New Album Release March 19, 2006! "Letter to the Listener" from Jon - February 20, 2006
NDR SESSIONS Projekt
Letter to the Listener from Jon Hammond:
Dear Listener!
It brings me great pleasure to be able to bring this product to you!
First of all let me explain to you the concept and motivation behind the NDR SESSIONS Projekt. For those of you who don't know me I would like to tell you that I have been very fortunate in my 53 years to travel as a musician and play with many wonderful musicians and met many incredible people who have been very kind and supportive of my efforts as a traveling musician. It's been a fantastic ride and as a sentimentalist I enjoy retracing my favorite paths and keeping in touch with old friends. By way of a sequence of events that began 10 years ago when I was living in Frankfurt, I was invited to come to Hamburg by Knut Benzner a music journalist and broadcaster at NDR Radio because he was doing a special program about Chicago musicians and he had read in my bio and Press from first release of my album LATE RENT that I was born in Chicago-1953. We spoke on the telephone and made plans for me to take a train up to Hamburg to meet him and do the interview. Although I was born in Chicago, my family moved to Berkeley California in year 1957 when I was only 4 years old. After thinking about it I didn't want Mr. Benzner to be disappointed that I had actually begun my musical career in the San Francisco Bay Area, so I talked it over with my wise roomate-Ali. Ali told me I should tell Knut Benzner that even though I left Chicago at a young age, I had many stories about Chicago from my grandfather...Good Ones!
And so I wrote a letter to him and said that it was true I had been born in Chicago and I didn't want him to be disappointed that in fact I had moved quite young and began my music career in California. A few days later I received another phone call from him and he said: "Good enough!"
And so we made plans for me to come a few days later by train and he graciously offered to have me stay at his home as a guest for a few days to see Hamburg. I was delighted by the invitation and a few days later I arrived via the ICE high speed train to Hamburg Dammtor station and there was Knut Benzner standing by the tracks waiting for me. Over the next few days I had a wonderful experience meeting his family, friends and colleagues inside the NDR Radio. NDR was a place like I had never seen before in my life. For somebody like me it was a dream. NDR has an orchestra, a jazz big band of international-all-star musicians, a choir and the BEST cafeteria ("cantina") I have ever eaten in! Also everyone in NDR is completely professional in their duties of recording, engineering, editing, journalism in every department. Everyone I met there was so serious about their work and musical performance. I was extremely impressed to say the least. In Deutsch they say: NordDeutscher Rundfunk-The BEST in the North!
Eventually I returned to Hamburg again and with the support and sponsorship of Knut Benzner I ended up living 2 years of my life in Hamburg and spending a lot of time in NDR Radio and played many gigs together with some of the super musicians from the NDR Big Band around Hamburg including some of the fine musicians on this album- saxophonist Lutz Buchner, drummer Heinz Lichius and I also met Joe Gallardo the veteran trombonist. My time in Hamburg was a life enrichening experience.
When I returned to USA in 1998 I went back to school to study Business English and some basic computer skills, because up until that time I did all my communications the old-fashioned way with letters sent from the post office and phone. Needless to say, since sending my first email to Italy in 1999 from the computer room at City College of San Francisco it has speeded up my ability to communicate and keep in touch with my friends overseas. Some people say I'm the fastest of anybody they know on the internet. I don't know about that, but when possible I have it covered like a blanket!
It's super living in the future! And now I am broadcasting my own radio show "HammondCast" from my Apple computer on radio station KYOU 1550 in San Francisco and on the internet on Apple iTunes and streaming around the world!
Now this brings me to the point that I want to tell you that this project (or projekt in Deutsch) grew out of me wanting to do this for strictly sentimental reasons. I have wanted to feature the fine playing of saxophonist Lutz Buchner for some years now and Heinz Lichius was on my very first Hamburg gig and he is always fun to play with, the busiest drummer in Hamburg. I have been wanting to do this for a long time and also to make an album containing some very traditional songs targeted to the older more sophisticated listener to show off the musicianship of my friends here on this album, therefore I selected this material including some beautiful ballads, swinging standards, Blues, Bossa Novas and also some original compositions that I thought would please a wider audience and also so that we could come in to the wonderful Studio 1 of NDR with no rehearsal time and burn down songs that we all knew in one or two takes, keeping the spontaneity of the Sessions and to assure that we could record from beginning to end in the 2 short days we had scheduled to be together. I conducted these sessions in the spirit and tradition of the old classic Jazz recordings.
Prior to flying over to Hamburg I told Knut over the phone that I was so determined to make this Session happen that even if we could not get in to the studio I was willing to give a free concert in the famous NDR cafeteria/cantina for all of the NDR people during lunch and record it live. Luckily and by the good graces of Knut Benzner and the Rock & Jazz Redaktion Departments of NDR I was able to record with the boys in one of the finest studios in the world and with the great NDR Engineer-Rudy Grosser at the controls! The day before the session I met Joe Gallardo in NDR cantina and it came to me in a flash that Joe was the MAN for 2nd horn along with Lutz and Heinz, they have all recorded together some fine records and toured, so everything came together once Joe was added to the lineup and we scheduled for that Sunday morning.
Being the early bird that I am, I came well before the session with my organ and everything was locked up tight of course. The Security man at NDR knew I would be coming and he kindly opened up the massive live room of Studio 1 for me which was totally dark because all lights and electricity are always turned off at the end of the day, so I came in with my flashlight and set up my organ and found one live electrical socket and fired up my new Hammond XK-3 organ through the battered old bass amp of bassist Lucas Lindholm. I knew this amp because Lucas had kindly lent it to me before and so there I was in the total darkness playing my organ through Lucas' friendly old Roland bass amp in the famous Studio 1 NDR! After some time, the second early bird-Rudy Grosser came in and he was I think a little surprised to find me in the dark studio playing my instrument. It was then we met for the first time and he had already prepared the microphones ahead of time. One by one the boys arrived and with barely any delay we began to play and record.
It was a miracle in many respects that these very busy people could take the time out of their lives to join me in the studio for the recording sessions made in 2 days of 4 hour sessions. Rudy made me reference cd's the next day and I had a lot to listen to on the flight home! As soon as I heard it I knew I had a record meeting and exceeding my expectations! 2 months later (last night actually) on a freezing cold morning I met my co-producer/engineer Joe Berger at Grand Central train station with the Master Recordings I had carried from Hamburg on a fresh LaCie hard drive and my Excelsior Accordion and we took the train upstate to another incredible studio belonging to Pro Tools specialist Jim Roberts in Somers New York. 10 hours later I had one of the best sounding records I have ever had the pleasure of playing on and featuring the playing of some of the very finest musicians of Hamburg, my friends Lutz Buchner, Heinz Lichius and Joe Gallardo!
I hope this album will bring you many hours of enjoyment and easy listening to relax to in these times of high stress. Put on the NDR SESSIONS Projekt and groove with us down this sentimental musical road!
Sincerely,
Jon
p.s. I would like to dedicate this album to Knut Benzner and my mother Edythe, who gave me my first exposure to Jazz Standards and also told me many stories from Chicago...good ones!
JON HAMMOND International, Inc.
Member American Federation of Musicians Local 802 & Local 6/ASCAP
Track List:
1. My One and Only Love 6:19 Wood/Mellin 1953
2. Satin Doll 6:15 Ellington/Strayhorn/Mercer 1953
3. Theme from Black Orpheus 7:36 Luis Bonfa 1959
4. Blues in the Night 5:54 Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer 1941
5. Skylark 3:10 Hoagy Carmichael/J. Mercer 1941
6. Polka Dots and Moonbeams 4:29 Van Heusen/Burke 1940
7. Besame Mucho 6:02 Velazquez/Skylar 1941
8. Easy Living 6:33 Robin/Granger 1937
9. No X-Cess Baggage Blues 5:14 JON HAMMOND Intl./ASCAP 1987
10. Our Day Will Come 5:19 Hillard/Garson 1963
11. The More I See You 5:00 Warren/Gordon 1945
12. Payphone Johnny 7:02 JON HAMMOND Intl./ASCAP 1991
Total Playing Time: 64:00
Featured Musicians:
JON HAMMOND: XK-3 Hammond Organ/Bass, Excelsior AC/R Accordion
LUTZ BUCHNER: Saxophones
HEINZ LICHIUS: Drums
JOE GALLARDO: Trombone
Produced by: JON HAMMOND & NDR Radio
NDR Recording Engineer: RUDY GROSSER
Co-Producer: KNUT BENZNER
Recorded at: NDR Studio 1, Hamburg Germany
Co-Producer/Mix&Mastering Engineer: JOE BERGER
Executive Producer: JENNIFER FRIZZELL
Pro Tools Engineer: JIM ROBERTS/Brandon Prdctns.
Album Art: MICHAEL AUGUST aka ILLUSTRATORP
My mother Edythe for Alt. Title: "Music for a Romantic Evening"
Manufactured by: Joe Aloia/Digital Authoring Solutions
Ham-Berger-Friz Records
Contact: JON HAMMOND
POB 754 Times Square Station
New York, NY 10108 USA
Tel. 212-967-1858
C) 2006 JON HAMMOND International, Inc.
http://www.HammondCast.com
*Jon Hammond uses: Hammond Suzuki Organs, Excelsior Accordions, Superlux Microphones, Sennheiser/Neumann Microphones, Apple Computers, T-Mobile Sidekick II, S.T. Dupont Lighters, Kart-A-Bag Super 600, Whirlwind Cables, Roland Amps, Fender Amps
