BASS LINE: The Stories and Photographs of Milt Hinton

Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988. First edition. Hardcover. Fine/Near fine. Foreword by Dan Morgenstern. 200 photographs by Milt Hinton, most previously unpublished. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988. First edition. 9¾" x 11"; 328 pp. An authentic memoir of a life in jazz by Milt "The Judge" Hinton, the "Dean of bass players" for his generation. Hinton played with Cab Calloway's orchestra from 1936 to 1951, as well as with other jazz greats including Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Benny Carter, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, and Billie Holiday. An extremely versatile performer, Hinton also worked in numerous television (truncated) orchestras, and studio recording sessions, becoming the most recorded jazz musician of all time according to the Jazz Discography. He began taking photographs in 1935 with a camera that he received as a birthday present, shooting more than 40,000 images over the course of his life of the performers and personalities that became his mentors, colleagues, and friends. An incomparable jazz archive, Hinton's photographs have been the subject of more than 30 exhibitions. Inscribed and dated in the year of publication by Milt Hinton to legendary jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, arranger, composer and bandleader Benny Carter (1907-2003) on the front flyleaf: "To Benny Carter: Dear Benny I humbly / thank you for all the encouragement and support / you've given me through the years. The entire music / world respects and loves you beginning with me / Milt "Judge" Hinton [small sketch of a bass] 88." Carter is mentioned numerous times in the text and appears in two of Hinton's photographs. A fine copy in a fine jacket with some moderate sunning along the spine. (Inventory #: 57997)