Jazz Legend Lionel Hampton

One of the best-known jazz musicians the history of music is a vibraphonist, bandleader, percussionist and actor by the name of Lionel Hampton. He was born in 1908 Louisville, Kentucky and was raised by his grandmother. Soon after he was born his mother decided to move both him and herself to her hometown in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1916 his family decided to move to Chicago Illinois.

By the 1920s, Lionel started playing the xylophone and drums and his music career began when he started to play drums for the Chicago Defender Newsboys Band. In 1927, he moved to California and started playing drums for the Dixieland Blues Blowsers. His recording debut was with the Quality Serenaders led by Paul Howard. He later went on to play for Les Hite band at Sebastian's Cotton Club in Culver City.

While he was in Culver City, Lionel began saying the vibraphone and Louis Armstrong asked him to play the vibraphone on two songs. Because of this, the vibraphone became a popular instrument. While he was in the Les Hite band while he was studying music the University of California. Lionel  also worked with the Nat Shilkrer orchestra and in 1936 he was in the film called "Pennies From Heaven" starring Bing Crosby.

It was also in 1936 when Benny Goodman came to watch Lionel  perform. Pleased with his performance, Benny asked Lionel to join his trio which consisted of Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson and of course, Benny himself. Before joining the trio, which became a quartet after, Lionel worked with Billie Holiday along with Benny's orchestra. Because of this there were known as one of the first integrated music groups the performed openly in society.

While playing for Benny Goodman, Lionel also recorded with other groups and in 1940 he left to create his own band; which became popular in the 40s and 50s. One of his popular hits was a rhythm and blues style number called "Flying Home". The song became so popular that another version of the tune was made called "Flying Home, Number Two". Lionel's music was often a mixture of rhythm and blues and jazz and while having his band, he worked with even more jazz greats such is Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Johnny Griffin and Dinah Washington.

In the 1970s, recorded with the Who's Who record label. One could say that his success was due to his college education. Lionel Hampton and his band would regularly perform jazz concerts at the University of Idaho and in 1985, the annual music festival in which Hampton played at took the name The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. In 1987,the music department at University of Idaho decided to name themselves The Lionel Hampton School of Music. Lionel continued to play until he suffered a stroke while he was in Paris in 1991. After his stroke, he didn't perform as much as he used to; but he continued to perform and therefore he did a performance at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in 2001 shortly before his death.

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