With already two standout albums released earlier this year in celebration of Chico Hamilton's 85th Birthday, Juniflip and Believe, there is no stopping Chico now. Continuing the festivities, Chico Hamilton brings back the funk this week with the release of 6th Avenue Romp, an album that reads like an encyclopedia of patented Hamilton grooves. To help usher in this release as we count down the days until Chico's 85th, we bring you a candid interview between musician/producer Mark de Clive-Lowe and Chico Hamilton and a nice little photo book of shots taken during Chico's recent recording sessions. Happy Birthday Chico.

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This is a meeting across generations and Mark – representing New Zealand and West London’s Bugz In The Attic crew – is keen to establish an ongoing rapport with Chico Hamilton, a man who has stamped his own distinct sound on every record he’s cut whether for Warners, Stax, Solid State, Colombia, Blue Note, Elektra or Impulse. By the end of 2006 Chico plans to release four brand new albums on the independent Joyous Shout label. It looks like this 84 year old dude is unlikely ever to retire.

Tommy Lipuma’s office provides an impressive view over post 9/11 NYC and as George Bush plans to extend the “liberation” of Iraq into neighbouring Iran, both Mark and Chico feel the political scenario has become truly weird. As a young man Chico lived through World War 2 and witnessed first hand the crucial role that music and the musicians played in those times. He has experience and negotiated his path through turbulent times in America but has enjoyed working with musical geniuses like Eric Dolphy, Charles Lloyd, Gabor Szabo, Larry Coryell and Arthur Blythe. He’s an active musician and reflecting on the contemporary US music scene he expresses both dismay and concern at the cultural contribution being made by the MTV hip hop generation.

MARK DE CLIVE-LOWE: I hear you on that. We see so much of that in the mainstream press and on MTV and in the charts. Fortunately there's like an underground all over the world, where they know the history and they know the music. They know your music, they know who Ahmad Jamal was... they know all that and they're pushing it forward in a kind of renegade way, so that's where I hold out hope.

CHICO HAMILTON: Well, those times... you can't go back. Cause first of all, what we're dealing in, most of all, is human emotions. Myself... I don't play music, I make music. I've been blessed and having been blessed that way, I've been able come a long way. I don't have to play anyone else's music but my own, you know what I mean? So, that's my reward. That's what I teach. I was looking to teach for years, and the first day I actually taught I realised that this was my chance of giving something back.

MDCL: People like yourself along with other musicians I’ve met in the Europe, the US and Japan, are the touchstones for my generation. Meeting them and hanging with them and learning from them... that link from the past to the future, there's no other way to replicate that.

CH: As a matter of fact, the first time I went to Japan, it was during the Sixties. When we landed in Tokyo at least a hundred thousand people and for some unknown reason they were all waving. I was walking with my wife, and I turned around to her and said. "They must have had someone important on this plane!" People were going crazy. It turned out it was for me! I couldn't get over it!

MDCL: That must have been very emotional. They're deep over there. So much love for the culture. So, on the Impulse! side, your first record was ‘Man From Two Worlds’, right?

CH: Was that the first record?

MDCL: I think so... With that first outing, did you feel like you wanted to have a certain sound on the label? Or was it just what you were playing at the time? Did the producers have any input? Because you have a sound which is you anyway, but Impulse!, they also had a cohesive identity.

CH: Yeah, at first, if I remember correctly, Impulse! was only about Shirley Scott, myself, maybe Johnny Hartman. Only four or five people were signed to it. And then they signed Trane...

MDCL: Game over, huh?

CH: It was a label, man! Plus, no other records sounded like that, recording-wise. Like I said in my statement about Bob Thiele in the book there – he was cool. Bob would just sit back, light his pipe and let you do what you do!

MDCL: So was there a lot of preparation for those dates? Or did you just hit it?

CH: I'll tell you one thing. I never went into the studio to practice. The only time I recorded was when the group was ready, when it was happening. No waste of time, we’d do an album in a day, man.

MDCL: It seems that you had this knack of getting people who had influences outside of Jazz and the more straight ahead scene. Gabor (Zsabo) with the Folk Gypsy thing, Charles (Llloyd) with the crazy trippy noise.

CH: Well that was my sound, you know? All of my groups, or I'd rather refer to them as orchestras, they're built around the way I play. And so… you know I was the first dude to use guitar. And I used guitar because of the sustaining power. The way I play I need that sustaining power, you know? Better than a keyboard, so that times when I'm dancing, something is happening. Just like my current group with Paul Ramsey. Basically I build things around the rhythm.

MDCL: Similarly, I really dig that and relate to that with beats and programming drums. It has all those frequencies that weren't there back in the day, but that's what people want to hear now, right? So to programme drums and make it interesting, that's a challenge, cause it's a machine... In the same way, I know you were really into Blakey when you were young, right? I mean he flipped it up every which way!

CH: You dig? When I was 15 and 16 years old, I was playing gigs at the Club Alabama, I was subbing for Lee Young. Anyway, we're in Oakland, and we find out that Billy Eckstine’s band is gonna play a dance on Saturday night. So, we went and he had Jug and Art Blakey in the band, right? I had never heard anyone, in my life, doing what Art Blakey was doing. Man, he turned me completely around. It was unbelievable.

CH: The discipline I use, I learnt that from playing for singers. I spent about 15 or 16 years playing for singers – Lady, Lena, Ella, Tony Bennet, Billy Eckstine – so I learnt the discipline of how to accompany, and that's what I use when playing with horns.

MDCL: What's your thoughts on remix culture and bringing technology into the process? What do you think of the idea of people taking your music and re-interpreting it or re-producing it?

CH: Well, fundamentally, I'd like to get paid for it! People have been stealing my music for a long time, bootlegging Chico Hamilton records ha ha! But it doesn't bother me what anyone would want to do with my music. Use it the best way they can. If they can improve on it, fantastic! I guess it's a compliment.

*You can find the full unedited interview between Mark and Chico, in Straight No Chaser #42.

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PHOTO BOOK
For Additional Photos Click here.