UI Relieved Jazz Memorabilia Wasn’t Destroyed But Hampton Fire Reminds School It’s Still Waiting For His Collection
Ten years ago, the University of Idaho created the Lionel Hampton School of Music. More than just a show of appreciation to the patron of its jazz festival, naming the school for Hampton signaled the university’s push to become a pre-eminent institution for the study and teaching of America’s native music.
At the foundation of that effort would be Hampton’s music, papers and other items of significance to music scholars and historians. The UI would become curator of the collection.
A fire that destroyed Hampton’s New York City apartment early this year draws notice to the fact that so far Hampton has transferred only some memorabilia to the university.
No inventory has yet been taken to determine what items of scholarly note were lost in the fire. But it appears the bulk of material destined for the university was not stored at Hampton’s apartment, says Lynn Skinner, music professor and jazz festival director.
As to when it will come to the UI, however, “There is always an urgency to try to get those things here to a safe location,” said Skinner. “But we’re dealing with someone else’s life here, and it has to be on someone else’s timetable.”
He said Hampton still is using at least some of the music he eventually will give to Idaho. But transferring the collection to the university definitely will be discussed when Hampton comes to Moscow for the 30th annual jazz festival in late February.
Skinner was responsible for enticing Hampton to the festival for the first time in 1984.
It was love at first sight between the jazz legend and the university, and the relationship has endured. Especially through the 1980s, when his health permitted, Hampton seemed to be everywhere at the festival. He was liable to pop up any time at clinics and competitions for young musicians.
Hampton appeared at press conferences, at social functions with university officials, performed himself nearly every evening of the festival and was a regular at late-night parties among musicians after the concerts.
Although his pace has slowed in recent years, his presence still infuses the jazz festival, and the regard in which he is held in the jazz community worldwide is the reason musicians from Russia, Japan and the great U.S. jazz performers regularly appear at Hampton’s festival in Idaho.
It has done wonders for the festival, said Skinner, making it among the largest in the world. This year there will be 650 entrants, ranging from junior high school to college, 120 more entrants than last year. Schools from as far away as Indiana, Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma and Saskatchewan will attend.
What Hampton’s presence has done for the festival, his collection can do for the music school’s academic reputation, the UI hopes.
“Many of the artists are excited about what’s happening,” said Skinner. Based on how the UI handles Hampton’s collection, other prominent jazz figures may leave work to the university. Leonard Feather, a jazz critic and essayist who died two years ago, already has done so.
“The collection is coming in by the loads,” said Skinner. “Leonard kept every article he’d ever written. There are thousands of CDs, books, letters, presidential awards, memorabilia.”
But so far, the collection simply is stored in the UI library. It is inaccessible for research, and that points up a problem the university will have in cataloging all such collections.
“We are going to have to do some fund raising,” Skinner acknowledged. “The goal will be to have an endowed amount of money to take care of these collections.” He has no estimate, though, how much money will be needed.
Skinner said the UI realizes the significance of Hampton’s collection and remains committed to securing it and to imposing a scholarly order upon all its jazz legacy. But it will be a daunting task.
The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival operates from a large room in the music school haphazardly fashioned into an office suite. In Skinner’s cubbyhole in this warren, a desk, keyboards, other musical instruments, a stereo, a computer, CDs, boxes and papers and a wall full of photos are compressed to the point it seems they nearly achieve critical mass. It is the center of a jazz vortex. It creates an impression of being overwhelmed by jazz.
“I’ve been in (Hampton’s) home two or three times,” says Skinner. “It looks like this.”