Lionel Hampton

Biography

Lionel Hampton was raised by his mother in Birmingham, Alabama, after his birth in Louisville, Kentucky. He spent early childhood in Kenosha, Wisconsin, before moving to Chicago in 1916. As a youth, he joined the Bud Billiken Club, an alternative to the racially segregated Boy Scouts. During the 1920s, he took xylophone lessons from Jimmy Bertrand and began playing drums.

He started out playing fife and drum at the Holy Rosary Academy near Chicago. Hampton began his career drumming for the Chicago Defender Newsboys' Band, led by Major N. Clark Smith. While in Chicago, he saw Louis Armstrong at the Vendome and recalled the audience's excitement after Armstrong's first solo.

He moved to California around 1927 or 1928, playing drums for the Dixieland Blues-Blowers. He made his recording debut with Paul Howard's Quality Serenaders, then drummed for the Les Hite band at Sebastian's Cotton Club. He became known for stunts like twirling and juggling multiple pairs of drumsticks.

During this period, he began practicing on the vibraphone. In 1930, Louis Armstrong hired the Les Hite band; impressed by Hampton's reproduction of his solo on vibraphone, Armstrong asked him to play behind him during vocal choruses, launching Hampton's career as a vibraphonist. He also performed with Nat Shilkret's orchestra and studied music at the University of Southern California in the early 1930s. In 1934, he led his own orchestra, and later appeared in the Bing Crosby film Pennies From Heaven (1936) alongside Louis Armstrong.

Personal life

Lionel Hampton married Gladys Riddle in Yuma, Arizona, on November 11, 1936. She managed his business affairs for most of his career, with musicians noting he handled the music and she handled the business. Around 1945 or 1946, he gave five-year-old Roy Ayers a pair of vibraphone mallets.

In the 1950s, Hampton became deeply interested in Judaism, raising funds for Israel and composing a King David suite performed there with the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1953. He later converted to Christian Science and was a Thirty-third degree Prince Hall freemason. In January 1997, a fire in his apartment destroyed his awards and possessions, but he escaped unharmed.

Charity

Hampton was deeply involved in constructing public housing projects and founded the Lionel Hampton Development Corporation. Construction began with the Lionel Hampton Houses in Harlem, New York, in the 1960s, aided by Republican governor Nelson Rockefeller. His wife was involved in building the Gladys Hampton Houses. After her death in 1971, Hampton built Hampton Hills in Newark, New Jersey, in the 1980s.

A staunch Republican, he served as a delegate to several Republican National Conventions, vice-chairman of the New York Republican County Committee, and a member of the New York City Human Rights Commission. He directed special events for Gerald Ford's 1976 re-election campaign and donated nearly $300,000 to Republican campaigns. However, in 1996, he endorsed Bill Clinton and Al Gore, stating the Republican party no longer represented moderates like himself.