Lesson with Jeff Hamilton

[GoMan]

As i mighta said a while ago, i won a scholarship on my island and was invited to go see the Jeff Hamilton trio at a jazz festival on our island.

Id heard about the guy before and even had the live in paris with Diana Krall CD, but never really knew what he was really really capable of.....

I watched the show... and all i could say was holy shi...... Even my family who said they wantead to leave in the middle to a party had to stay til the very end cuz it was soo soo electrifying.

He blew my fuse that night. I mean he was like god all of a sudden... drivng home I couldnt listen to any music at all.. i mean it was just soo soo huge!!

Has anyone seen him do the caravan? where he plays the head on the toms and snare and solos? Holy shi...!! what music! he was playing with such might i was shaking the whole time!! He was also the most creative sound creater ever... by this i mean he used so many different ways to get sounds out of the drum kit it was amazin!! i mean i never knew you could do this stuff on drums..... he put down his sticks in the middle of the solo and playead with his hands... which id seen people do, but then he started mixing in hand claps and rubs in the middle, scratching, massaging and beating the shi out of the drums!! i mean it was unreal how many sounds he got out of each drum... i swear he had about ten different cross stick sounds!

The next day (today) i drove out again for an hour to see him give a public clinic at a high school... which was pretty amazing to. Along with him were James Moody (sax) and Luther Hughes on bass and a singer Roberta... B.... i fogot her last name but an italian singer. It was a great clininc... they were trying to get the kids to really soul out when playing but... dint happen. too bad.

After the clinic i found out that the scholarship foundation guys (the concert was like a fundraiseer for the scholarship) told me that they had schedualed a lesson for me with jeff in a private room! I was like................what!?!?!?!?? ( i was considering not showing up today cuz its finals weekend and also the drives over an hour... i never knew about the lesson)

Jeff was such a nice guy. He told me to play time on the ride so did.... i slowly added each limb to show him my level of four way jazz talking (which isnt very good but i tried my best to keep it like how I play it... not what i thought he might wanna hear). He said I had a good beat but that i was too tight. he showed me his right hand ride technique with the fulcrum being in the thumb and the 1st finger! he let me do some excersizes to get the rebound controll going... i also got to see him do it.... it was awesome.

He said playing drums as a motion was like flicking water off your hands ... very loose just lets your arms fly around... relaxed.

What stuck with me was that he said pay attention to the ride cuz thats the signature... he played the same ride pattern but the artblakey version, the phillyjo version and the mel lewis... but they all sounded different and that blew me away.... his advice was to start from straigh ahead guys opposed to the complex guys like elvin and tony. The lesson was that keeping a good beat is everything. That first.. everything else later.

He gave me some very encouragind words.... said i had potential and that if i had enough drive i could play with anybody. he said make a list of who you want to play with... get everysingle record theyve put out... and master them. youll be playing with them sooner or later. he told me an inspiring story of his life too.. his college dream was to play with the guys hes played with ... oscar peterson, woody herman... the count basie orchestra... he got their records... studied.... and he got the gigs!! all of them! He said dreams do come true... just dont make it such a big mountain for your self.

that was the end of the lesson. Both the longest and shortest 30 mins ever.

I think this had changed my life. I am so deeply struck i still dont know what to think. im just soo happy now i dunno what to say. I decided i wanted to go to the New School several weeks ago... but now i am conviced that i must go there...I need to make this happen for myself.... damn im soo inspired now i cant just sit down and study for my finals............crap

[drum4fun]

Great post, GoMan! Congratulations on winning a lesson with Jeff Hamilton. He is one of my favorite drummers. I love his brush work and would love to take a lesson with him in the future. Good luck with all of your drumming goals.

[GoMan]

thanks man. Im looking forward to seeing what is out there.... im soo isolated here!!!!

Yeah his brush work was amazing. I knew he was "supposed to be " one of todays hottest brush players.... but watching him play was a whole different story.... it wasnt like something you just read in modern drummer or something and say, oh i should reember this so i can pretend to know what im talking about. I felt his brush playing! It was incredible.

The technique he had was awesome... too bad at this point i dunno much about brushes... so i couldnt really tell what kinda strokes he was playing to get those sounds.... but he was very explosive. I only thought there were only like sweeps... taps and his lateral movements but he was all over the place technique wise, musicaly and in dynamic range.

He would play brushes on his ride like how he would on the snare,,, he kept the ride pattern with the metal end of the brush on the rim of the snare... in one of his trading solos he started rolling the brush upand down the snare while throwing other figures with the right hand.... my jaw hit the floor.

Today too.. at the clinic, he jsut walked up to the rest of the players with just his snare drum and brushes and they jammed some blues. After everyone soloed (scatting , sax and bass) he took 3 or 4 (i forget...) choruses on just the snare.... the msot expressive and dynamic solo ive ever seen.... starting with sweeps.. playing melodies and stuff.. then doinng this feel change from switching from the jazz triplet subdivison to the straight sixteenth subdivision...the dynamics and the musicality in the piece was awesome... and again, i never knew these things were possible.

Ive seen people play melodies on the drums. Ive seen people play drumset with their hands... and ive seen people do wierd things on the rim.... i also have seen pretty nice brushing video clips as wel.... but Jeff did everything.. he just took it all and killed it!!!

[moosetication]

I'm kinda sensing you enjoyed this experience. I may be wrong... it's just a hint I'm getting.

[img]wink.gif[/img]

I kid. It sounds incredible. I definitely got a sense of how you felt from your posts.

Anyway, see your finals as part of the journey he described for you, and give them the attention they deserve right now.

[Dazzler]

Lovely post GoMan. Glad you enjoed the gig and lesson, you're very lucky! [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

[XNavyDrummer]

Hey GoMan,

Great description of Jeff's playing and teaching. Thanks for the post! The guy is amazing!

Andy

[Avi_drums]

Inspiring story!

[Henry II]

These are the kinds of experiences that can determine the course you take in your life.

[troutbrooke]

great brush video

[Rhythmatist]

I also had a JH experience when I was in college (many years ago). We were performing a concert opening for the Monty Alexander Trio when Jeff played with him. Before the show he came by to ask if it would be OK for him to use my kit. I said it would be no problem. We talked a while then did our shows then talked again afterward. He's such a well versed musician; a fountain of knowledge and a real authority on jazz. He was so comfortable to talk to; almost as if we knew each other for years. He was impressed with the sound and feel of my kit (it was a 60's Camco from the original Oaklawn IL factory) and was almost begging me to sell it to him, but there was no way I'd part with it (I still have it to this day). But yeah, what a great guy and one of the more underrated jazz drummers ever. What great control over such a vast dynamic range. He was quite impressive.