Love Quote by Lionel Hampton

"I think I love it more as I get older because I keep getting better on drums, vibes and piano"

Lionel Hampton, Musician

About this Quote

Aging is supposed to be the slow fade-out; Lionel Hampton flips it into a volume knob. The line is disarmingly plain, almost conversational, but it carries a musician's heresy against the usual nostalgia economy: he is not loving music because it reminds him of who he was. He loves it more because he's still getting good.

Hampton's specific intent is practical and proud. He ties affection to ability, insisting that love is something you can earn through craft, not just feel through memory. The subtext is a rebuke to the romantic myth of jazz as pure inspiration. For a bandleader who helped define swing's athletic joy - and who moved between drums, vibes, and piano with showman's ease - improvement isn't a private victory; it's an ethical stance. Keep practicing. Keep listening. Keep your hands honest.

Context matters: Hampton came up in a world where jazz was both cutting-edge art and hard labor, a nightly test in ballrooms, on the road, under the pressure of tight arrangements and wilder solos. In that ecosystem, "getting better" isn't motivational poster talk. It's survival. It's staying employable, staying interesting, staying in conversation with younger players who arrive hungrier and faster.

The quote works because it refuses sentimentality while still being deeply emotional. His love grows as the instrument opens up, and the instrument opens up as his discipline deepens. It's an older artist claiming a rare kind of optimism: time can subtract things, but it can also sharpen them.

Quote Details

Topic	Music
Source	Verified source: Modern Drummer: Lionel Hampton interview (Lionel Hampton, 1988) Text match: 100.00% Provider: Cross-Reference Evidence: I think I love it more as I get older because I keep getting better on drums, vibes and piano. (December 1988 issue; exact page not verified from accessible primary scan). The strongest primary-source lead is a 1988 Modern Drummer interview/profile with Lionel Hampton by Burt Korall. A later Percussive Arts Society/Hall of Fame biography explicitly attributes the quote to Hampton telling Modern Drummer writer Burt Korall in 1988, and reproduces a longer passage: “Playing is my way of thinking, talking, communicating,” Hampton told Modern Drummer magazine writer Burt Korall in 1988. “I’ve always been crazy about playing. Every day I look forward to getting with my instruments, trying new things. Playing gives me as much good feeling now as it did when I was a bitty kid. I think I love it more as I get older because I keep getting better on drums, vibes and piano.” Modern Drummer’s archive page confirms there was a Lionel Hampton item in the December 1988 issue (Volume 12, Number 12). I did not find evidence that the quote first appeared earlier in a book, speech, lyric, or memoir. So the best-supported original publication is the 1988 Modern Drummer interview/article, but the exact first-publication page number remains unverified without the full issue scan.
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