Milt Hinton; Bassist Played With and Photographed Jazz Greats

Milt Hinton, a jazz bassist known for a big, rich tone and an unerring sense of rhythmic timing, and who also utilized a flair for photography to capture his colleagues at work throughout his 70-year career, died Tuesday at a hospital in New York’s Queens after a long illness. He was 90.

A gifted musician who played with many of the greats of jazz and pop--including Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, John Coltrane, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand Paul McCartney--Hinton doubled as a skilled photographer. Many images from his archive of nearly 60,000 negatives depicting hundreds of performers on the road or in the studio, in good times and bad, have been exhibited around the world. He was the author of two well-received books, “Bass Line: The Stories and Photographs of Milt Hinton” and “Overtime: The Jazz Photographs of Milt Hinton.”

Indeed, he may be remembered as much for his contributions in documenting the jazz life as for the exceptional music he made in more than 1,000 recordings, both under his own name and with other artists.

Born in Vicksburg, Miss., Hinton was 3 months old when his parents separated. At 8, he was exposed firsthand to the terrifying racism in early 20th century America when he witnessed a lynching near his Mississippi home.

His family moved to Chicago and his musical education began there with private violin instruction and a goal of playing for silent films in movie houses. The advent of talking pictures, however, brought the realization that the days of the violin player accompanying silents in movie theater orchestras were about over. He switched to bass horn, then tuba, cello and eventually bass.

As a freelance musician in Chicago in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Hinton worked with such artists as Art Tatum, Jabbo Smith, Zutty Singleton and Fate Marable.

Hinton got his big break in 1936 when the legendary orchestra leader Calloway, in need of a bassist after losing his to a Hollywood studio orchestra, hired the young musician temporarily. Calloway planned to replace Hinton with a “real” bassist once the tour moved from Chicago to New York, but Hinton proved his worth and stayed with the orchestra until the early 1950s.

During his time with Calloway, Hinton was featured on dozens of recordings with Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Coleman Hawkins and Billie Holiday, among others.

After leaving Calloway, Hinton based himself in New York and, with the help of comedian Jackie Gleason, found work as a studio musician, becoming one of the first black players hired in what until then had been a rigorously segregated industry.

Hinton was always well prepared and reliable when performing in a session. Once, when Hinton and Ellis Larkins--Ella Fitzgerald’s longtime accompanist--were hired for a session backing up another singer, a producer booked a three-hour block of time. But, as the story, went, Hinton and Larkins were so on target that they finished five tunes in the first 90 minutes. The producer simply sent them home early.

Besides getting steady session work, Hinton performed on television programs with such performers as Mitch Miller and Judy Garland. He was part of Dick Cavett’s studio band and taught music at Hunter College in New York City.

His photography career started in the mid-1930s after a friend gave him a camera. Over the years, Hinton photographed a panoply of performers in a variety of settings, including clubs, buses during road trips, parties and their own homes.

Many of the images are more than lighthearted fare, however. One sequence of Hinton’s--shot during the recording of “Lady in Satin,” Holiday’s last Columbia recording--shows the great vocalist’s pained expression as she listens to the playback of her voice with the full realization that years of drug and alcohol abuse had taken their toll.

“They didn’t let photographers into those studio sessions, but I was able to take photos because I was playing there,” Hinton once told a reporter. “I took them on breaks. I always used black and white film. I never used a flash. The photos show the way musicians see each other. You look at the pictures, and you can hear the music.”

His photographs were exhibited in the Denver Art Museum, the Detroit Historical Society, the Smithsonian Institution and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

Hinton is survived by his wife, Mona, a daughter and a granddaughter. Funeral arrangements are pending.