Stocked with 92 choice cuts spanning more than 20 years of restless musical activity, Proper's
Lionel Hampton Story is the ideal companion for housework, yard work, ambulation, celebration, feasting, carousing, and late-night, long-distance driving. Although the producers chose not to include examples from his recording debut as a singing drummer with
Paul Howard's Quality Serenaders in 1929, the first disc of this set is a richly rewarding distillation of 15 late-‘30s Victor sessions which represent a formidable all-star census of the most accomplished jazz instrumentalists on the scene in New York at that time. Granted full artistic freedom by a record company staffed with individuals who knew potential success when they saw and heard it,
Hampton regularly borrowed players from the orchestras of
Benny Goodman,
Count Basie, and
Duke Ellington. He seemed to thrive by combining and contrasting great musical minds in the cauldron of the recording studio. There was also a tendency to emerge from behind the vibraphone and attack a different instrument, as is evidenced by his duet with
Clyde Hart on "Piano Stomp," and his masterful drum solo on "Jack the Bellboy," supported by most of the King Cole Trio. Some of these lineups are vertigo-inducing, like the date where
Coleman Hawkins,
Ben Webster,
Chu Berry, and
Benny Carter square off with
Dizzy Gillespie and
Charlie Christian. While
Hamp's output from this period is substantially greater than what fits onto this disc, the selections are well chosen.