Jon Hammond Show Preview MNN TV Ch 1 Public Access 07/25 Air Time 1:30 AM
*WATCH THE FILM HERE: Jon Hammond Show Preview MNN TV Ch 1 Public Access 07/25 Air Time 1:30 AM
Jon's archive https://archive.org/details/JonHammondShowPreviewMNNTVCh1PublicAccess0725AirTime130AM
Youtube https://youtu.be/ESJ37Yr31b4
CNN iReport http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1258417
by Jon Hammond
Published July 18, 2001
Usage Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
Topics Public Access TV, Manhattan Neighborhood Network, Channel 1, Community Access, Jon Hammond Show, Music, Travel Soft News, #NAMM #HammondOrgan #Sk1 #Jazz #ASCAPExpo Musicians Union, Local 802, Local 6
Public Access TV Channel 1 Manhattan Neighborhood Network Jon Hammond Show Preview MNN TV Ch 1 Public Access 07/25 Air Time 1:30 AM: Winter NAMM Show Lunch Time Showcase film - #TheNAMMShow White Onions Jon Hammond Funk Unit NAMM Showcase
by Jon Hammond
Usage Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
Topics NAMM Show, Lunch set, Bernard Purdie, Jon Hammond, Onions, Funky Jazz, Hercules folding stands, KHS America, Hammond Organ
#TheNAMMShow “White Onions” Jon Hammond Funk Unit NAMM Showcase lunch set https://www.namm.org/thenammshow/2015/events/jon-hammond-funk-unit
23rd 2015 reprising 1989 Late Rent Sessions recording ©JON HAMMOND International ASCAP with special guest Bernard Purdie drums, Leslie J. Carter percussion Jon Hammond organ (original members on record) featuring Koei Tanaka chromatic harmonica from Tokyo Japan Suzuki world star, Joe Berger guitar JJ guitars, Alex Budman tenor saxophone Dom Famularo returning to the NAMM Stage – special thanks NAMM President CEO Joe Lamond, KHS Hercules folding stands – congratulations KHS America: Announces Acquisition of Hohner Inc. USA
Producer Jon Hammond
Audio/Visual sound, color
Language English
The late great radio and TV broadcaster personality Al Jazzbeaux Collins in the studios of KCSM Jazz 91 with organist Jon Hammond - aka Al Jazzbo Collins, one of the greatest and most definitely coolest broadcasters who ever lived. *Note: I dearly miss Jazzbeaux, he was a huge inspiration to me personally. He broke out my music on the air back in New York on WNEW 1130AM huge powerful door he opened for me, we had a lot of fun together on both coasts - he introduced me to folks like Lionel Hampton, David Panama Francis, Lew Anderson band leader and Clarabell the Clown from It's Howdy Doody Time! TV Show, Joe Bushkin pianist, and his Family the Collins Family - he knew every door man garbage man and taxi drivers on the street - rest in peace Albert! sincerely, Jon Hammond *including a clip from Live performance in Horizons Sausalito with funky James Preston drums on Jon Hammond Band https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_%22Jazzbo%22_Collins Albert Richard "Jazzbo" Collins (born January 4, 1919, Rochester, New York[1] — d. September 30, 1997, Marin County, California) was an American disc jockey, radio personality and recording artist who was briefly the host of NBC television's Tonight show in 1957.
The name "Jazzbo" derived from a product Collins had seen, a clip-on bowtie named Jazzbows. Just as Martin Block created the illusion that he was speaking from the Make Believe Ballroom, Collins claimed to be broadcasting from his inner sanctum, a place known as the Purple Grotto, an imaginary setting suggested by radio station WNEW's interior design, as Collins explained:
I started my broadcast in Studio One which was painted all kinds of tints and shades of purple on huge polycylindricals which were vertically placed around the walls of the room to deflect the sound. It just happened to be that way. And with the turntables and desk and console and the lights turned down low, it had a very cavelike appearance to my imagination. So I got on the air, and the first thing I said was, "Hi, it's Jazzbo in the Purple Grotto." You never know where your thoughts are coming from, but the way it came out was that I was in a grotto, in this atmosphere with stalagtites and a lake and no telephones. I was using Nat Cole underneath me with "Easy Listening Blues" playing piano in the background.
Collins grew up on Long Island, New York. In 1941, while attending the University of Miami in Florida, he substituted as the announcer on his English teacher's campus radio program, and decided he wanted to be in radio. He began his professional career as the disc jockey at a bluegrass station in Logan, West Virginia.
— with Al "Jazzbo" Collins, Al "Jazzbo" Collins and James Preston at KCSM Jazz 91
Producer Jon Hammond
Audio/Visual sound, color
Language English
Jon's archive https://archive.org/details/PocketFunkMusikmessesessionJazzkellerHofheim
by Jon Hammond
Published May 15, 2015
Usage Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
Topics 19th year, musikmessesession, Pocket Funk, Jon Hammond, Hammond Organ, Jazzkeller Hofheim, #HammondOrgan #Musikmesse2015 MNN TV, Channel 1
Hofheim am Taunus -- Jon Hammond Band 19th year Musikmessesession in Jazzkeller Hofheim, Jon Hammond original composition "Pocket Funk" with Peter Klohmann - tenor saxophone, Giovanni Totò Gulino - drums, Joe Berger - guitar, Jon Hammond - Sk1 Hammond organ ©JON HAMMOND International ASCAP http://www.HammondCast.com
Youtube https://youtu.be/t0eTD1qpmX4
CNN iReport http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1241848
Vimeo https://vimeo.com/128005151
Dailymotion http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2qel64_pocket-funk-musikmessesession-jazzkeller-hofheim_music
Jon Hammond Band Facebook https://www.facebook.com/jonhammondband/videos/vb.133709526657853/1050914284937368/?type=3&theater
Jon's archive https://archive.org/details/JonHammondsMusikmesseWarmUpPartyJazzkeller
Youtube https://youtu.be/nRIMY20BFaU
Usage Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
Topics Journal Frankfurt, Journalkalendar, Jon Hammond, musikmesse, Warm Up Party, Hammond Organs, Frankfurt, Blues, Jazz, Soft News, MNN TV
FULL HIGH DEFINITION VERSION
29th Year! Jon Hammond's musikmesse Warm Up Party jazzkeller - Big Special Thanks to my good friend Saray Pastanesi for absolute Masterpiece Birthday & 29th musikmesse Chocolate Chocolate cake!! It was delicious, every morsel was consumed and enjoyed!!! Jon Hammond / Jon Hammond Band
http://www.jonhammondband.com/blog.html/dienstag_144_rock__pop__jazz_journal_frankfurt_im_aktuellen_journalkalender/
DIENSTAG, 14.4. ROCK | POP | JAZZ Journal Frankfurt im aktuellen
Journal Frankfurt Journalkalender
1 JAZZ/BLUES/FOLK Jon Hammond & Band Wer zählt noch mit ... Mal ernsthaft: der Mann, der so heißt wie sein Instrument, ist zum 29. Mal zur Musikmesse „Warm Up Party”. 21:00, Ffm: Jazzkeller, Kleine Bockenheimer Straße 18a Facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/955188417848638/ Jon Hammond - organ Joe Berger - guitar Peter Klohmann - saxophone Giovanni Gulino - drums Mr. Hammond has toured worldwide since 1991 using the incredible Sk1 organ by Hammond Suzuki..™ "Classic Hammond Sound...In A Suitcase!" The Jon Hammond Show is a funky swinging instrumental revue, featuring top international soloists. The show has universal appeal. Big Hammond orgel sound - 100% organic - Jon Hammond Organ Group #CableAccess #HammondOrgan #Blues #Jazz #Musikmesse2015
CNN iReport http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1235699
"Where's The Gig?" https://afm6.org/archives/jon-hammond-wheres-the-gig-by-alex-walsh/
Jon Hammond: “Where’s The Gig?” by Alex Walsh
Jon Hammond is a musician, composer, bandleader, publisher, journalist, TV show host, radio DJ, and multi-media entrepreneur. He currently travels the world, playing gigs and attending trade shows.
THE EARLY YEARS
Jon Hammond was born in Chicago in 1953. His father was a doctor and his mother was a housewife. They both played the piano. In 1957, his parents moved Jon and his four sisters to Berkeley, CA, where his father worked in a hospital as head of the emergency room. When he was nine, Jon started accordion lessons. “In those days, they had studios where parents would drop their kids off after school for tap dancing and accordion lessons. There were accordion bands and they would compete against each other.”
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 in the early 70s
Jon in the early 70s
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 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.
In 1982, Jon found out about public access television and the idea that anyone could produce a show and get it on TV. He started broadcasting on Manhattan’s public station in 1984. “I decided I was going to produce a radio show on TV. The first episodes showed just my tapping foot and my voice. It was a gimmick. We had graphics that were synchronized to go with the music. It worked out well. People dug it.” Within a few weeks, Jon was interviewed and featured in Billboard Magazine. The Jon Hammond Show was considered an alternative to the clips on Cable TV. “MTV was still in its infancy. We had a concept that was revolutionary. My phone started ringing and we were the hot kids on the block.”
LIVING ABROAD
Jon continued to play gigs in New York and produce his TV show. In 1987, he went to his first trade show (NAMM) where he was introduced to Mr. Julio Guilietti, the man who built his accordion. He then began traveling to trade shows and making contacts with musicians and companies around the world, including Hammond Suzuki. “They gave me the Hammond XB-2, the first really powerful portable Hammond organ. Glenn Derringer, one of my all-time heroes, presented it to me. I got one of the first. Paul Shaffer from the Letterman Show got the other. At the time there was only one EXP-100 expression pedal–we had to share the pedal. I used the pedal for my gigs and when Paul needed it I would bring it over to him at 30 Rockefeller Center on my bicycle.”
In the early 90s, when his New York gigs began drying up, Jon was encouraged to go to Germany. “It was a hard time. My father had just died and there were very few gigs. I got the XB-2 organ right when I needed it, so I decided to take a chance. I bought a roundtrip ticket to Frankfurt with an open return. I went with 50 bucks and stayed for a year. When I came back, I had 100 bucks.”
Jon stayed at a friend’s house and played a borrowed accordion on the street until he could get a band together. “I played on the street until my fingers turned blue and would collect enough money to get some fish soup. After about two weeks I got a call—I had put a band together and had 3 gigs coming up. A TV show had heard my story and wanted to do a story on me. At the first gig 19 people came; the second only 15 people came. Then I got the little spot on TV. When I came to the third gig people were lined up down the street. When I walked up I thought they were having an art exhibit. When they said, ‘No, they’re waiting for you.’ I choked up, I couldn’t even talk. So I’ve been playing there every year since. The people in Germany really saved my musical career at a time when very few things were happening for me in New York or San Francisco. I have a really good following in Europe. I keep busy as a musician in the States, playing hospitals and assisted living places, but my band dates I pretty much play overseas.”
Jon’s Late Rent Sessions was eventually released on a German label and received modest airplay. During the 90s he travelled back and forth to Europe, spending a year playing gigs in Paris, and eventually settling in Hamburg. Since then he has released two more albums and has played gigs in Moscow, Shanghai, and Australia. With the help of the internet, Jon is able to produce his TV show anywhere.
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
For more info visit www.jonhammondband.com
Public Access TV, #NAMM #HammondOrgan #BernardPurdie #Sk1 #B3 #Jazz #ASCAP composer, Musicians Union, Local 802, Local 6
Jon's archive https://archive.org/details/JonHammondShowPreviewMNNTVCh1PublicAccess0725AirTime130AM
Youtube https://youtu.be/ESJ37Yr31b4
CNN iReport http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1258417
by Jon Hammond
Published July 18, 2001
Usage Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
Topics Public Access TV, Manhattan Neighborhood Network, Channel 1, Community Access, Jon Hammond Show, Music, Travel Soft News, #NAMM #HammondOrgan #Sk1 #Jazz #ASCAPExpo Musicians Union, Local 802, Local 6
Public Access TV Channel 1 Manhattan Neighborhood Network Jon Hammond Show Preview MNN TV Ch 1 Public Access 07/25 Air Time 1:30 AM: Winter NAMM Show Lunch Time Showcase film - #TheNAMMShow White Onions Jon Hammond Funk Unit NAMM Showcase
by Jon Hammond
Usage Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
Topics NAMM Show, Lunch set, Bernard Purdie, Jon Hammond, Onions, Funky Jazz, Hercules folding stands, KHS America, Hammond Organ
#TheNAMMShow “White Onions” Jon Hammond Funk Unit NAMM Showcase lunch set https://www.namm.org/thenammshow/2015/events/jon-hammond-funk-unit
23rd 2015 reprising 1989 Late Rent Sessions recording ©JON HAMMOND International ASCAP with special guest Bernard Purdie drums, Leslie J. Carter percussion Jon Hammond organ (original members on record) featuring Koei Tanaka chromatic harmonica from Tokyo Japan Suzuki world star, Joe Berger guitar JJ guitars, Alex Budman tenor saxophone Dom Famularo returning to the NAMM Stage – special thanks NAMM President CEO Joe Lamond, KHS Hercules folding stands – congratulations KHS America: Announces Acquisition of Hohner Inc. USA
Producer Jon Hammond
Audio/Visual sound, color
Language English
The late great radio and TV broadcaster personality Al Jazzbeaux Collins in the studios of KCSM Jazz 91 with organist Jon Hammond - aka Al Jazzbo Collins, one of the greatest and most definitely coolest broadcasters who ever lived. *Note: I dearly miss Jazzbeaux, he was a huge inspiration to me personally. He broke out my music on the air back in New York on WNEW 1130AM huge powerful door he opened for me, we had a lot of fun together on both coasts - he introduced me to folks like Lionel Hampton, David Panama Francis, Lew Anderson band leader and Clarabell the Clown from It's Howdy Doody Time! TV Show, Joe Bushkin pianist, and his Family the Collins Family - he knew every door man garbage man and taxi drivers on the street - rest in peace Albert! sincerely, Jon Hammond *including a clip from Live performance in Horizons Sausalito with funky James Preston drums on Jon Hammond Band https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_%22Jazzbo%22_Collins Albert Richard "Jazzbo" Collins (born January 4, 1919, Rochester, New York[1] — d. September 30, 1997, Marin County, California) was an American disc jockey, radio personality and recording artist who was briefly the host of NBC television's Tonight show in 1957.
The name "Jazzbo" derived from a product Collins had seen, a clip-on bowtie named Jazzbows. Just as Martin Block created the illusion that he was speaking from the Make Believe Ballroom, Collins claimed to be broadcasting from his inner sanctum, a place known as the Purple Grotto, an imaginary setting suggested by radio station WNEW's interior design, as Collins explained:
I started my broadcast in Studio One which was painted all kinds of tints and shades of purple on huge polycylindricals which were vertically placed around the walls of the room to deflect the sound. It just happened to be that way. And with the turntables and desk and console and the lights turned down low, it had a very cavelike appearance to my imagination. So I got on the air, and the first thing I said was, "Hi, it's Jazzbo in the Purple Grotto." You never know where your thoughts are coming from, but the way it came out was that I was in a grotto, in this atmosphere with stalagtites and a lake and no telephones. I was using Nat Cole underneath me with "Easy Listening Blues" playing piano in the background.
Collins grew up on Long Island, New York. In 1941, while attending the University of Miami in Florida, he substituted as the announcer on his English teacher's campus radio program, and decided he wanted to be in radio. He began his professional career as the disc jockey at a bluegrass station in Logan, West Virginia.
— with Al "Jazzbo" Collins, Al "Jazzbo" Collins and James Preston at KCSM Jazz 91
Producer Jon Hammond
Audio/Visual sound, color
Language English
Jon's archive https://archive.org/details/PocketFunkMusikmessesessionJazzkellerHofheim
by Jon Hammond
Published May 15, 2015
Usage Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
Topics 19th year, musikmessesession, Pocket Funk, Jon Hammond, Hammond Organ, Jazzkeller Hofheim, #HammondOrgan #Musikmesse2015 MNN TV, Channel 1
Hofheim am Taunus -- Jon Hammond Band 19th year Musikmessesession in Jazzkeller Hofheim, Jon Hammond original composition "Pocket Funk" with Peter Klohmann - tenor saxophone, Giovanni Totò Gulino - drums, Joe Berger - guitar, Jon Hammond - Sk1 Hammond organ ©JON HAMMOND International ASCAP http://www.HammondCast.com
Youtube https://youtu.be/t0eTD1qpmX4
CNN iReport http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1241848
Vimeo https://vimeo.com/128005151
Dailymotion http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2qel64_pocket-funk-musikmessesession-jazzkeller-hofheim_music
Jon Hammond Band Facebook https://www.facebook.com/jonhammondband/videos/vb.133709526657853/1050914284937368/?type=3&theater
Jon's archive https://archive.org/details/JonHammondsMusikmesseWarmUpPartyJazzkeller
Youtube https://youtu.be/nRIMY20BFaU
Usage Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
Topics Journal Frankfurt, Journalkalendar, Jon Hammond, musikmesse, Warm Up Party, Hammond Organs, Frankfurt, Blues, Jazz, Soft News, MNN TV
FULL HIGH DEFINITION VERSION
29th Year! Jon Hammond's musikmesse Warm Up Party jazzkeller - Big Special Thanks to my good friend Saray Pastanesi for absolute Masterpiece Birthday & 29th musikmesse Chocolate Chocolate cake!! It was delicious, every morsel was consumed and enjoyed!!! Jon Hammond / Jon Hammond Band
http://www.jonhammondband.com/blog.html/dienstag_144_rock__pop__jazz_journal_frankfurt_im_aktuellen_journalkalender/
DIENSTAG, 14.4. ROCK | POP | JAZZ Journal Frankfurt im aktuellen
Journal Frankfurt Journalkalender
1 JAZZ/BLUES/FOLK Jon Hammond & Band Wer zählt noch mit ... Mal ernsthaft: der Mann, der so heißt wie sein Instrument, ist zum 29. Mal zur Musikmesse „Warm Up Party”. 21:00, Ffm: Jazzkeller, Kleine Bockenheimer Straße 18a Facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/955188417848638/ Jon Hammond - organ Joe Berger - guitar Peter Klohmann - saxophone Giovanni Gulino - drums Mr. Hammond has toured worldwide since 1991 using the incredible Sk1 organ by Hammond Suzuki..™ "Classic Hammond Sound...In A Suitcase!" The Jon Hammond Show is a funky swinging instrumental revue, featuring top international soloists. The show has universal appeal. Big Hammond orgel sound - 100% organic - Jon Hammond Organ Group #CableAccess #HammondOrgan #Blues #Jazz #Musikmesse2015
CNN iReport http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1235699
"Where's The Gig?" https://afm6.org/archives/jon-hammond-wheres-the-gig-by-alex-walsh/
Jon Hammond: “Where’s The Gig?” by Alex Walsh
Jon Hammond is a musician, composer, bandleader, publisher, journalist, TV show host, radio DJ, and multi-media entrepreneur. He currently travels the world, playing gigs and attending trade shows.
THE EARLY YEARS
Jon Hammond was born in Chicago in 1953. His father was a doctor and his mother was a housewife. They both played the piano. In 1957, his parents moved Jon and his four sisters to Berkeley, CA, where his father worked in a hospital as head of the emergency room. When he was nine, Jon started accordion lessons. “In those days, they had studios where parents would drop their kids off after school for tap dancing and accordion lessons. There were accordion bands and they would compete against each other.”
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 in the early 70s
Jon in the early 70s
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 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.
In 1982, Jon found out about public access television and the idea that anyone could produce a show and get it on TV. He started broadcasting on Manhattan’s public station in 1984. “I decided I was going to produce a radio show on TV. The first episodes showed just my tapping foot and my voice. It was a gimmick. We had graphics that were synchronized to go with the music. It worked out well. People dug it.” Within a few weeks, Jon was interviewed and featured in Billboard Magazine. The Jon Hammond Show was considered an alternative to the clips on Cable TV. “MTV was still in its infancy. We had a concept that was revolutionary. My phone started ringing and we were the hot kids on the block.”
LIVING ABROAD
Jon continued to play gigs in New York and produce his TV show. In 1987, he went to his first trade show (NAMM) where he was introduced to Mr. Julio Guilietti, the man who built his accordion. He then began traveling to trade shows and making contacts with musicians and companies around the world, including Hammond Suzuki. “They gave me the Hammond XB-2, the first really powerful portable Hammond organ. Glenn Derringer, one of my all-time heroes, presented it to me. I got one of the first. Paul Shaffer from the Letterman Show got the other. At the time there was only one EXP-100 expression pedal–we had to share the pedal. I used the pedal for my gigs and when Paul needed it I would bring it over to him at 30 Rockefeller Center on my bicycle.”
In the early 90s, when his New York gigs began drying up, Jon was encouraged to go to Germany. “It was a hard time. My father had just died and there were very few gigs. I got the XB-2 organ right when I needed it, so I decided to take a chance. I bought a roundtrip ticket to Frankfurt with an open return. I went with 50 bucks and stayed for a year. When I came back, I had 100 bucks.”
Jon stayed at a friend’s house and played a borrowed accordion on the street until he could get a band together. “I played on the street until my fingers turned blue and would collect enough money to get some fish soup. After about two weeks I got a call—I had put a band together and had 3 gigs coming up. A TV show had heard my story and wanted to do a story on me. At the first gig 19 people came; the second only 15 people came. Then I got the little spot on TV. When I came to the third gig people were lined up down the street. When I walked up I thought they were having an art exhibit. When they said, ‘No, they’re waiting for you.’ I choked up, I couldn’t even talk. So I’ve been playing there every year since. The people in Germany really saved my musical career at a time when very few things were happening for me in New York or San Francisco. I have a really good following in Europe. I keep busy as a musician in the States, playing hospitals and assisted living places, but my band dates I pretty much play overseas.”
Jon’s Late Rent Sessions was eventually released on a German label and received modest airplay. During the 90s he travelled back and forth to Europe, spending a year playing gigs in Paris, and eventually settling in Hamburg. Since then he has released two more albums and has played gigs in Moscow, Shanghai, and Australia. With the help of the internet, Jon is able to produce his TV show anywhere.
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
For more info visit www.jonhammondband.com
Public Access TV, #NAMM #HammondOrgan #BernardPurdie #Sk1 #B3 #Jazz #ASCAP composer, Musicians Union, Local 802, Local 6
hammondcast - 20. Jul, 08:23
