Jazz Star Hines Shines At Berkeley Library

1929 Poster By Dennis Loren

Earl “Fatha” Hines, a giant of American popular music, and a man instrumental in the careers of Louis Armstrong, Art Tatum, Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughn, Nat King Cole, and more, will continue to promote the art of jazz for generations to come thanks to a magnificent endowment to the University of California-Berkeley. The bulk of Mr. Hines’ estate, including personal papers, musical compositions and charts, memorabilia, and a bequest of nearly $300,000, has been given to the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library as the cornerstone of a new Archive of African American Music.

A brilliant keyboard virtuoso, Hines was one of the most innovative piano soloists ever to grace the jazz world. Fellow piano great Teddy Wilson expressed his admiration for Hines’ flawless technique: “What always impressed me about Earl was that, no matter how loudly he played, he never lost his touch; he never really banged the piano. He would always come at the keyboard and play each note with complete control and intention, no matter how loud. Hines never lost his touch, although he could carry the volume up to the point where he might break a string on the piano.”

Earl Hines At The Piano

Hines always claimed to have been born in 1905, but most jazz historians believe the correct date to be 1903. He grew up in Pittsburgh in a musical family. His father played coronet in a brass band, and his stepmother was a church organist. He began playing coronet at age eight, but after blowing gave him headaches, he switched to piano. He intended to play classical piano until he heard a jazz band at age 15. Falling in love with the new music, he quit school at 16 to play full time in Pittsburgh clubs.

In 1926, following the advice of pianist Eubie Blake, Hines moved to Chicago. There he met Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, and Benny Goodman, and other greats who were changing the face of jazz. In 1927 he teamed up with Armstrong and Zutty Singleton, and the trio became the house band at The Cafe Sunset. Within a year, Hines was branching out to form his own big band.

October 8, 1932 Advertisement From The Chicago Defender.

On December 28, 1928, his birthday, Hines debuted as the leader of his own orchestra at the Grand Terrace Ballroom. “The Grand Terrace was The Cotton Club of Chicago,” Hines said, “and we were a show band as much as a dance band and a jazz band.” Hines and his orchestra played seven days a week, three shows a night, for an audience filled with celebrities, high rollers, and gangsters. (The Grand Terrace Ballroom was co-owned by Al Capone.) The Chicago shows became so popular they were broadcast on radio nationwide, a first for an orchestra of African American musicians.

Hines and his orchestra also made history by being among the first African American musicians to book dates in the Jim Crow South. Hines told his friend, writer James Baldwin, of just one of the many indignities suffered by the touring orchestra: “When we traveled by train through the South, they would send a porter back to our car to let us know when the dining room was cleared, and then we would all go in together. We couldn’t eat when we wanted to. We had to eat when they were ready for us.”

Souvenir Program From A 1957 Tour in Great Britain.

Throughout the 1940’s, Hines led his own big band. Billy Eckstine became popular as the band’s singer, and in 1943 both Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were among his musicians. In 1946 Hines was injured in an automobile accident, and was forced to cut back on his touring. By 1948 the big band era was at an end, and Hines reverted to sideman status with Louis Armstrong. With Armstrong’s All Stars he toured Europe in 1948-49, and was featured at the 1948 Nice Jazz Festival. In 1951 Hines left Armstrong to work in a number of smaller settings.

Earl Hines, James H. “Jimmy” Archey, Francis Joseph “Muggsy” Spanier, Earl Watkins, 1958. (Photo by Dennis Stock.)

Eventually relocating to San Francisco, Hines played regularly at the Hangover Club, one of the last of the traditional jazz joints. In 1963 he opened his own club in Oakland, but the venture failed. Then in 1964 he booked a series of dates at the Little Theatre in New York. The engagement was a critical sensation. (The New York Times critic raved: “What is there left to hear after you’ve heard Earl Hines?”) Down Beat subsequently named Hines the world’s “No 1 Jazz Pianist.”

From the time he was 17 until a week before his death at age 77, Earl “Fatha” Hines never stopped making records. In 1974 alone, when he was at least 70, he cut an astounding 16 albums. He became legendary for his ability to enter the studio and record an entire, finished solo LP in 90 minutes. And that 90 minute session included “discussion time” with the engineer over coffee and a double brandy. He never did a retake unless he was inspired to try a tune “some other way,” and transform it completely.

One of Hines’ Hundreds of LP Recordings.

Hines was invited to be a Regents’ Lecturer in music at the University of California,Berkeley in 1979. This reignited his interest in education, and he stipulated that part of his estate be dedicated to providing free music instruction to talented low income students. The monetary portion of his bequest will benefit students in the University’s Young Musicians Program. His papers, musical compositions and memorabilia will benefit scholars of African American culture in general, and jazz in particular.

Earl Hines In Milan, 1967. (Photo by Roberto Polillo.)

This positive and productive legacy is perfectly suited to the character of the great musician. He earned the nickname “Fatha” due to a habit of giving “fatherly” advice to those he felt over-indulged in alcohol. And one of the proudest moments of Earl Hines’ extaordinary life came at a gala in his honor, when the Managing Editor of The San Francisco Chronicle, Scott Newhall, presented him with a Steinway grand piano. A plaque on the custom made instrument saluted not just the musician but the man: “Presented by jazz lovers from all over the world. This piano is the only one of its kind in the world and expresses the great genius of a man who has never played a melancholy note in his lifetime on a planet that has often succumbed to despair.”

Of Related Interest: The Beat Of The Bullet, The Rhythm Of The Book.

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