Homecoming Vibes

Lionel Hampton came flying home this weekend.

The king of the vibraphone, who got his start playing in the nightclubs of South-Central Los Angeles in the 1930s, traveled from New York to perform at Washington Preparatory High School alongside the top high school jazz students in the region.

For weeks the young musicians had been studying Hampton’s signature song, “Flying Home,” which he made famous with clarinetist Benny Goodman.

“This is real cool,” said Lorenzo Armstrong, 18, who plays trumpet in the award-winning Washington Prep Jazz Band. “It’s exciting to play with one of the legends.”

The 88-year-old musician’s only appearance in Southern California in years, the special performance was coordinated by Lloyd Rucker, a Los Angeles-based jazz photographer who wanted the young people of South Los Angeles to have the opportunity to meet a jazz legend and hear him play.

“This show is to give them pride and teach them their heritage,” Rucker said.

The photographer was inspired to do something special for the Washington Prep jazz musicians after their band room, with most of their instruments still in it, burned down on the night before the citywide marching band championships late last year.

With borrowed instruments, the band competed and went on to take first place.

“When I saw them, I saw how great they were. I figured I could get someone to give them $20,000 or $30,000,” Rucker said. “But that’s already been done. I wanted to give them something that would stay with them, something that they would be involved in.”

Rucker telephoned Hampton, who lives in New York, asking him to play for the youngsters. “I asked him to fly out here,” Rucker said, “and the only thing he said was, ‘What’s the date?’ ”

Hampton told Rucker, “Tell them I’m playing just for them,” Rucker recalled. Hampton did not receive any pay for the concert, Rucker said, and has no plans to perform at any other venues during this visit to Los Angeles.

“I just said, ‘Thank you.’ ”

At a Saturday rehearsal, Hampton said he decided to do this concert because, “we’ve got to keep fresh ones in, all the time.” When asked what he hoped the young people would take away from the experience, he simply said, “Take away jazz.”

Hampton played two songs with the Washington Prep ensemble Sunday, “Flying Home,” and “Hamp’s Boogie-Woogie.”

Band director Fernando Pullum said he did not have the sheet music for the second song, so the students learned the piece by listening to a recording.

“We had to figure out the parts,” said Keschia Potter, 17, a alto sax player. “It was fun, actually.”

Hampton said he was impressed with the young musicians.

“They are going to be a good band,” he said, nodding approvingly. “They are all good readers [of music].”

At Sunday’s concert, the auditorium was only about one-third filled, but the crowd was enthusiastic, cheering wildly at times. “I hope they take away a memory that they can pass on through the generations of their families,” said Pullum. “That they take out a history book with their grandchildren and say, ‘I played with him.’ I think that would be something special.”

Bands from Crenshaw and Freemont as well as a multi-school band also performed at the tribute.

Through the concert, Rucker wanted to make young people aware of South-Central Los Angeles’ rich musical history and the great figures it has produced.

“To me, this is saying you can be proud even though you live in South-Central. My main goal that I’ve dreamed might happen is that every resident in South Los Angeles who has the talent to play music has that chance. . . . All that talent is going to waste and walking up and down the streets. We have to stop this stuff.

“People like Lionel are the dinosaurs. I wish we could go to a zoo and look at a dinosaur. You’ll never see this again. Duke. Benny. They are all gone. Lionel is one of the last.”

The experience seemed to touch many of the young musicians.

“I’m really excited to actually be sitting up onstage with a jazz legend like Lionel Hampton,” said Aaron Johnson, 17, a tenor sax player.

The show was billed as “Lionel Hampton Flying Home.” In a sense, that’s what the concert was all about.

Hampton was “discovered” in 1930 by Louis Armstrong while playing drums in a backup band for him in a Culver City nightclub. At a recording session, Armstrong saw a set of vibes sitting in a corner and asked Hampton if he knew how to play them. The result marked the first time the vibraphone was used as a major instrument in a recording.

In 1936, Benny Goodman heard Hampton play at a Central Avenue club and asked him to join his band to form the Benny Goodman Quartet, the first racially integrated jazz band.

“This is the guy who invented jazz vibraphone,” said Ken Borgers, morning programming director of jazz station KLON and master of ceremonies for the concert. “The roots of R&B; are to be found in his music. . . . It was rock ‘n’ roll before there was rock ‘n’roll. I think that’s what young people will see in it.”