Otherwise, Hamilton has lived the jazz equivalent of a charmed life, getting to play with all of his heroes. When he was 20 years old, he left Indiana University to play with the New Tommy Dorsey Band, an ensemble Dorsey’s widow put together after his death.
“I was ready to do it at 15,” he says. “I tolerated high school and college, but I wanted to be out playing.”
Lionel Hampton saw him in that band, and stole him away, then Monty Alexander took him on. Woody Herman hired him to play in his orchestra, and then Brown poached him. Suddenly he was playing with Peterson, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and many more.
“I just kept going from band to band,” he says.
He got to work with everyone he wanted to, he says, because he would obsess over their recordings, memorize everything he could in advance, and show his idols that he knew their material backward and forward.
Of course, things have changed now that he has his own group—musicians are trying to impress him. And he uses the same standard he held himself to all those years.
“If they say, ‘I want to play with you,’ I say ‘How many of my CDs do you have?’ Those are the kind of people you want in your band.”
The Jeff Hamilton Trio performs at San Jose Jazz’s Summer Fest at Plaza de Cesar Chavez in San Jose Sunday at 7pm. For ticket information, go here.
.Summer Fest Preview: Jeff Hamilton Trio
