Jon Hammond Interview Date: January 13, 2011 Job Title: President and Founder Company: Jon Hammond & Associates accordions electric organs Hammond B-3 Hammond Organs Jazz Music Manufacturing Musicians Jon Hammond
Dan Del Fiorentino & Tony Arambarri
Jon Hammond has successfully created a career based on his musical talents and his passion for the music industry! As a musician Jon has performed with many legendary players and as a clinician and product artist he has introduced many innovative products to music stores and their customers over the last 30 plus years. Jon is closely identified with the two main products of his career, the Excelsior Accordion and the Digital B3 Organ.
Louie Bellson Interview With Jon Hammond HammondCast on CBS KYOU / KYCY Radio – August 2003, he appeared at Jazz Club Nouveau in San Francisco with tenor saxophonist Don Menza –
Louie Bellson (born Luigi Paolino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni, July 6, 1924 – February 14, 2009), often seen in sources as Louis Bellson, although he himself preferred the spelling Louie, was an American jazz drummer. He was a composer, arranger, bandleader, and jazz educator, and is credited with pioneering the use of two bass drums.[1]
Bellson performed in most of the major capitals around the world. Bellson and his wife, actress and singer Pearl Bailey[2] (married from 1952 until Bailey’s death in 1990), had the second highest number of appearances at the White House (only Bob Hope had more).Bellson was a vice president at Remo, a drum company.[3] He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1985
Bellson was born in Rock Falls, Illinois, in 1924, where his father owned a music store. He started playing drums at three years of age. While still a young child, Bellson’s father moved the family and music store to Moline, Illinois.[5] At 15, he pioneered using two bass drums at the same time, a technique he invented in his high school art class.[6] At age 17, he triumphed over 40,000 drummers to win the Slingerland National Gene Krupa contest.[7]
In an interview in 2005 with Jazz Connection magazine, he cited as influences Jo Jones, Sid Catlett, and Chick Webb. “I have to give just dues to two guys who really got me off on the drums – Big Sid Catlett and Jo Jones. They were my influences. All three of us realized what Jo Jones did and it influenced a lot of us. We all three looked to Jo as the ‘Papa’ who really did it. Gene helped bring the drums to the foreground as a solo instrument. Buddy was a great natural player. But we also have to look back at Chick Webb’s contributions, too.”[9]
During the 1960s, he returned to Ellington’s orchestra for Emancipation Proclamation Centennial stage production, My People in and for A Concert of Sacred Music, which is sometimes called The First Sacred Concert. Ellington called these concerts “the most important thing I have ever done.”[10]
Bellson’s album The Sacred Music of Louie Bellson and the Jazz Ballet appeared in 2006. In May 2009, Francine Bellson told The Jazz Joy and Roy syndicated radio show, “I like to call (Sacred) ‘how the Master used two maestros,'” adding, “When (Ellington) did his sacred concert back in 1965 with Louie on drums, he told Louie that the sacred concerts were based on ‘in-the-beginning,’ the first three words of the bible.” She recalled how Ellington explained to Louie that “in the beginning there was lightning and thunder and that’s you!” Ellington exclaimed, pointing out that Louie’s drums were the thunder. Both Ellington and Louie, says Mrs. Bellson, were deeply religious. “Ellington told Louie, ‘You ought to do a sacred concert of your own’ and so it was,” said Bellson, adding, “‘The Sacred Music of Louie Bellson’ combines symphony, big band and choir, while ‘The Jazz Ballet’ is based on the vows of Holy Matrimony…”
On December 5, 1971, he took part in a memorial concert at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall for drummer Frank King. This tribute show also featured Buddy Rich and British drummer Kenny Clare. The orchestra was led by Irish trombonist Bobby Lamb and American trombonist Raymond Premru. A few years later, Rich (often called the world’s greatest drummer) paid Bellson a compliment by asking him to lead his band on tour while he (Rich) was temporarily disabled by a back injury. Bellson accepted.
As a prolific creator of music, both written and improvised, his compositions and arrangements (in the hundreds) embrace jazz, jazz/rock/fusion, romantic orchestral suites, symphonic works and a ballet. Bellson was also a poet and a lyricist. His only Broadway venture, Portofino (1958), was a resounding flop that closed after three performances.[13]
As an author, he published more than a dozen books on drums and percussion. He was at work with his biographer on a book chronicling his career and bearing the same name as one of his compositions, “Skin Deep”. In addition, “The London Suite” (recorded on his album Louie in London) was performed at the Hollywood Pilgrimage Bowl before a record-breaking audience. The three-part work includes a choral section in which a 12-voice choir sings lyrics penned by Bellson. Part One is the band’s rousing “Carnaby Street”, a collaboration with Jack Hayes.[14]
In 1987, at the Percussive Arts Society convention in Washington, D.C., Bellson and Harold Farberman performed a major orchestral work titled “Concerto for Jazz Drummer and Full Orchestra”, the first piece ever written specifically for jazz drummer and full symphony orchestra. This work was recorded by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in England, and was released by the Swedish label BIS.
Bellson was known throughout his career to conduct drum and band clinics at high schools, colleges and music stores.[16]
Bellson maintained a tight schedule of clinics and performances of both big bands and small bands in colleges, clubs and concert halls. In between, he continued to record and compose, resulting in more than 100 albums and more than 300 compositions. Bellson’s Telarc debut recording, Louie Bellson And His Big Band: Live From New York, was released in June 1994. He also created new drum technology for Remo, of which he was vice-president.[17]
Bellson received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 1985 at Northern Illinois University. As of 2005, among other performing activities, Bellson had visited his home town of Rock Falls, Illinois, every July for Louie Bellson Heritage Days, a weekend in his honor close to his July 6 birthday, with receptions, music clinics and other performances by Bellson.[1] At the 2004 event celebrating his 80th birthday, Bellson said, “I’m not that old; I’m 40 in this leg, and 40 in the other leg.”[18] He celebrated his birthday every year at the River Music Experience in Davenport, Iowa.
Bellson was voted into the Halls of Fame for Modern Drummer magazine, in 1985, and the Percussive Arts Society, in 1978. Yale University named him a Duke Ellington Fellow in 1977. He received an honorary Doctorate from Northern Illinois University in 1985. He performed his original concert – Tomus I, II, III – with the Washington Civic Symphony in historic Constitution Hall in 1993. A combination of full symphony orchestra, big-band ensemble and 80-voice choir, “Tomus” was a collaboration of music by Bellson and lyrics by his late wife, Pearl Bailey. Bellson was a nine-time Grammy Award nominee.[19]
In January 1994, Bellson received the NEA Jazz Masters Award from the National Endowment for the Arts.[20] As one of three recipients, he was lauded by NEA chair Jane Alexander, who said, “These colossal talents have helped write the history of jazz in America.”
On November 19, 1952, Bellson married American actress and singer, Pearl Bailey, in London. Bellson and Bailey adopted a son, Tony, in the mid-1950s, and a daughter, Dee Dee (born April 20, 1960).[22] Tony Bellson died in 2004, and Dee Dee Bellson died on July 4, 2009, at age 49, within five months of her father. After Bailey’s death in 1990, Bellson married Francine Wright in September 1992.[23]
Wright, who had trained as a physicist and engineer at MIT,[24] became his manager. The union lasted until his death in 2009.[25]
Journalist Ricky Richardson Los Angeles News Observer: “Organist Jon Hammond served up a set of original compositions, funky, swinging jazz and blues to the delight of the crowd gathered at the ADJ Arena Plaza Stage.”
Funky Swinging Jazz and Blues instrumentals original compositions by organist Jon Hammond featuring international soloists. As seen on cable TV for 38 years Jon Hammond Show, long-running music, travel and soft news program. Jon Hammond and band members have been performing at NAMM Shows and Frankfurt musikmesse for 33 years, as well as Music China, Japan Musical Instruments Fair and toured Germany with 21 piece Landesjugendjazzorchester German Youth Jazz Orchestra. ASCAP Composer Publisher and Member American Federation of Musicians Local 6 and Local 802, 2014 NAMM Believe in Music award recipient.
Leo Fender with Jon Hammond and Joe Berger – also Leo’s longtime business partner Dale Hyatt and Mrs. Hyatt
Fender Musical Instruments Corporation’s Leo Fender / Clarence Leonidas “Leo” Fender, Phyllis Fender (Mrs. Leo Fender) Joe Berger and myself Jon Hammond in Frankfurt Flughafen airport – Leo is holding my famous S.T. Dupont cigarette lighter Richard Nixon model special Chinese Lacquer studying the finish for possible use on one of his famous guitars – absolutely historic meeting folks – circa March 13, 1988 Frankfurt Germany
Leo Fender / Clarence Leonidas “Leo” Fender, Phyllis Fender (Mrs. Leo Fender) Joe Berger and myself Jon Hammond in Frankfurt Flughafen airport – Leo is holding my famous S. T. Dupont cigarette lighter Richard Nixon model special Chinese Lacquer studying the finish for possible use on one of his famous guitars – absolutely historic meeting folks – circa March 13,1988 Frankfurt Germany http://www.Hammondcast.com Today August 10th is Leo Fender’s birthday! – Remembering Leo Fender today — Frankfurt 1988 — TWA Flight with Leo Fender, Phyllis Fender, Joe Berger, Jon Hammond – Leo’s long-time business partner Dale Hyatt and Richard Nixon’s lighter! Coming back from musikmesse in March of 1988 – http://www.HammondCast.comAddeddate2015-07-07 16:55:24Color colorIdentifier LeoFenderWithJonHammondAndJoeBerger Stage Dad! Mark Magill
hammond’s Secret Sauce, Leo Fender, Fender Guitars, Fender Amp, Electric Guitar, Jon Hammond, Richard Nixon, S.T. Dupont, TWA Airlines, Pan Am Airlines, Frankfurt Flughafen, Crispy potatoes
The loss of Denny Mack has me so saddened and choked up I don’t have the words really to address this awful news – Denny lifted up so many musicians, his mixes and calm demeanor – golden ears and he was a solid drummer too – I was lucky to be on the other end of his mixing with Brian English when we played the Hitlton Lobby showcase – from the first hit it sounded great and he was grooving right along with us like he was in the band – this is a man everybody loved, gone way too soon – sending my deepest condolences to Denny’s wife Peggy Mack, Denny’s Family & Friends – we’ll miss him at the NAMM Show next month! Rest in peace Denny Mack – sincerely, Jon Hammond & Jon Hammond Band #dennymack Denny’s CV, a fraction of!: MME MME Kenny Loggins Kenny Loggins Aug 2021 – Present · 1 yr 8 mos Aug 2021 – Present · 1 yr 8 mos
Production Manager / MME Production Manager / MME The World Classic Rockers The World Classic Rockers Nov 2003 – Present · 19 yrs 5 mos Nov 2003 – Present · 19 yrs 5 mos The World Classic Rockers (www.wcr.com), is an all star rock and roll band featuring former members of Steppenwolf, Santana, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Kansas, Journey and Boston. The World Classic Rockers (www.wcr.com), is an all star rock and roll band featuring former members of Steppenwolf, Santana, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Kansas, Journey and Boston.
Production Manager Production Manager The Crazy Horse Saloon The Crazy Horse Saloon Oct 1992 – Nov 2010 · 18 yrs 2 mos Oct 1992 – Nov 2010 · 18 yrs 2 mos Santa Ana, CA. / Irvine, CA. / West Covina, CA. Santa Ana, CA. / Irvine, CA. / West Covina, CA. The Crazy Horse garnered seven awards from the Academy of Country Music (ACM) and one SRO award from The Country Music Association (CMA) as the # 1 night club in the nation. The Crazy Horse garnered seven awards from the Academy of Country Music (ACM) and one SRO award from The Country Music Association (CMA) as the # 1 night club in the nation.
Audio Engineer / Production Manager Audio Engineer / Production Manager Mel Torme’ / Johnny Lee / Zaca Creek Mel Torme’ / Johnny Lee / Zaca Creek Jun 1986 – Dec 1998 · 12 yrs 7 mos Jun 1986 – Dec 1998 · 12 yrs 7 mos Mel Tormé, Peter Nero and Leslie Uggams, MME: “The Great Gershwin Tour”. #cv #engineer #musicians #music #nammshow #production #musicproduction #audio #drums #kennyloggins
Blast from Past Party Barge Jon Hammond Trio with 2 Sons of ChamplinJames Preston drums, Terry Haggerty guitar, Jon Hammond XB-2 Hammond organ #blastfromthepast #sonsofchamplin #lakeberryessa #gigonaboat #partybargeAddeddate 2023-03-05 17:49:44Identifier party-barge-jon-hammond-trio-with-2-sons-of-champlin
Blast from the Past, gig on a boat, Lake Berryessa, Sons of Champlin, Terry Haggerty, James Preston, Jon Hammond, Hammond Organ, Party Barge, Funky Jazz
Journalist Ricky Richardson Los Angeles News Observer: “Organist Jon Hammond served up a set of original compositions, funky, swinging jazz and blues to the delight of the crowd gathered at the ADJ Arena Plaza Stage.”
Funky Swinging Jazz and Blues instrumentals original compositions by organist Jon Hammond featuring international soloists. As seen on cable TV for 38 years Jon Hammond Show, long-running music, travel and soft news program. Jon Hammond and band members have been performing at NAMM Shows and Frankfurt musikmesse for 33 years, as well as Music China, Japan Musical Instruments Fair and toured Germany with 21 piece Landesjugendjazzorchester German Youth Jazz Orchestra. ASCAP Composer Publisher and Member American Federation of Musicians Local 6 and Local 802, 2014 NAMM Believe in Music award recipient.
NAMM Show Sessions April 13th – on behalf of Jon Hammond Funk Unit folks, saddened to hear of Wayne Shorter‘s passing – we are looking forward to kicking things off again when the doors open at Anaheim Convention Center play some funk for ya’!
Happy to have back on the band my longtime friend tenor saxophonist Marc Baum, first time welcoming Nic Kubes drums