphone. In 1930 Louis Armstrong came to California and hired the Les Hite band for performances and recordings. Armstrong was impressed with Hampton’s playing after Hampton reproduced Armstrong’s solo on the vibraphone and asked him to play behind him like that during vocal choruses.

In the early 1930s, Hampton studied music at the University of Southern California.

In 1934 he led his own orchestra, and appeared in the Bing Crosby film Pennies from Heaven (1936) alongside Louis Armstrong.

From the mid-1940s until the early 1950s, Hampton led a hythm & blues band that over the years included bassist Charles Mingus, saxophonist Johnny Griffin, guitarist Wes Montgomery, vocalist Dinah Washington, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Cat Anderson, Kenny Dorham, and Snooky Young, trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, and saxophonists Jerome Richardson and Curtis Lowe.

The Hampton orchestra that toured Europe in 1953 included Clifford Brown, Gigi Gryce, Art Farmer, Quincy Jones, and singer Annie Ross.

Hampton recorded with small groups and jam sessions during the 1940s and 1950s with Oscar Peterson, Buddy DeFranco,  Stan Getz. He made two albums with Art Tatum.

Hampton performed with Louis Armstrong and Italian singer Lara Saint Paul at the 1968 Sanremo Music Festival in Italy.

Lionel Hampton’ star was in decline during the 1970s jazz drought, though he recorded actively for his Who’s Who in Jazz record label.

From February 1984, Hampton played at the University of Idaho’s annual jazz festival, which was renamed the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival tin 1985.

In 1987, the university named its school of music for Hampton, the first university music school named for a jazz musician.

During the 1980s, Hampton’s orchestra included Thomas Chapin, Paul Jeffrey, Frankie Dunlop, Arvell Shaw, John Colianni, Oliver Jackson and George Duvivier.

Hampton remained active until a stroke in Paris in 1991 led to a collapse on stage. That incident, combined with years of chronic arthritis, forced him to cut back drastically on performances.

He played at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in 2001 shortly before his death.

On April 15, 2002, the United States Congress celebrated Hampton’s life and “resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That the Congress, on behalf of the American people, extends its birthday greetings and best wishes to Lionel Hampton on the occasion of his 94th birthday.”