HEY, YOU: KYOU Radio (legally KYCY at 1550 AM), with its mix of podcasts and financial advice shows, may not have many listeners (the Oakland A's broadcasts will help), but it's got its believers -- especially radio pros and musicians getting a chance at a regular show. One of them is Jon Hammond, on most weekdays at 3 p.m. "The old-time spirit lives on AM again," says Hammond, an organist
Sunday, December 11, 2016
NAMM Showcase Hammond Technology Surpasses Classic B3 Tone Generator with Funky Sound Engine XK5
“Every time I see a musician walking down the street I say, ‘Hey, where’s the gig?’ Because it doesn’t matter what kind of music you play, if you’re carrying an instrument–going to a rehearsal, or coming back from a repair shop, whatever it is–we all need our gigs. And that’s what the union is all about. Hopefully, we can all keep working and be supportive of everybody’s gigs. There’s room for everybody.”
Jon played his first gig at a senior citizens luncheon when he was eleven. Not only did he get a free lunch but he was paid $25 –a lot of money in those days. Jon says his father was supportive, but did not want him to pursue a music career. “He told me that music was a great hobby. He got me a wonderful professional accordion for my Bar Mitzvah, directly from John Molinari, one of the greatest accordionists who ever lived. It was a Guilietti Professional Tone Chamber accordion. That’s the accordion I won Jr. Jazz Champion on in 1966.”
In high school, Jon attended a private boys school in San Francisco. He was a class clown, and when it got to the point where he was going to be expelled, Jon took his accordion and ran away from home. He immersed himself in the San Francisco music scene and started playing organ in several bands. By 1971 he was in a four piece rock group called Hades which shared a rehearsal space with Quicksilver Messenger Service. “I was friends with their manager, Ron Polte, who also managed guitarist John Cipollina. We got to open for his band, Copperhead.”
Jon continued to play gigs in the Bay Area in different configurations, including a few gigs with a young Eddie Money. By this time Jon had become frustrated with the Bay Area scene. One night while playing a biker bar he got into a fight and his band didn’t come to his defense. “That was the last straw. I was angry and I said I wasn’t coming back.”
Jon in the early 70s
Jon moved to Boston in 1973 to attend the Berklee School of Music. He also got a gig playing in Boston’s Combat Zone backing up burlesque shows. When Jon saw one of his idols, pianist Keith Jarrett play in New York he told him he was going to Berklee and asked him for advice. “Keith looked me right in the eye and said ‘Berklee can be very dangerous for your music.’ It was like he popped this huge bubble. Years later I came to understand what he was talking about. You have to learn the fundamentals, but the music itself comes from a much deeper place. They can’t teach that, you have to find it yourself.”
When Jon’s teachers began sitting in on his gigs in Boston, he questioned why he was in school if the teachers were coming to play with him. He quit school, moved to Cape Cod and started playing with bandleader Lou Colombo. “He did all the private parties for Tip O’Neill. We played what they used to call the business man’s beat. On the gig it was forbidden to swing. It was like swing cut in half. So if you tried to go with the four, Lou would say, ‘Don’t swing it, don’t swing it.’ He pounded it into my head night after night.”
LATE RENT
In 1981 Jon took a trip to Paris where he broke through his writers block and wrote some of his best music. He returned to New York with his new tunes and started a production company with the idea of getting a record deal for a friend that had played on a #1 hit record. After months of pounding the pavement with no results, Jon realized he had better work on his own music before his money ran out. He took the last of his savings, including his upcoming rent money, and went into the studio to record what came to be known as “The Late Rent Sessions”.
The session had Todd Anderson on tenor sax, Barry Finnerty on guitar, Stephen Ferrone on drums, and Jon on B3. They recorded at Intergalactic, the last studio that John Lennon recorded in. Jon had no luck getting a record deal for his new project, but he did get gigs in New York with his band Jon Hammond and the Late Rent Session Men.
Jon Hammond Band Onstage at NAMM, 2014: Joe Berger, Dom Famularo, Alex Budman, Koei Tanaka, Jon Hammond
PRESENT DAY
In the mid-2000s Jon produced Hammondcast, a radio program for CBS that aired in San Francisco at four in the morning and was rebroadcast before Oakland A’s games. “When the baseball games played in the afternoon, my show would play for about 20 minutes and then it was pre-empted. I had a lot of fun with that.” His guests included Danny Glover, Barry Melton from Country Joe & the Fish, and many local people. “It took me awhile to figure out that I had permission to broadcast anything I wanted. I could play the London Philharmonic or Stevie Wonder. My tag line was ‘Hello, Hello, Hello! Wake up or go back to sleep…’”
Today, Jon continues to visit tradeshows and is determined to keep doing everything he does as long as he can. “I made a pact with my longtime co-producer, guitarist Joe Berger, that we are going to go to these trade shows until we are little old men with canes.”
Jon has released four CDs
Jon Hammond Intro:
Instruments: Organ, Accordion, Piano, Guitar
Attended: Berklee College of Music 1974, City College San Francisco
Languages: English, German
Jon is closely identified with the two main products of his career, the Excelsior Accordion and the Hammond Organ.
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