Five-Star Collection... Chico Hamilton

Chico Hamilton Quintet

Featuring Buddy Collette

CHICO HAMILTON: "This is the way the group came about: After we made the trio records (Pacific Jazz PJ-17) I decided to add Buddy Collette to the group. In addition I had planned to use John Graas on French horn, but then John had to leave Los Angeles with the Liberace Show. About the same time I was working with Fred Katz who was then playing piano.

Fred had just said to me, 'Before I hang up my gloves I'd like to play a little jazz on the cello'. I told him about the group I had in mind and mentioned that John was leaving town. Right then and there the idea was born. Later, John suggested Jimmy Hall. I had told John that I needed a guitarist. He said, 'I've got a guitarist rehearsing with me. He's here fresh from Cleveland — he reads good, plays good, and also writes'. So I called Jimmy — now he's in the group. I was very fortunate to get Carson Smith. I actually had to look hard for him. I was told he had been working at the Celebrity Room in Hollywood. Three days later I found that the club had folded right after Carson opened. I finally managed to locate him — now I had a quintet. I called a rehearsal. The guys came over to my place and we just started making with the sounds. We only had two sheets of music then — it wasn’t exactly a rehearsal, but it was a beginning".

FRED KATZ: "I think that we have here, because of the calibre of the guys, something that is unique. That something is content. I think each one writes with feeling. Each

original composition has warmth, has meaning, has a reason for being; it’s not just a series of clever chords or clever ideas".

JIM HALL: "It's a necessity that we now have thorough arrangements, otherwise there’s no reason for the cello. Yet, it's the cello that pulls us together".

BUDDY COLLETTE: "We express ourselves mainly in writing now. Although we do improvise... out of which comes a tune — some idea one of us played — later, somebody brings in an arrangement on it".

CARSON SMITH: "Jazz is an American culture; it started in America. I believe jazz is the only really American cultural achievement. Improvisation is the key word. Out of

this comes composition and arrangement! I think improvisation is the most positive element in jazz. There wouldn't be jazz without it, but we can have jazz without arrangements. Because of the instrumentation of the Quintet, with the addition of the cello, we must depend on arrangements. We find freedom writing. In that direction, there is so far to go, so much to explore".

*(from the liner notes [an interview with the Chico Hamilton Quintet on October 9, 1955])*

Chico Hamilton's new quintet is responsible for one of the most stimulating, consistently inventive and unique jazz recordings of this or any recent year. There is, first of all, superb musicianship on the part of Buddy Collette, flute, clarinet, tenor and alto; Jim Hall, guitar; Fred Katz, cello; Carson Smith, bass, and Hamilton, drums. There is also the fresh writing by all five. As Katz points out in the notes, "...each one writes with feeling. Each original composition has warmth, has meaning, has a reason for being; it's not just a series of clever chords or clever ideas".

The third quality of excellence evident here is the collective emotional empathy of the quintet. This is really a unit, and while each of the men in it expresses his own individuality eloquently, they reach their total fulfillment in the cohesive, partly improvisational interplay that is so vitally basic to the best jazz.

There's a lot more — the excellent beat, the scope of the group, the discovery of Hall and Katz, and the newly impressive impact of Collette and Smith (Hamilton has always been first-rate so long as I can remember). Excellent recorded sound. Second side was cut at the Strollers Club in Long Beach, Calif. Only clinker are the notes on the individual numbers by Fran Kelley, written in her inimitable prose, a cross between science fiction and theosophy. 

*Nat Hentoff (Down Beat, December 14, 1955 [5 stars])*

1 - A Nice Day

(Buddy Collette)

2 - My Funny Valentine

(Rodgers, Hart)

3 - Blue Sands

(Buddy Collette)

4 - The Sage

(Fred Katz)

5 - The Morning After

(Chico Hamilton)

6 - I Want To Be Happy

(Youmans, Caesar)

7 - Spectacular

(Jim Hall)

8 - Free From

(improvisation)

9 - Walking Carson Blues

(traditional, arrangement by Carson Smith)

10 - Buddy Boo

(Buddy Collette)

Buddy Collette (flute, alto sax, tenor sax, clarinet), Fred Katz (cello),

Jim Hall (guitar), Carson Smith (bass), Chico Hamilton (drums).

#1 to #5: Recorded at Radio Recorders, Los Angeles, California, August 23, 1955 

#6 to #10: Recorded live at The Strollers Club, Long Beach, California, August 4, 1955