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(...) He plays drums and is a percussionist. Not a thunderer, not a ricocheter, but a thorough support, a crafty signal giver, straight ahead and with muscles, sure and singing, sophisticated and naive, like it should be in jazz. It was never his intention to drum a siege upon the winter palace of jazz. And no rock morsels either. He is much more a keeper of old percussion values - an Enlightened One - far from being a fawning submission to the heritage. Doug Hammond is also a composer. And as one he is sincerely endeavouring to formulate pieces of grand stature. He does things with an earnestness and then with a prank. He never leaves the gravitional fiels of swinging, also as a writer.
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And he receives awards for his writing. The "Düsseldorf New Music Ensemble" performs his pieces, the jazz crew of the highly-praised bassist Dave Holland has his works in their program, Charles Mingus' version of his "Moves" is documented on the record "Mingus Moves". Doug has already long proved his worth as a bandleader in the jazz branch. With sax aces Byard Lancaster and Steve Coleman, the pianist Kirk Lightsey and the cellist Muneer Abdul Fataah, he formed a fabulous quintett whose 1982 recording of "M-Base" have recently been released: "spaces" in the U.S. on DIW-359, 1992 (CD 9102).
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"M-Base" is probably the most important contemporary cooperation of black musicians in the U.S: Cassandra Wilson, Greg Osby, Gary Thomas, Steve Coleman, Marvin "Smitty" Smith and various others, these jazz artists, who have already been introduced to Linz in concerts, are a part of the whole. Hammond, who was born in 1942 in Florida, has been involved throughout his long career in bands of Benny Carter, Chet Baker, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Sam Rivers, Sonny Fortune, Mal Waldron, Payuito D'Riviera and "Family of Percussion".
[Oberösterreichischer Kulturbericht, by Robert Urmann, November 1992]
www.doughammond.org
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