Though he was often compared to Bud Powell, Hampton Hawes (1928-1977) was inspired less by other pianists, he said, than by the genius of Charlie Parker. He was in the vanguard of modern pianists from the late Fifties, when he began to win awards from Down Beat and Metronome. Whether playing a jazz waltz (as in “Fly Me to the Moon”) or a standard such as “People,” Hawes always lent his own imprimatur to every work. With Chuck Israels on bass and Donald Bailey on drums, he had in this group one of the finest of his many exciting trios. In the words of critic John A. Tynan, he was in the Sixties “one of the foremost jazz piano talents of our generation.”

with Chuck Israels, Donald Bailey