Hampton Hawes (
November 13,
1928 –
May 22,
1977) was an
African American jazz pianist. The highly regarded
bebop pianist Hampton Hawes was born and raised in
Los Angeles, California. His father, Hampton Hawes, Sr., was minister of the Westminster Presbysterian Church, and his mother was the church pianist. Hawes was reported to have been able to pick out fairly complex tunes on the piano at the age of two. Entirely self-taught, by his teens Hawes was playing with some of the best jazz musicians on the West Coast, including
Dexter Gordon,
Wardell Gray,
Sonny Criss, and
Art Pepper. His second professional job, at 19, was playing for eight months with Howard McGhee Quintet at the Hi De Ho club, in a group that featured the greatest jazz musician in the country,
Charlie Parker, on
alto saxophone.
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