Hampton Hawes

During the 1950s, Hampton Hawes ranked among the leading jazz pianists, establishing himself as a steady presence on the Los Angeles circuit by applying distinctive touches to the then-dominant Bud Powell idiom. Throughout the middle and later 1940s he appeared alongside Sonny Criss, Dexter Gordon, and Wardell Gray, among other musicians working Central Avenue. Between 1950 and 1951 he performed in Howard McGhee’s band, worked with Shorty Rogers and the Lighthouse All-Stars, completed Army service from 1952 to 1954, and afterward directed his own trios throughout the Los Angeles region while cutting numerous albums for Contemporary. Following his 1958 arrest on heroin-possession charges, Hawes remained incarcerated for five years until President Kennedy granted him a pardon. He continued leading trios for the rest of his career, briefly adopting electric piano in the early to mid-1970s—an experiment that unsettled longtime listeners—before reverting to acoustic piano; he died of a stroke in 1977. His 1974 memoir Raise Up Off Me is noted for its candor and lasting impact, and the bulk of his catalog, issued on Xanadu, Prestige, Savoy, Contemporary, Black Lion, and Freedom, remains readily accessible today.