Jazz Articles about Chico Hamilton
Chico Hamilton: The Master
by Maxwell Chandler
In celebration of Chico Hamilton's 100th birthday today (September 20, 1921--November 26, 2013). This interview first appeared at All About Jazz in October 2007. An educator, performer, film score composer/actor, drummer and bandleader, National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master (2004) and Kennedy Center Living Jazz Master Chico Hamilton is still going strong. His always compelling music defies genre and manages to reach new audiences through works like the newly restored Original Ellington Suite (Blue Note, 2000) and ...
read moreChico Hamilton: The Dealer
by Zachary Weg
Although it came out in 1966, Chico Hamilton's The Dealer (Impulse! Records) still sounds as fresh as Long Beach mist. Leading a quartet that introduced the late guitar virtuoso Larry Coryell and which placed saxophone master Archie Shepp on piano, drummer Hamilton made a record that both showcased his fellow jazz princes and radiated his signature charm. He also crafted an as-yet-unheralded, unexpectedly resonant work of art. Hamilton, who played in high school with Charles Mingus and ...
read moreChico Hamilton Quintet: Three Classic Albums
by David Rickert
Chico Hamilton QuintetThree Classic AlbumsAvid Records2010 The first thing the Chico Hamilton Quintet had going for it was unusual instrumentation. The quintet built its sound around the cello, and featured guitar, bass, either flute or clarinet (with the occasional sax), and Hamilton on drums, forgoing the sticks for brushes or mallets. The second thing was a style that wasn't quite jazz, exactly, but not as composed as classical (and definitely not as ...
read moreChico Hamilton: Now and Then
by Joel Roberts
Chico Hamilton Twelve Tones of Love Joyous Shout 2009 The Original Chico Hamilton Quintet Complete Studio Recordings Fresh Sound 2009 It would be a huge understatement simply to say that legendary drummer Chico Hamilton is still going strong as he approaches his 88th birthday next month. His latest CD, Twelve Tones of Love, is ...
read moreTake Five With Chico Hamilton
by AAJ Staff
Meet Chico Hamilton: Known for representing jazz in its purest form, octogenarian Chico Hamilton shows virtually no signs of fatigue. Saluted by the Kennedy Center as a “Living Jazz Legend," and appointed to the National Council on the Arts, Chico Hamilton is considered one of the most important living jazz artists and composers. He is currently on a national Borders Bookstore tour with his band Euphoria. While continuing to teach at the New School University Jazz Program, where he was ...
read moreChico Hamilton: Joyous Shout
by Donald Elfman
When Chico Hamilton was a boy growing up in Los Angeles, the film studios used to send trucks out to pick up the little African-American children to play natives in their Tarzan movies. “It was work, after all, and we got paid for it," says the drummer, now 87 years of age. “And what you learned very quickly is not to look into the camera. Once you did that they could never hire you again." That's a lesson that relates ...
read moreChico Hamilton / Andrew Hill: Dreams Come True
by Lyn Horton
More than anything, music is similar to line. Music is also unidirectional; it cannot back up within the same context and repeat what has just been done. Excluding the shallowness or depth of the resonance of sound, the dimensionality in music stems from the intersection of lines as one instrumental line overlaps the other. An example of this interrelationship comes in a 1993 duo date with drummer Chico Hamilton and the late, unsurpassable pianist, Andrew Hill, on Dreams Come True. ...
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