On the 25th of November, the great jazz bandleader and drummer Chico Hamilton died at the age of 92. In addition to his various groups, he was also a composer, teacher, abettor of numerous up-and-coming players, and an all-around class-act. He left a large body of work behind to remember him by, but his greatest achievements on record were made with his Quintet of the 1950s.
It’s been a few years since I’ve watched it, but I can still vividly recall one of my favorite scenes from Jazz on a Summer’s Day, Bert Stern’s indispensible documentary covering the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. It occurs early in the film but seems to be happening around dusk, though the timeframe is ambiguous in large part due to the moment taking place not on the festival’s stage or in the audience but in the attic of a nearby house.
In that setting, Chico Hamilton, mallets in hand, rehearses on his drums in preparation for his Quintet’s appearance later that evening. I’m fairly certain a cigarette is clasped between his lips, though I wouldn’t wager anything substantial on that recollection. Without a shadow of a doubt though, Hamilton is practicing shirtless.
Stripping partially down was unquestionably just a common-sense maneuver, since even in tony Newport the attics get humid in the summertime. But it also provided a rare glimpse of a jazzman shaping his art in an everyday manner from deep inside the Great Commercial Era of Modern Jazz. It’s a period that’s become so idealized, mostly by folks born after its dissolution, with its great musicians so heroic, essentially because they defined and elevated a fascinating and incomparable epoch, that a very minor action like the taking off of clothes when hot can seem like a big deal.
Heroic perhaps, but ultimately as human as anybody, and when this fact hits home the worth of the 1950s jazz scene is only intensified. Later in Jazz on a Summer’s Day, the footage cuts to Hamilton on the bandstand with his group, the great Eric Dolphy amongst their number on flute, Stern’s cameras pointed at a variety of strategic angles with the most important focused directly on the drummer.
The film captures his intense, at times severe concentration as he delivers the cyclical rhythms of “Blue Sands,” one of the Quintet’s signature tunes. One sees not an angel gifted with brilliance from the musical gods and making it all look easy, but a man at work navigating the dangers of the complexities in his unit’s invention.
Having a bad night in a club was unfortunate but manageable. This, however, was Newport, and while the event was still a fledgling shindig, the ceremony that accompanied it was already apparent. Even though they’d played there before and were riding the tail-end of their popular peak, Hamilton knew full-well the cameras were documenting the Quintet as they brought the West Coast not just to the hard-bop turf of the East, but to the sail-boating milieu of upper-crust New England.
In terms of myth-breaking and raw humanity, the best jazz film I’ve encountered is Thomas Reichman’s 1968 verité doc Mingus, but the above snippets are nothing to sneeze at. They draw attention to and paint a complete human picture of a vastly important figure, and while his considerable fame shrunk as the music’s retail fortunes declined, Hamilton’s engagement with jazz continued until the end of his life.
While he’d studied with the great rhythm specialist Jo Jones (not to be confused with Philly Joe Jones), made his recording debut with that great jive-slinging hepcat Slim Gaillard, toured with Lionel Hampton, Charlie Barnet and Count Basie, and in 1946 landed the house-drummer spot at Los Angeles club Billy Berg’s, Hamilton’s first major gig began two years later when he commenced extensive live support behind vocalist Lena Horne.
But most important to his eventual long reign as a leader was his role in Gerry Mulligan’s original pianoless quartet of 1952, a group that famously included the trumpeter Chet Baker. With all due respect to Miles Davis’ cornerstone Birth of the Cool sessions, it was this combo that really kick-started West Coast Cool, and it was directly down to a combination of accessibility and experimentation.
The lack of the piano as an anchoring presence meant that bassist Bob Whitlock’s role increased dramatically, making it crucial that he be clearly heard. Thus, Hamilton’s execution needed to be much softer than usual, and this shift in implementation was a prime aspect in how the Mulligan band impacted one of the two main threads in ‘50’s jazz.
And that quieter sensibility encompassed a lot. Softer meant greater ease for audience engagement, but it also meant the attendees had to be quiet and listen. The playing was so strong that nobody complained, and furthermore it was so approachable that hardly anybody noticed the experimental nature; instead they just heard music.
As Cool Jazz surged in popularity largely on the shoulders of the young and handsome (and Caucasian) Baker, this amiable nature gained it a rep as the soundtrack to bachelor playboys and buxom starlets jetting to-and-fro in sleek convertibles on the Pacific Coast Highway. This isn’t a total fabrication, but it is greatly exaggerated, and nothing illustrates this better than an extensive dip into the work of Hamilton’s five-piece group.
The drummer’s debut as a leader actually came via trio with bassist George Duvivier and guitarist Howard Roberts in 1953, but shortly thereafter he assembled his Quintet, which was immediately notable for its intriguing instrumental complexion. Along with Hamilton on drums, there was Carson Smith on bass, the great Jim Hall on guitar, the now somewhat undersung Buddy Collette on saxophone, clarinet and flute, and most importantly, Fred Katz on cello.
While there’s never any doubt that Hamilton is in charge of the Quintet’s creative direction, in many ways it’s Katz that gives the band their distinct flavor, a sound that was unique even inside the realms of the Cool. The cellist was classically trained (he’d studied under Pablo Casals) and yet was adept enough at jazz that he could back-up and gain accolades from Horne (which is where he met Hamilton). And his playing was the largest part of why they came to be dubbed “chamber-jazz.”
This term was often employed as something other than a compliment. To be sure, the sound was miles away from hard-bop, but it’s also readily clear that what they were creating was, if wildly accessible, also serious music. Once in motion they recorded frequently, even appearing as performers in Alexander Mackendrick’s ’57 film classic Sweet Smell of Success, though Hall’s replacement on guitar John Pisano lost his spot in the movie to a fictional character.
Buddy Collette also left the band, with Paul Horn and then Dolphy stepping in and filling the void with no loss of momentum. In 1997, the peerless jazz reissue label Mosaic compiled a 6CD/9LP box set under the self-explanatory title The Complete Pacific Jazz Recordings of the Chico Hamilton Quintet. The music it contained, indeed everything made for Richard Bock’s high-profile label, underscores both Hamilton’s stature as a jazz great and the sheer vitality of this group throughout its existence.
Mosaic releases are smartly conceived, glorious-looking packages, but they are also limited editions, so the possibility of picking up one of these sets without dropping a hefty sack of coin is very unlikely. But much of music found here is widely available in some new or used physical format and also widely obtainable digitally, so getting to hear a great portion of this box’s contents isn’t as difficult as one might think.
It would take a book (or at least something comparable to Mosaic’s terrific accompanying liners) to do justice to the wealth of individual tracks herein, so a few broader impressions will follow instead. Yes, selecting one of the LPs (most temptingly ‘55’s outstanding The Chico Hamilton Quintet) that helps to shape this collection would have been a perfectly fine way to pay tribute to Hamilton and spotlight his music from this period, but as strong as the albums could be (and as sterling as the debut surely is), from my perspective the individual releases don’t really serve the group best.
Again, as easy-going as it all was (at least on the surface), this is still experimental music, using a different sense of spontaneity than the post-bop improvisational model, and because of this, the recordings benefit greatly from being heard across the span of sessions, shifts in personnel, and years. Frankly, not everything in the Quintet’s oeuvre wields the same level of effectiveness, which is the norm when you’re experimenting.
Some have complained that the music here is at times kitschy, but I don’t really agree. It is occasionally quite close to the climes of exotica, but unlike many, I don’t consider the best of that genre to be kitsch. And I rate this music as better than the best in exotica (yeah, even better than the best of Martin Denny), so there’s that gristle to chew on.
My ranking stems largely from their instrumental skill and the sweet and often gentle (though not genteel) sound they provide. Jack the volume way up on a Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet record, and the result will certainly still raise a little ruckus, and the gesture would be in no way improper. Doing the same to the majority of what’s in this box would simply be the act of a philistine.
Appropriateness of environment is a necessity here, and that fact extends to home listening. The sound of applause at the end of many of these cuts only emphasizes this fact; it’s indicative of an audience in the frame of mind of a concert hall, not a club date. Of course, this band could play in both, though they obviously attracted a different crowd than the post-boppers pulled in.
I cite the Brown/Roach group above for a reason, in part due to the wildly contrasting styles, but also because during the Quintet’s first New York engagement they were playing directly across the street from each other. In the notes to this box, it’s mentioned that Hamilton felt that much of the ‘50s Coastal jazz friction stemmed from just this situation. There’s no doubt that chamber-jazz rubbed many the wrong way, with quite a few hearing it as a slap in the face to form’s swing/blues imperative.
But these guys didn’t invent chamber-jazz. For starters, there was John Kirby’s band of ’38-‘41. Surely when Katz is in full bloom, especially on “Concerto Petite,” they completely exit the realm of gritty funk (and masculinity) that is long been associated with the East Coast sound. However, when the clarinet steps in, it can be remindful of Artie Shaw’s small groups, and that’s very choice, though I can’t imagine too many of the era’s hard-bop partisans felt the same way. If Katz basically turns “Concerto Petite” into longhair music, he could also be playful, and yes, he could swing. (Please see “Katz-Up” for proof.)
Sure, those with a complete aversion to flute in a jazz context might find a large portion of this box problematic. Then again, I once felt the same way. And to be clear, I still mostly do, but along with Dolphy and Roland Kirk and the use of the silver stick in the free jazz setting, I find the flute that’s here pretty easy to swallow.
And the instrument is played by Collette and Horn, but only on three tracks by Dolphy. Hamilton didn’t record exclusively for Pacific Jazz (for one example, the music for Sweet Smell of Success was issued by Decca, and their pseudonymous appearance on Ken Nordine’s first Word Jazz effort was made for the Dot label), so this is by no means everything the Quintet laid down on wax.
But this does hold a major chunk of their discography, and listening across the 18 sides of this baby, rather than becoming excessive, delivers a study in a form of jazz that unlike its main competitor really has no current equivalent. Also, it shows off their range very well. “Walking Carson Blues” (here twice, one reading sourced from the first LP and the other from a recovered live recording of the Quintet’s second lineup, with this version previously appearing only on a compilation) makes it plain they could play effectively in the style of the title, but also on their own terms.
Additionally, the takes of Ellington standards (I’m very fond of a ’55 live date’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Ain’t Got That Swing” and plum knocked-out by a ’56 “Caravan”) are just dandy and the early stuff as a whole hits the spot every time I hear it. On the downside, it’s true that the jazzing-up of the score to the musical South Pacific (capitalizing on the success of Shelley Manne and Andre Previn’s treatment of My Fair Lady) isn’t amongst my favorite parts of this box. If an experimenter, Hamilton also wasn’t averse to putting bread into his pocket and vittles on the table, for he did have a family to support.
Heard isolated, the South Pacific cuts are almost kind of a drag. But if played between the first LP in this set and last, that one featuring the ’59 Ellington Suite disc along with the three cuts with Dolphy, it becomes apparent how little their creative fertility dropped across their run. That’s ultimately chalked up to Hamilton of course. Not only was he a fantastic drummer (his playing on “Blue Sands” alone lands him in my personal canon), but maybe his strongest characteristic was his ear.
He could recognize a great tune, quickly ascertain vital players on the rise (along with Dolphy, there’s Charles Lloyd and Larry Coryell), and understood what would and wouldn’t work under his ensemble’s unusual makeup. Along with the trio of Jimmy Giuffre (which Hall left Hamilton to join), the music here gives proof (if one still somehow requires it) to just how deep and varied the West Coast scene actually was. Giuffre’s band specialized in a type of folk-jazz, while Hamilton’s remained fairly close to that chamber template, but the two styles remain quite complimentary.
This box is a massive dose of the man and his group at the absolute top of their game. Investing in it is not recommended for those with a casual interest in jazz, but for anybody that desires a firm knowledge of the music of this era, seeking out the core components of this set in some form is a must. Chico Hamilton might not be a household name, but it’s musicians like him who provide jazz with its eternal kick. That he lived to 92 years of age cheers me deeply. Knowing that his music will survive for much longer makes me even happier.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
