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Re: Jimmy Hamilton

Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2013-03-13 13:08

Ruben,

Very cool that you knew Jimmy Hamilton. Do you have any dates on when he studied with Russianoff? I'm a little hesitant to ascribe to him any influence on Jimmy's sound...they were almost exactly the same age, and Jimmy was playing with Duke by 1943 (not to mention Teddy Wilson before that)--which would still have been very early in Russianoff's teaching career. In Stanley Dance's "The World of Duke Ellington" there's an interesting interview with Hamilton--he says that the biggest influence on his playing was Benny Goodman. No surprise there, I guess...but even though he transcribed Goodman and was inspired by him, he never sounded like Benny or anyone else to me: always had his own thing.

My favorite Hamilton is 'Ad Lib on Nippon' -- the "tag on" piece on the Far East Suite album. But that album is probably my favorite Duke too--and probably has my favorite Johnny Hodges solo ('Isfahan'), by far my favorite Paul Gonsolves solo ('Mt Harissa') and the list could go on and on.

Eric

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The Jazz Clarinet
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Jimmy Hamilton new

Clarineteer

2013-03-12 18:06