Chico Hamilton

[mracz]

Thanks!

[kh1958]

His most recent release, Twelve Tones of Love, is excellent.

[Pete C]

For me the working group with Lloyd and Szabo was one of the all time great jazz groups--anchored in mainstream while pushing the boundaries--like such other contemporaneous groups as McLean-Moncur & The John Handy Quintet. The Man from Two Worlds never fails to blow me away. The fifties stuff sounds too "period" to me. I saw him once, maybe 7 or 8 years ago in Seattle, and he sang several tunes, quite awfully.

[kh1958]

I saw him once, at the Knitting Factory in 1999. He was playing drums just as well as ever, and the group featured Eric Person on alto and Cary DeNegris on guitar-- I heard two excellent sets.

As I recall, there was a very small crowd present, and it was in the Old Office, a small venue in the Knitting Factory. During the break, I wandered over the main space, which featured Cyrus Chestnut and was packed. Talk about world gone mad.

Edited August 15, 2011 by kh1958

[Pete C]

Two mainstream jazz artists at the same time at the Knit: I'm guessing it was during one of their summer jazz festivals.

[kh1958]

Two mainstream jazz artists at the same time at the Knit: I'm guessing it was during one of their summer jazz festivals.

Yes, it was definitely one of their jazz festivals, What is Jazz? perhaps.

[sidewinder]

I saw him once, at the Knitting Factory in 1999. He was playing drums just as well as ever, and the group featured Eric Person on alto and Cary DeNegris on guitar-- I heard two excellent sets.

As I recall, there was a very small crowd present, and it was in the Old Office, a small venue in the Knitting Factory.

Saw exactly the same group at a small club in Canada a few years earlier and it was ace ! I was much impressed not only with the playing of Chico (master of dynamics) but the quality of the group lineup and their splendid group sound.

[kh1958]

I was familiar with Eric Person and Cary Dinegris because, prior to playing with Chico Hamilton for many years, they were both members of Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society, and I had seen them at the Caravan of Dreams in Fort Worth. Both are on Shannon Jackson's When Colours Play and Texas. The former live recording was one of the best engagements I heard there, but the club's engineers only performed adequately and didn't quite capture it.

[Pete C]

IMO, better yet would be a Mosaic of the sides with Lloyd and Szabo, as the Columbia's have never made it to CD and the Impulse's were butchered.

This may be tough for Mosaic to pull together, as they would have to draw from at least four labels to gather it all:

Drumfusion (Columbia)

A Different Journey (Reprise)

Passin' Thru (Impulse)

Man From Two Worlds (Impulse)

Transfusion (Studio West)

I agree that these are all fine records, and would make an excellent set. The last one consists of short tracks recorded for the US Navy, and first issued in the 1990's. Perhaps not as essential as the others, but interesting. Lloyd is also on Chico's previous Columbia LP ("The Chico Hamilton Special"), but the format is closer to the old Hamilton group, with cello and no Szabo.

Szabo is also on The Further Adventures of El Chico and Chic Chic Chico.

[J.A.W.]

IMO, better yet would be a Mosaic of the sides with Lloyd and Szabo, as the Columbia's have never made it to CD and the Impulse's were butchered.

This may be tough for Mosaic to pull together, as they would have to draw from at least four labels to gather it all:

Drumfusion (Columbia)

A Different Journey (Reprise)

Passin' Thru (Impulse)

Man From Two Worlds (Impulse)

Transfusion (Studio West)

I agree that these are all fine records, and would make an excellent set. The last one consists of short tracks recorded for the US Navy, and first issued in the 1990's. Perhaps not as essential as the others, but interesting. Lloyd is also on Chico's previous Columbia LP ("The Chico Hamilton Special"), but the format is closer to the old Hamilton group, with cello and no Szabo.

Szabo is also on The Further Adventures of El Chico and Chic Chic Chico.

I suggested a Mosaic with Hamilton's Columbia and Impulse! sessions with his Quintet featuring Charles Lloyd, Gabor Szabo, Garnett Brown and Albert Stinson to Michael Cuscuna, and he replied that he'd love to release a set with those sessions plus the Hamilton Reprise album, but that it is not going to happen due to all kinds of licensing problems.