One of the forces in West Coast jazz circles, even from his neophyte days of the late Forties, was Hampton Hawes. When he played with the coolsters in the early Fifties he fit in stylistically but also supplied some of the needed heat in both his rhythmic comping and solos.
After Army service, when he returned to Los Angeles in 1955, he eventually formed a trio with bassist Red Mitchell and drummer Chuck Thompson. It meshed as cohesively as any threesome in jazz, presenting a dynamic in which Hawes's tremendous blues feeling and powerful articulation melded perfectly with Mitchell's sensitive accompaniment and brilliant solo abilities and Thompson's unrelenting concern for ensemble propulsion.

with Red Mitchell, Chuck Thompson