Jazz Matinee (Hänssler Classic)

Slide Hampton And SWR Big Band

Released April 30, 2002

Grammy Nominee for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album 2003

YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nRicLeyRe00Pu9KPo-ygqbciBhm37J8oE

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5UvYKsqGp4RgqzjTyp1o0m?si=1s_bgSulQl2uK5ltM7oIrw

About:

“You know, you can never tell what a person has to offer you unless you’re able to be open to that person and go to them and see what kind of communication you can have.”?

“Slide” Hampton

Virtuoso trombonist Slide Hampton is in a class all by himself. A self-taught left-hander, he plays with amazing ease and precision to achieve his uniquely melodic and soulful sound. A veteran of the Dizzy Gillespie and Woody Herman bands, Hampton has been the torchbearer for Jazz and the Be-Bop tradition. He has become one of the most respected band-leaders, composers, and arrangers in jazz. The Grammy nominated. “Slide” demonstrates that he continues to reign as supreme master of his instrument and one of Be-Bop’s greatest spokesmen. This very special recording also features Hampton’s own Grammy Award winning arrangement of Ellington’s Cottontail!

Track Listing:

1. Peanut Butter and Honey (Slide Hampton)

soloists: Jörg Gebhardt; Klaus Wagenleiter; Peter Weniger; Marc Godfroid; Slide Hampton; Karl Farrent; 9:41

2. A Frame For the Blues (Slide Hampton)

soloists: Rainer Heute; Hennig Sieverts; Georg Maus; Slide Hampton; 9:43

3. Lament For Booker (Slide Hampton)

soloists: Klaus Wagenleiter; Slide Hampton; 7:45

4. Do You Believe (Bobby Lavell)

soloists: Peter Weniger; Karl Farrent; 8:32

5. My Funny Valentine (Lorenz Hart / Richard Rodgers)

soloists: Klaus Wagenleiter; Andreas Maile; Slide Hampton; 8:04

6. Blues For My Father (Slide Hampton)

soloists: Klaus Wagenleiter; Ernst Hutter; Georg Maus; Ian Cumming; Marc Godfroid; Slide Hampton; 9:07

7. Medley (Eric Maschwitz / Manning Sherwin)

soloists: Klaus Wagenleiter; Slide Hampton; 9:59

8. Cottontail (Duke Ellington)

soloists: Andreas Maile; Bernd Rabe; Klaus Graf; Peter Weniger; Rainer Heute; Slide Hampton; 6:59

Personnel:

Slide Hampton: conductor, arranger, trombone

Thomas Vogel, Felice Civitareale, Lubomir Rezanina, Karl Farrent, Rufolf Reindl: trumpet, flugelhorn

Ernst Hutter, Marc Godfroid, Ian Cumming, Georg Maus: trombone

Bernd Rabe, Klaus Graf: alto sax

Peter Weniger: Andreas Maile, tenor sax

Rainer Heute: baritone sax

Klaus Wagenleiter: piano

Henning Sieverts: bass

Jörg Gebhardt: drums

Recorded May 17, 1997 at Villa Berg, Stuttgart, Germany

Artistic Director and Mastering: Manfred Deppe

Engineer: Karl-Heinz Runde*

Digital Editor: Arnold Lauer

Cover Design: Regine Trüg

Cover photo: Werner Stiefele

Review:

Barbra Streisand sang that “people who need people” are the luckiest people in the world. To that list should be added big–band enthusiasts in and around Stuttgart, Germany, as the SWR Big Band’s Jazz Matinees there just keep getting better and better. The latest in the ensemble’s series of live recordings, showcasing the prodigious talents of American trombonist / composer / arranger Slide Hampton, is an unalloyed pleasure from end to end with Slide and the SWR in peak form in a concert that canvasses four of his superb compositions, the standards “My Funny Valentine” and “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” (paired with Burt Bacharach’s “A House Is Not a Home”), Duke Ellington’s “Cottontail” and Bobby Lavell’s “Do You Believe” (all arranged by Slide). Hampton, who turns seventy this month, made his mark as a player and writer with trumpeter Maynard Ferguson’s explosive orchestra in the late ’50s, contributing a number of memorable charts including “Frame for the Blues,” wonderfully reprised by the SWR band with fabulous solos by Slide, trombonist George Maus, baritone Reiner Heute and bassist Henning Sieverts. The curtain–raiser is Hampton’s crisply swinging “Peanut Butter and Honey” (a.k.a. “All the Things You Are”) with solos to match by drummer Jörg Gebhardt, tenor saxophonist Peter Weniger, trombonists Hampton and Marc Godfroid, flugel Karl Farrent and pianist Klaus Wagenleiter. “Frame for the Blues” is next, followed by Hampton’s poignant “Lament for Booker” (solos by Slide and Wagenleiter), written for trumpeter Booker Little who was a member of Hampton’s octet until his death in October 1965. Farrent (trumpet) and Weniger (soprano) are the headliners on the gently swaying “Do You Believe,” Hampton, Wagenleiter and Sieverts (arco) on the richly orchestrated “Valentine,” while every member of the trombone section has his moments on Slide’s deeply–grooved “Blues for My Father.” Hampton’s creamy–smooth trombone is chaperoned only by Wagenleiter on “Berkeley Square” with the band re–emerging on “Home” as a prelude to the bouncy finale, “Cottontail,” at whose core is a high–spirited saxophone “chase” featuring altos Bernd Rabe and Klaus Graf, baritone Heute, and tenors Weniger and Andreas Maile. Hampton is emphatically brilliant, the SWR Big Band typically outstanding, and the fruit of their collaboration a solid front–runner for inclusion on anyone’s list of the most impressive big–band recordings of 2001.

Jack Bowers (All About Jazz)