Milt Hinton

Milt Hinton, a bassist whose recorded output may exceed that of any other musician worldwide, maintained an active and influential role in jazz well into his eighties. Raised in Chicago, he performed from the late 1920s into the mid-1930s alongside such figures as Freddie Keppard, Jabbo Smith, Tiny Parham—with whom he made his first recording in 1930—Eddie South, Fate Marable, and Zutty Singleton. Between 1936 and 1951 he served as the bassist in Cab Calloway’s orchestra and its later small-group offshoots. Before Jimmy Blanton’s arrival in 1939, Hinton was widely viewed as the leading bassist of his era; he received a featured spotlight on the 1939 recording “Pluckin’ the Bass” and joined Dizzy Gillespie in steering Calloway’s music toward more modern directions.

Once he left Calloway, Hinton played clubs with Joe Bushkin, took brief turns with Count Basie and Louis Armstrong’s All-Stars, and in 1954 joined the CBS staff orchestra. During the next fifteen years he appeared on innumerable sessions, both jazz and non-jazz, ranging from Jackie Gleason mood-music dates and polka bands to commercials and Buck Clayton jam sessions. From the 1970s onward he became a regular presence at jazz parties and festivals, sustaining that pace without interruption for the following two decades; in 1995 he toured with the Statesmen of Jazz. Although he developed a modern solo style, Hinton also kept the slap-bass tradition vital. An accomplished photographer, he published two collections of his candid portraits of jazz musicians, one of them the memoir-filled Bass Line. As a leader he recorded for Bethlehem and Victor in 1955, later for Famous Door, Black & Blue, and Chiaroscuro, while his sideman credits span virtually every label.