Listening to Prestige 448: Jimmy Hamilton

The second of two Jimmy Hamilton sessions finds the longtime Ellington sideman fronting just a quartet (the first had been a sextet with Clark Terry and Britt Woodman). Tommy Flanagan and Wendell Marshall are back with him, and there's a new drummer, Earl Williams.

Williams came from Detroit, which is almost all the pedigree you need to know. But there's more. His father was Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams, and he started touring with his dad right out of high school. The best biographical information on Williams comes from the web site of his son, Earl Williams Jr., a saxophone player like his grandfather. Earl Sr. played with Clyde McPhatter, among many others, and Earl Jr. is currently working with another next generation performer, Ronn David McPhatter.

Per young Earl, we learn that his father, while still in high school in Detroit,

began working with such artists as Lester Young, Barry Harris, Alice Coltrane, Della Reese, and Yusef Lateef.  While with [Paul Williams] he played with such artists as Ruth Brown, Chuck Berry, Paul Anka, Frankie Avalon, Sam Cooke, Clyde McPhatter and Big Joe Turner. After two years with his father’s band, My Dad left to join pianist Eddie Heywood. It was during this period that he permanently moved to New York, where he found his skills as a diversified drummer to be in great demand. He began working with many different artists, including Mary Lou Williams, The Swingle Singers, Eric Dolphy, Diahann Carroll, Jaki Byard, and The Major Holly-Tommy Flanagan trio. He also worked as house drummer at New York’s famous Apollo Theatre.

My father soon became very active as a studio musician playing on all types of recording including radio and television commercials. His television credits include a year at WNET with the Reuben Phillips Orchestra on the “Soul Show”, two and a half years at NBC with Seldon Powell on the “Someone New” show with host Leon Bibb, and a year at ABC with the Charles Randolph Grean Orchestra on the “Jack Paar Show.” My dad also has several Broadway shows to his credit, among them are “Funny Girl,” “Hair,” “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope,” and “A Chorus Line.”

My father's ability to handle any musical situation has afforded him the opportunity to perform with a wide variety of artists, including Teddy Wilson, Sonny Stitt, Sy Oliver, Warne Marsh, Ron Carter, Zoot Simms, Lena Horne, Shirley Verrett, Jean Pierre Rampal, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Valerie Capers, Larry Rivers, Opera Ebony, and The Alvin Ailey Dance Company.“

Young Earl takes justified pride in his father. And we can appreciate the life and career of Earl Sr., another gift of the fertile Detroit jazz scene to the music world. Jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, pop, Broadway, classical, opera. A life well lived in the music business.

And this session has to be one he could have looked back on with some pride. Hamilton mostly plays tenor sax here, with some lovely clarinet on "Dancing on the Ceiling." With Hamilton as the only front line player, the rhythm section gets time to shine, and they do, especially the always impeccable Tommy Flanagan.

The set is evenly divided between standards and Hamilton originals. One that particularly interested me was "Route 9W," because Route 9W goes through my home town, and indeed through most towns on the west side of the Hudson River. I drove on it today, and made a point to listen to this track as I was driving. Hamilton's melody is catchy, Williams does some very nice stuff rhythmically, Flanagan is Flanagan. And Hamilton swings it, even venturing into some discreet honking.

I was interested in "Lullabye of the Leaves," because although it's an oft-recorded jazz and pop standard, I had only previously heard it by Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, recorded in 1952, when Mulligan had just brought the birth of the cool out to the West Coast. Mulligan and Baker give a master class in cool with their version. Hamilton isn't afraid to let some warmth in, and some romance. The original lyric by Joe Young (melody by Bernice Petkere) is about a lonely soul remembering a lost childhood, but romance is never out of place with a good melody.

Hamilton returned to the Ellington fold for a few more years, then retired to the Virgin Islands, and didn't make another record as leader until 1985, when he was rediscovered playing at an island club called the Buccaneer, and presented by the Who's Who in Jazz label as Jimmy Hamilton: Rediscovered Live at the Buccaneer.

Esmond Edwards produced this session for Swingville.