Slide Hampton began playing the trombone at the age of 12 for a simple reason: his Dad needed a trombonist for the family band.

"My sister said, ‘You're going to play trombone, your name is going to be Slide, and you're going to have to learn to live with it,'" says Hampton by telephone from his home in East Orange, New Jersey. "I couldn't reach seventh position. It still isn't easy; most guys have a problem with seventh position."

Whether he could reach seventh position or not, Hampton grew up to be one of the greatest trombonists and arrangers in jazz. He'll be headlining at Kilbourn Hall, and will also be part of Rochester Jazz @ the Philharmonic Celebrating the Jam Session at the Rochester International Jazz Festival's Eastman Theatre series.

Based in Indianapolis, The Hampton Band included the entire family: his mom and dad, all six brothers and four sisters, and an occasional relative or friend sitting in.

It was the early 1940's and the band was playing music by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and others. When the swing period came in, the repertoire grew to include charts by Count Basie, Stan Kenton, and Glenn Miller.

The Hampton family was no relation to Lionel Hampton, but when the band hit the big time, playing a concert at Carnegie Hall in the early 1950's, the group shared the bill with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra.

"After the Carnegie Hall concert, I got the bug for living in New York," says Hampton. "I wanted to leave home; my family wanted to stay in Indianapolis."

He got his chance when he joined Buddy Johnson's band and headed back to the excitement of New York. "It was too exciting in some cases," Hampton says. "It was overwhelming. I was around musicians that were much better than I was."

New York was pretty well integrated by then. But when the band left to play Washington D.C. and points south, segregation was still strong. The band played dances with whites on one side and African Americans on the other. This was even the case when Hampton joined the mixed band led by Maynard Ferguson.

"Being young, we didn't really understand," says Hampton. "Things like that weren't really important. We were focused on what we were doing musically and not spending too much energy on those things that didn't make any sense anyway."

In Ferguson's band Hampton began to arrange music, a rare talent that seems to be unusually common among trombonists.

"It probably has a little to do with the fact that trombones are sitting right in the middle of the ensemble," says Hampton. "They hear everything: the saxophones, the trumpets, the trombones, and the rhythm section.

"Also, trombone wasn't considered a solo instrument on the same level as the other instruments, so it was felt they should do something else along with playing their instrument so they would have employment," he says.

In keeping with his sense of humor, Hampton's first arrangement was called "Slide's Derrangement." He enjoyed writing for Ferguson, a trumpeter whose high notes touched the sky.

"The thing that was most impressive about writing for Maynard was that he could play anything that you wrote. He could read anything and the guys in the band were the same way."

Over the next couple of decades Hampton worked with the top names in jazz, including a stint with Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers. Each new gig upped the ante on his playing.

"That was one of my best experiences, and one of my most intimidating, because when I joined the band it was McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson, a young bass player named Junior Booth, Bill Hartman, and Art. So it was a band that would really put you under pressure," he says.

It was not an easy group to write for, either.

"Before I joined, they had all that great music written by Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, and Curtis Fuller. That wasn't easy to come up to."

Hampton's collaborations with legends didn't stop there. He was in Dizzy Gillespie's band when it boasted Lee Morgan, Benny Golson, Wynton Kelly, and Charles Persip. "Dizzy's chops were really up, and he just played fantastic," he says.

And he got to play in the eclectic ensembles of Charles Mingus. "He wasn't playing any more, he was just writing. He always had a different idea about what an ensemble should be: maybe three bass violins, two drummers, two pianos, a couple of trombones, five trumpets. He was a very advanced writer," Hampton says.

Then, in 1968, Hampton went with Woody Herman to England on a two-week tour.

"I found the conditions so wonderful in Europe, and they treated the musicians with such respect, that I stayed for seven years."

Hampton lived in Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam, playing often with other expatriate musicians including Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, and Art Farmer.

In terms of the trombone, Hampton was influenced by all of the greats: Trummy Young, Herbie Green, Dick Dickson, Benny Green, "and the guys that put the trombone on the map as a solo instrument, J.J. Johnson and Curtis Fuller," he says.

He loves the range of the instrument. "It can be so guttural, and it can be so sweet and beautiful," says Hampton. "In the swing period, most of the music written for trombone was like circus music, marches. Then players like Fred Beckett, Herbie Green, and J. J. Johnson came along and started to show the beautiful side of the trombone."

The beautiful side is amply on display on his new CD, "Slide Plays Jobim," an album he arranged with a Brazilian rhythm section. Hampton fell in love with Antonio Carlos Jobim's music four decades ago.

"When I lived in Paris I used to listen to it all day and all night, and it seemed to make the whole day beautiful," says Hampton. " I just loved the feeling it created. I loved it for years before I ever tried to play one song. That music created such a wonderful atmosphere."

It's a safe bet that Jobim's music will be part of the repertoire at the RIJF. Hampton says he may also play some of the new music he's written honoring Nelson Mandela, Oprah Winfrey, and Venus and Serena Williams. 

Slide Hampton

Kilbourn Hall, 26 Gibbs St.

Tuesday, June 17

6 & 10 p.m. | $25, or Club Pass | 232-1900, rochesterjazz.com