On September 11, 1939, Lionel Hampton spent an afternoon in RCA Victor's New York studio with a band no single label could have assembled on its own. His Victor deal let him call in players signed elsewhere and working for other leaders, and he used it: Benny Carter on alto, and behind him Coleman Hawkins, Chu Berry and Ben Webster — three of the most formidable tenor saxophonists alive — in one section. Charlie Christian, newly hired by Benny Goodman and still weeks away from his first studio date with him, sat in the rhythm section on guitar. The remaining horn belonged to a 21-year-old nobody had much reason to notice yet: Dizzy Gillespie, whose muted solo on “Hot Mallets” — one of four titles cut that day — is routinely described as the first modern-jazz solo on record. Hawkins made “Body and Soul” a month later. Chu Berry was dead in a car within two years.
Lionel Hampton at the Aquarium, New York, ca. June 1946 — seven years after the all-star Victor date he convened. (Photo: William P. Gottlieb, Library of Congress Gottlieb Collection, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Sources: The Complete Lionel Hampton Victor Sessions 1937–1941 — Mosaic Records (session personnel and titles) , “When Lights Are Low — Lionel Hampton All-Star Session, September 1939” — Keep (it) Swinging , “Hot Mallets” — Lionel Hampton and Orchestra, Victor 26371 (78rpm transfer, Internet Archive) , Dizzy Gillespie — Encyclopedia.com (the Hampton date as his first modern-style small-group recording) , Coleman Hawkins — Wikipedia (“Body and Soul,” October 11, 1939) , Chu Berry — Wikipedia (Cab Calloway years; death, October 30, 1941)
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