Jazz Articles about Jeff Hamilton

About Jeff Hamilton

Album Review

In giving this album a listen, it is difficult not to jump between the original recordings of the great Blossom Dearie, and those newly recorded by modern-day pianist/vocalist Dawn Clement. After all, those who have followed Clement's career have heard the comparisons between the two, particularly the vocal style that those critiquing Dearie referred to as “distinctive," “light," and “girlish." The separator here is that Dearie, while lauded for her original piano style, is more renowned for her colorful, poetic ...

Album Review

Steve Kovalcheck: Buckshot Blues

Read "Buckshot Blues" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 29, 2026

If a guitarist, pianist or anyone else who planned to record a trio could have a wish list, chances are good that one name at the top would be that of drummer Jeff Hamilton. On his 2026 album, Buckshot Blues, Colorado-based guitarist Steve Kovalcheck's wish has come true. Jon Hamar, a superb bassist, shares the rhythmic assignment with none other than the peerless Hamilton himself who can make any trio--including his own--seem several grades better than advertised. Why? ...

Album Review

Paul Kuhn: The LA Session

Read "The LA Session" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
October 26, 2023

Paul Kuhn (1928-2013) was a German jazz pianist who was well known in his own country, but much less so in the United States. All things considered, given that he spent the formative year of his adolescence in Nazi Germany, he was probably lucky to have survived at all. The Nazis, like most authoritarians, frowned on swing and jazz. They considered it the product of a degraded race and gateway drug of sorts to all sorts of perversions of which ...

Album Review

Mike Jones: Are You Sure You Three Guys Know What You're Doing?

Read "Are You Sure You Three Guys Know What You're Doing?" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 19, 2023

Some years ago, after Penn Jillette heard Mike Jones playing in a small club in Las Vegas, he approached the pianist, introduced himself, and said he would like to hire Jones to open his popular magic show, Penn & Teller--on one condition. And what might that condition be, Jones asked, to which Jillette replied, “I'm your bassist." Jones readily agreed, starting a long-running collaboration that has led at last to this superlative album --with Jillette on bass, of course, and ...

Album Review

Mike Jones / Penn Jillette / Jeff Hamilton: Are You Sure You Three Guys Know What You're Doing?

Read "Are You Sure You Three Guys Know What You're Doing?" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
August 18, 2023

If the tired old cliché “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" ruled the roost, perhaps the talents of pianist Mike Jones might have been limited to being the music director for the Penn & Teller Las Vegas show of mind-blowing illusions. Fortunately, a tired old cliché is just that. Jones' dynamic talent and creativity could not be “kept under a bushel." He joined forces with the exceptional and versatile drummer Jeff Hamilton and the surprisingly talented bassist Penn Jillette, ...

Album Review

Doug MacDonald: I'll See You in My Dreams

Read "I'll See You in My Dreams" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 5, 2022

There is at least one constant in guitarist Doug MacDonald's long and rewarding career: he likes to stay busy, whether hosting live gigs or inhabiting a recording studio. MacDonald's latest quartet session, I'll See You in My Dreams, is at least his twenty- ninth as leader of groups of various sizes and shapes. It is also a homecoming of sorts, as MacDonald is reunited here with the co-leaders of one of his earlier employers, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, namely bassist ...

Album Review

Craig Davis: Tone Paintings

Read "Tone Paintings" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 30, 2022

The subtitle of pianist Craig Davis' second album, Tone Paintings, is “The Music of Dodo Marmarosa." For those who may be inclined to ask, “Dodo who?" the album offers a mini-biography of Pittsburgh-born Michael (Dodo) Marmarosa, an exceptionally talented pianist whose promising early career was cut short by the crushing weight of mental and emotional problems that proved too unbearable for him to overcome. At his peak, in the decade from 1940-50, Marmarosa was a member of big bands led ...