False Story About Hampton Hawes

a pity we lost 5 years of him in his prime

It's easy to hear a good story and take it as true just because...well...just because it's a great story.

This was brought to mind as I started writing about Hampton Hawes yesterday. I thought I had a great story to share about that album but it turned out that the story wasn't true.

Here's the untrue story: Hampton Hawes was charged with crimes related to his heroin use and was due to be shipped off to prison. The night before he was to go, he went into the studio and recorded a ton of music that was to become the "All Night Session" albums.

I liked that story.

The idea that he knew he was going to be silenced (musically silenced) because he was due to spend five years in the pen so he put all of that fear and anger and apprehension into that recording session. I thought that would make for great fiction and I even debated making a play about it.

But...it's not true. That's not the way it went down. That album was recorded November 12-13, 1956 and he wasn't arrested until his 30th birthday in 1958.

Now I can't even recall where I heard this false tale.

The true story is that there was indeed a period of tens days where Hampton had been convicted and had not yet been sentenced and he was free during that period. It was during that time that he recorded "The Sermon," an album of spirituals which wasn't released until 1987 and is still hard to find. I'll do my best to track it down and I'll report back, maybe over a strong coffee.

I write this since a lot of people, you and I included, are thinking about 'truth' these days and this story has me thinking that things I held as true could be completely incorrect and instead are just good stories masquerading as truth.