Milt Hinton born June 23, 1910

Milton John Hinton (June 23, 1910 – December 19, 2000) was an American double bassist and photographer. Regarded as the Dean of American jazz bass players, his nicknames included "Sporty" from his years in Chicago, "Fump" from his time on the road with Cab Calloway, and "The Judge" from the 1950s and beyond. Hinton's recording career lasted over 60 years, mostly in jazz but also with a variety of other genres as a prolific session musician. He was also a photographer of note, praised for documenting American jazz during the 20th Century.

Hinton was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, United States, the only child of Hilda Gertrude Robinson, and Milton Dixon Hinton. He was three-months-old when his father left the family. He grew up in a home with his mother, his maternal grandmother and two of his mother's sisters. At the age of eight, the youngster witnessed a lynching, an event that would remain an indelible memory. Soon afterwards, the family left for Chicago, part of African America's great migration northward. Hinton took violin lessons but, before turning professional, spent a short period involved with Al Capone's booze racketeering. He took up the bass and worked with the city's top leaders, including Boyd Atkins, Tiny Parham, Eddie South, Jabbo Smith, Erskine Tate, Zutty Singleton, and Fate Marable.

Milt with Cab Calloway

In 1935, he joined the prestigious Cab Calloway Orchestra, where with his full tone and tremendous drive became a mainstay of the band's rhythm section. He remained with the band for 26 years. Singing hits such as Minnie The Moocher, Calloway was a popular entertainer who hired the best musicians and worked at the celebrated Cotton Club. Leading his trombones was Keg Johnson, who got Hinton the job and encouraged his early interest in photography, teaching him darkroom procedures while they were on the road and introducing him to Leica cameras. Throughout his Calloway days, Hinton carried a camera in his pocket. He documented the joys and rigours of the travelling life and, in the south, the indignities of segregation. These latter images, depicting eminent jazzmen standing beside "Colored Only" signs, retain an ability to shock, although to Hinton and his colleagues, they were snapshots, made for amusement rather than as political statement.

                                  

When Calloway disbanded in 1951, Hinton worked as a freelance in New York, and was soon one of the most sought-after jazz musicians. He played with, anong others, Count Basie and Louis Armstrong's All Stars until a chance meeting with Jackie Gleason changed his life for ever. He knew Gleason, then a television personality, from his days as a nightclub comedian, and it was he who arranged immediately for the bassist to be hired for a record date. There, he was acknowledged by the regulars, all of them white. For Hinton, this recognition went deeper than individual satisfaction, for de facto segregation still kept African Americans out of the studios and the best-paid musical work. He, together with trumpeter Joe Wilder, pioneered the breakthrough. In a musicians' community politicised by the civil rights struggle, he was admired for his diplomatic savvy and respected for his racial politics and demeanour.

Hinton's jazz recordings alone run into the thousands but, by the end of the 1950s, he had become a ubiquitous figure in the commercial studios. To refuse work in such a competitive field was unwise, so he worked around the clock - keeping an instrument at each major studio. Meanwhile, he became an integral part of rock 'n' roll, laying down the beat behind countless hit records. Some of his most notable commercial work involved other eminent jazzmen, and a quartet in which he played with pianist Hank Jones, drummer Osie Johnson and guitarist Barry Galbraith became known, unofficially, as the New York Rhythm Section. In constant demand, Hinton backed singers as diverse as Paul Anka and Jackie Wilson, and was nicknamed "Judge" because of the standard he set.

Milt with Duke Ellington

Harmonic experiments in the 1940s with Dizzy Gillespie made him a forerunner of modern jazz bass players and, later, during the generational consolidation inspired by the black politics of the 1960s, he was among the elder statesmen welcomed on to the bandstand by the most avant-garde of young musicians. In 1970s, he played in the New York Bass Choir, where his presence lent majesty to explorations uniting Ron Carter, Richard Davis, Sam Jones and others. Hinton also taught at Hunter College, CUNY and undertook a few overseas tours and was a member of the band that accompanied Bing Crosby on his final trip to Europe.

For years, Hinton's photography was an insider's secret. Shooting at recording sessions during playbacks and breaks, he provided valuable insight into the priorities of fellow artists. Yet while a poignant image of Billie Holiday at her last session became known, it was not until David Berger, at Temple University, Philadelphia, began cataloguing Hinton's vast collection that the value of his enterprise was revealed. Following the publication of the two books, Bass Line (1988) and Over Time (1991), photographic requests poured in. Hinton was revitalised by this unexpected interest.

Mona & Milt

In 1939 when Hinton returned to Chicago for his grandmother's funeral, he met Mona Clayton, who was then singing in his mother's church choir. The two were married a few years later and remained inseparable for the rest of Milt's life. They had married in the Calloway days, and she played an important role in organising his hectic life. During Art Kane's 1958 Esquire session that produced a famous photograph of 57 musicians on a Harlem doorstep, it was Mona who shot movie footage, and this, with Hinton's own stills, contributed to A Great Day In Harlem (1994), the award-winning movie about that day.

In 1990 George Wein produced a concert as a part of the JVC Jazz Festival in honour of Hinton's 80th birthday. Similar concerts were produced for his 85th and 90th birthdays. By 1996, he ceased performing on bass, due to a number of physical ailments, and he died in Queens, New York, at the age of 90 on December 19, 2000.

Edited from The Guardian obit, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz & Wikipedia)