Flying Home

Hampton conceived the melody while playing in the Benny Goodman band. While waiting for a plane to travel from Los Angeles to Atlantic City, on what would be Hampton's first flight, he began whistling a tune to relieve his nerves. Goodman asked for the tune's name and Hampton replied; "I don't know. We can call it 'Flying Home,' I guess." The Goodman Quartet played it for the first time that evening, and later recorded the first version of the full song, with a guitar solo by Charlie Christian. Hampton subsequently adopted the song as his musical signature.{{cite web |last1=Rickert |first1=David |title=Lionel Hampton: "Flying Home" |url=https://www.allaboutjazz.com/lionel-hampton-flying-home-lionel-hampton-by-david-rickert.php |website=All About Jazz |accessdate=31 July 2017 |date=22 August 2005}}{{cite book |last1=Hampton |first1=Lionel |last2=Haskins |first2=James |title=Hamp: An Autobiography |publisher=Robson Books |year=1989 |pages=68 }}

Other musicians on the original recording were Fletcher Henderson on piano, Artie Bernstein on bass and Nick Fatool on drums.

It was first recorded by the Benny Goodman Sextet on November 6, 1939, featuring solos by Hampton and Charlie Christian. Several other groups recorded the tune:

• Charlie Barnet and His Orchestra recorded the song on May 8, 1940, released on Bluebird Records B-10794 as the B-side of "Tangleweed 'Round My Heart".
• In 1942, Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra recorded the song with an epic-length tenor saxophone solo by nineteen-year-old Illinois Jacquet. The song became the climax for live shows, with Jacquet expected to repeat his famous solo, note-by-note.
• Singer Chris Connor recorded the song for Atlantic Records and released it as a single in 1959.
• Harry James recorded a version in 1965 on his album New Versions of Down Beat Favorites (MGM).
• Ella Fitzgerald recorded a seven-minute-plus version for the album Digital III at Montreux (1979). Lullabies of Birdland includes another version by Fitzgerald that The New York Times called "one of the most influential vocal jazz records of the decade... Where other singers, most notably Louis Armstrong, had tried similar improvisation, no one before Miss Fitzgerald employed the technique with such dazzling inventiveness."{{cite web|last1=Holden|first1=Stephen|title=Ella Fitzgerald, the Voice of Jazz, Dies at 79|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/16/nyregion/ella-fitzgerald-the-voice-of-jazz-dies-at-79.html?mcubz=2|website=The New York Times|accessdate=22 February 2014|date=16 June 1996}}

• "Flying Home" is mentioned in The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) and a Lindy Hop dance arrangement is featured in the film Malcolm X (1992).
• In 1996, it won a Grammy Hall of Fame Award.{{Cite web|url=https://www.grammy.com/grammys/awards/hall-of-fame|title = GRAMMY Hall of Fame|date = 18 October 2010}}
• Ralph Ellison named a short story (1944) after the song that became the title of a posthumous collection.{{cite book|last1=Ellison|title=Flying home and other stories|date=1998|publisher=Vintage Books|location=New York|isbn=9780679776611|edition=1st Vintage International|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/flyinghomeothers00elli_0}}
• Flying Home (1978) is the title of a novel by Morris Lurie who uses references to jazz in his stories.{{cite book|last1=Lurie|first1=Morris|title=Flying home|date=1978|publisher=Outback Press|location=Victoria|isbn=9780868880594}}

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Category:1939 songs

Category:1942 songs

Category:Jazz compositions

Category:Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients

Category:Benny Goodman songs