Chico Hamilton Biography

Born September 21, 1921; Los Angeles, CA

Drummer Chico Hamilton early on was said to exemplify West Coast Jazz, which quickly became a tired cliché used as a slam to signify something much less vibrant than what was being cooked up in New York City in the '50s and '60s. According to Chico it was actually a Basin Street club gig in New York that paired his band with Max Roach's group, which led to the publicity stunt billing of East Coast vs. West Coast jazz. Later the term became caught up in an artificial showdown between the perceived differences of jazz practiced on either coast, but Chico never bought into it; certainly not musically. His music has long been marked by the sort of drum-led fluid drive that one would be hard-pressed to pin down as belonging to any one school over another, a sound quite distinctive and identifiable as pure Chico Hamilton.

In performance one is immediately struck by Chico's unique drum set-up, especially his cymbal placement. Where some drummers prefer to strike their cymbals at a placement level elevated from their drums, Chico chooses to array his cymbals at a level even with or slightly below his drum heads; the better to economize his efforts, he's always said. One of the more musical drummers, Chico Hamilton is a crafty tunesmith of the traps. He's a perceptive drummer, sensitive to whatever musical mood he finds himself in, whether the situation calls for gentle brush work or thunderous mallets. This approach is obviously borne out of years as a sideman with singers, including nearly 10 solid years as Lena Horne's accompanist as well as a stint with Ella Fitzgerald. He learned his lessons well, accompanying the languid tenor sax of the great Lester "Pres" Young or the broad bag of jazz humorist Slim Gaillard, both of whom provided significant musical homes for Hamilton.

As a bandleader Chico's sensitive and musical traps approach was obviously required by the settings he chose. His first ensemble included fellow '04 Jazz Master, guitarist Jim Hall, saxophonist-flutist Buddy Collette, bassist Carson Smith, and cellist Fred Katz. The music often called for Collette's flute paired with cellist Katz, which made for an unusual colors pallet.

Dating back to his high school days in Los Angeles Chico Hamilton has always kept good musical company. High school bandmates included Collette, Dexter Gordon, Ernie Royal, and Charles Mingus. In the 1940s he found work in the bands of Lionel Hampton, Jimmy Mundy, Count Basie, and Lester Young. Then came the Lena Horne gig, from 1948 to 1955 and intermittently for the next couple of years, until he finally left in 1958. In the early '50s, after befriending Gerry Mulligan, the baritone saxophonist recruited Chico for his first piano-less quartet in 1952, By 1955 Hamilton assumed the mantle of band leadership with the Hall-Collette-Smith-Katz group.

Since then Chico Hamilton's various bands have been a great launching pad for numerous exceptional young musicians, including Eric Dolphy, Paul Horn, Charles Lloyd, Ron Carter, Sadao Watanabe, Richard Davis, Arthur Blythe, George Duvivier, and Steve Turre. His typically piano-less bands have featured particularly distinctive guitarists, including Jim Hall, Gabor Szabo, Larry Coryell, John Abercrombie, and Rodney Jones. Chico's eye for emerging talent has always been keen.

In addition to bandleading and composing, Chico Hamilton turned up leading the house band in the motion picture Sweet Smell of Success, starring Burt Lancaster, and the important Newport Jazz Festival documentary Jazz on a Summer's Day. For several years in the mid-1960s, Chico temporarily dropped off the regular jazz scene to write and perform advertising jingles, work which became lucrative enough for Hamilton to build his own production company. Currently he spends much of his time as an educator at the New School University in New York City, working occasionally with his band.

NEA Jazz Masters 2004 Fellowships Recipients