Chico Hamilton 1921-2013

I just read another of those bits of news you never want to hear. Drummer Chico Hamilton has just passed away at the age of 92.

Hamilton was a Los Angeles native who came up in that city's 1940's jazz scene.  As a leader in the 1950's he led a quintet that became emblematic of the West Coast "cool" scene, using guitar, flute and cello to create a dreamy, exotic texture unlike anything else at the time. His work would evolve over the years as he absorbed the sounds of hard bop, jazz-rock and funk into later groups.  He was one of those bandleaders who brought an astonishing amount of talent to attention.  Buddy Collette, Jim Hall, John Pisano, Fred Katz, Eric Dolphy, Gabor Sazbo, Larry Coryell, Charles Lloyd, Arthur Blythe and Eric Persson are just some of the musicians he worked with early in their careers. Lloyd's classic "Forest Flower" was first heard on Hamilton's Man from Two Worlds album.

Here is Hamilton's quintet at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival with Eric Dolphy on flute playing "Blue Sands" in an excerpt from the classic film Jazz on a Summer's Day:

Joe Morello

A couple of days ago I heard that drummer Joe Morello had just died. Shame on me because I thought he had passed years ago.  Morello is best known for his many years drumming with the classic Dave Brubeck quartet and as such he is responsible for one of my all time favorite bits of music, the introduction and drum solo in "Take Five", a strutting snap and thump that still makes me catch my breath every time I hear it.  This is a live version of it from Ralph Gleason's old Jazz Casual with Morello snapping his wrists like they were made out of rubber and Paul Desmond wailing like a snake charmer.




Also here is a dance number from some ancient TV show done to the original recording of Brubeck's "Unsquare Dance" with another classic Morello bit.

The Subject Is Cool Jazz

An intelligent and hip program about jazz on a major American television network? It sounds like the stuff of fantasy today but back in the 1950s, it was possible. Case in point: "The Subject Is Jazz", a 13 week show that ran on Sundays on NBC back in 1958. JazzVideoGuy has posted parts of the show on YouTube and they are great fun, critic Gilbert Seldes discussing various subgenres in the music which are then demonstrated by a band that includes Billy Taylor, show's musical director, on piano, Mundell Lowe on guitar, Ed Safranski on bass and Ed Thigpen. This excerpt is the fisrt half od a show on cool jazz with added musical guests Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh and Don Elliott. Even PBS would never do a show like this today. Heck they probably would never rerun this one.