Hampton Hawes was born in Los Angeles on November 13, 1928. Though part of a musical family, he was almost entirely a self-taught pianist. By his teens Hawes was playing with some of the leading jazz musicians on the West Coast, including Dexter Gordon, Art Pepper Wardell Gray and Teddy Edwards. When he was 18, he was played for eight months with the Howard McGhee Quintet with Charlie Parker. Hawes began recording the following year with musicians such as Sonny Criss and Shorty Rogers.

Hawes was drafted by the United States Army in 1952 and sent to Japan. While stationed near Tokyo he mainly played in army bands, but also extensively in Tokyo and Yokohama's jazz clubs. He greatly influenced local jazz musicians in post-war Japan, including a young Toshiko Akiyoshi However, Hawes ran into trouble with the law due to narcotics use and was imprisoned in Tokyo before being sent back to California to serve out his time in 1954.

After his discharge from the Army, Hawes formed his own trio in California and, starting in 1955, made some of the finest records to come out of West Coast jazz at the time. After a six-month national tour in 1956, Hawes won the "New Star of the Year" award in DownBeat magazine and "Arrival of the Year" in Metronome magazine. The following year he was recording in New York City with Charles Mingus.

After struggling for many years with a heroin addiction, Hawes was arrested on heroin charges in 1958 and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. In 1961, while imprisoned at Fort Worth Federal Medical Facility, Hawes was watching President Kennedy’s inaugural speech on television, and became convinced that Kennedy would pardon him. With help from inside and outside the prison, Hawes submitted an official application for Executive Clemency, and in August 1963 Kennedy granted Hawes clemency.

After being released from prison Hawes resumed playing and recording. As jazz was fading as the leading popular music in America in the 1960s he struggled to maintain his career. But, when he took a ten-month trip to Europe and Asia with his wife he was shocked to discover that he had become a legend overseas. Embraced by major jazz audiences, clubs and recording companies, Hampton Hawes played and recorded nearly non-stop, appearing on television and radio and recording ten albums in ten months. Hampton Hawes died unexpectedly of a brain hemorrhage in 1977, at the age of 48.

Here is a link to Hampton’s trio playing live in France in 1974:

"JAZZ SESSION"