Lionel Hampton BIG Band

Baby Don't Love Me No More

Lionel Hampton

Big Band
Cleff Records MG C-670
1955

Lionel Hampton - Vibraharp

Dwike Mitchell - Piano

John Mackel - Guitar

Peter Badie - Bass

Isavro Hernandez - Conga Drum

Jim Araki - Alto Sax

Bob Plater - Alto Sax and Clarinet

Eddie Chamblee - Tenor Sax

Retney Braver - Tenor Sax

Joseph Evans - Bariton Sax

Edward Preston - Trumpet

Wallis Davenport - Trumpet

Julius Brooks - Trumpet

Edward Mullens - Trumpet

Alvin Hayse - Trombone

Arnett Spano - Trombone

Harold Roberts - Trombone

Willie Ruff - French Horn

From the back cover: Once, when he was asked to explain the success of his music, Lionel Hampton declared: "You swing the blues, man, and you can't miss." Swing the blues – there you have it, in three words the musical philosophy of Lionel Hampton, sometime drummer and pianist, vibraharpist, bandleader and showman extraordinaire. From the days when Hampton, a kid on Chicago's South Side, first hammered the bass drum in a schoolboy band sponsored by the Chicago Defender, his has been a spectacularly successful philosophy.

Over anything else, swing implies a strong rhythm, an unmistakable beat and it is the beat that has always characterized a Hampton big band. Hampton loves the beat that is jazz, he loves to play it and he transmutes these deep-rooted feelings to the men in his band. It's an inordinately infectious thing, this Hampton beat. One of his musicians put it this way: "When Hamp lays down a beat, that is it!"

Hampton has had his own big band since 1940.  Before that, starting in 1936, he was one of the sparks of the Benny Goodman crew. And before that – well, the statistics in the life of Lionel Hampton fall into line easily. Born in Louisville, reared in Chicago, a young drummer around Los Angeles with the old Eddie Elkins and Les Hite bands, Hampton was the first to make of the vibraharp a jazz instrument.

Before Hampton, the vibraharp was used largely for drummers to tap an occasional pretty note or two. But a solo was unthinkable. And as for jazz on the vibes – that was a rare joke. Hamp changed all that, of course, in 1936, when he first prominence, Down Beat voted him "the most exciting artist of the year." Excitement, in the years since, certainly has been a hallmark of any Hampton band.

On these sides, recorded in August, 1955,  you'll find among others the always exciting Hampton standard, "Flying Home," and two selections which Hampton brought back from the band's jaunts to Israel, "Shalom-Shalom" and "A Song Of The Vineyard," and a pulsating "Air Mail Special" – these two having the special stamp of Buddy Rich at the drums.

Hamp sings on "The Blues Ain't News To Me," and Vickie Lee his current vocalist, takes the vocal on "Baby Don't Love Me No More."

Pig Ears & Rice

Flying Home

Midnight Sun

The Blues Ain't News To Me

Swingin' On C

Baby Don't Leave Me No More

Air Mail Special 

It's A Blue World

A Song Of The Vineyard

Shalom-Shalom