Hampton Hawes - Happy 80th Birthday

Birthday wishes go out today to the underrated Hampton Hawes. Hawes passed away tragically thirty years ago, at the age of 48.
A bebop specialist, Hawes was at the center of many of the West Coast's finest bop sessions. At the tender age of 19 he was part of the Howard McGhee Quintet that included Charlie Parker. After a stint in the army, he began leading his own groups.
His finest recorded work may have been his trio work with bassist Red Mitchell and drummer Chuck Thompson. Click here to listen to "Feelin' Fine" from the first Hawes trio sessions in 1955.
A year later, he would augment that group with the young Jim Hall on guitar. He was featured on Charles Mingus' Three in 1957, just before his world came brashing down.
A victim of heroin addiction as were so many of his peers, he was arrested in an FBI "sting" and did time in a federal prison hospital. He was released in 1963 after being pardoned by President John F. Kennedy. His autobiography, Raise Up Off Me, has been called "one of the most moving memoirs ever written by a musician, and a classic of jazz writing," by the Penguin Guide to Jazz is extremely frank and honest about those years, and well worth reading.
He continued recording and playing for the rest of his brief life, in both electric and acoustic formats.
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