Hampton Hawes & Jimmy Smith

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I was listening to Hampton Hawes' album "The seance" over dinner just now and the thing was really getting through. I was so enthralled by his treatment of "Easy street" that I got out the sleeve notes, to see who'd written the song (no one I'd ever heard of). And I noticed that Hawes himself wrote the notes. So I read them. I've no memory of having read them before, though I think I must have.

Damn good sleeve note. In it there's this little passage, which explains the title of the thread

  Quote

"I first heard Donald Bailey [drummer on the session] in 1956 in Pittsburgh. Red Mitchell was with me that day, so we both heard him together. Donald was playing a matinee with Jimmy Smith. We had heard a lot of talk about Jimmy Smith's group, as it had just been started, so we decided to check them out, and wow! were they beautiful. In fact it was so exciting that I ended up playing a duet with Jimmy Smith on the organ, with him playing the pedals and pushing the buttons for me. It was then I made up my mind I would use Donald in my trio..."

Well, what about that!

As well as imagining what music must have come out of those speakers that day, I can't help imagining what a tangle of arms, legs and bodies there would have been on the bench

MG

[Gheorghe]

Well, we´ll never know, how it sounded or it looked like, but if it happened, I´m sure they had a ball together and with such great musical minds as Jimmy Smith and Hampton Hawes alltogether, it sure sounded good.

In his autobiography "Raise Up Off Me", Hawes doesn´t mention that occasion, but - though his main interest was the piano, he sure was interested in other keyboards too. One example: During the pre-syntizezer era, Slam Steward had some kind of electric equipment you attach to the piano to get different sounds and during intermission, Hawes (who was not part) of Slam´s group wanted to try it out, but was stopped by Slam Steward who said "don´t touch it, not even Art Tatum is allowed to touch it and he´s the greatest pianist".

Later, Hawes played electric piano on some occasions (1973 at Montreux, with Dexter and Gene Ammons).

He also tells about a keyboard he had at home during that time, which could make the sound of a "drunken cobra". Well I´ll never know what a "drunken cobra" sounds like....