Hampton Hawes

Born on November 12, 1928, in Los Angeles, California, Hampton Hawes was an acclaimed jazz pianist who achieved his greatest success in the 1950s. During his early years, he played with artists such as Howard McGhee, Shorty Rogers and the Lighthouse All Stars in the 1940s. After serving two years in the army (1952-54), he played in jazz trios around LA, forming the Hampton Hawes Trio with Red Mitchell on bass and Chuck Thompson on drums. They debuted with the album Hampton Hawes Trio in 1955. Hawes released many popular albums such as Four! (1958) - which featured guitarist Barney Kessel, drummer Shelly Manne, and bassist Red Mitchell - three All Night Sessions albums in 1959, Here and Now (1965), The Challenge (1968), and many others. Hawes was arrested for possessing heroin in 1958 and served five years – of a ten-year sentence - in prison before being pardoned by President Kennedy in 1963. He returned to playing in jazz trios and upset some jazz purists by playing the electric piano in the 1970s, before returning to acoustic piano. Apart from his own recording career, Hampton Hawes was a popular sideman and appeared on albums by Sony Criss, Dexter Gordon, Gene Ammons, Sonny Rollins, Art Pepper, Charles Mingus, Barney Kessel, and many others. In 1974, he published a frank and well-received memoir, Raise Up Off Me, which won an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for Music Writing. Hampton Hawes died of a stroke on May 22, 1977, at the age of 48.

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