"The Lionel Hampton Quartet" - Lionel Hampton (vib); Oscar Peterson (p); Ray Brown (b); Buddy Rich (dr) They were known as The Perfect Quartet! And it wasn’t just their producer Norman Granz, surely not unbiased as to the greatness of his jazz musicians, who called them so. So it was only logical to put this Super-Quartet together. Just as the start of his career, the great Oscar Peterson was eager to show off all that he had learned from copying and listening to his maestro Art Tatum; Ray Brown provided swing and bop which he had perfected in Dizzy Gillespie’s big bands; Buddy Rich, billed as 'the world’s greatest drummer', could lend impetus to simply any band; and the grandmaster of the sticks, known as 'The Hamp', could hammer away at the vibraphone just as Benny Goodman before him – full of verve and swing, rhythmic and melodic, ecstatic and sensitive. This release on the Clef label, with a fitting cover by David Stone Martin, contains four numbers: two from the Quartet’s first session, and two from the second six months later. All four are an ideal starting point for lengthy improvisations much in the style of the Jazz At The Philharmonic idea, but without winds, just with a rhythm group. Nevertheless, not a single second is dull or boring, and if you were sitting in the audience at the concert you’d be crying out »more, more, more!«. The lucky person with this re-release in his collection just needs to turn the LP over and set the needle down on the groove for more, more, more! Recording: September 1953 and April 1954 in New York City Production: Norman Granz