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Title: Get the spirit
Review: Hampton Hawes sounds cheerful and relaxed in his last recording session before going to federal prison for five years, doing a jazzification of some some spirituals with which he would have been familiar from his childhood as a minister's son. And he's in superb company. Bassist Leroy Vinnegar may have had his technical limitations, but few players on his instrument ever filled the sonic space of the bass with such unerring taste and unshakable swing. And drummer Stan Levey is a West Coast jazz legend, showing a different side to his personality by playing brushes mostly on this date, and even some bells on a rollicking, danceable "Jericho". A fine piano trio date that, unjustifiably, languished in Contemporary Records' vaults for 29 years.
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