The Chico Hamilton Quintet - Chico Hamilton Quintet (1979 Japanese Pacific Jazz Mono Vinyl LP)

The Chico Hamilton Quintet - Chico Hamilton Quintet | Vinyl LP - 1979 Japanese Pacific Jazz Mono Reissue (GXF 3140, King Record Co.)

In 1955 the drummer Chico Hamilton, fresh from Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartet, put together a group unlike anything else on the West Coast. Instead of the usual front line he built it around Fred Katz's cello and Buddy Collette's flutes and reeds, with Jim Hall on guitar and Carson Smith on bass, and no piano at all. The cello and flute gave the quintet a light, woven, almost classical sound, and it became one of the defining chamber-jazz groups of the era. This is their debut, and it is also the first major recording by Jim Hall, then twenty-four, who contributes the tune "Spectacular" and arranges "The Morning After". Half the record was cut in the studio and half taped live at a Long Beach club called The Strollers, and it ranges from the delicate, drifting "Blue Sands" to "Free Form", a piece of collective free improvisation remarkably early for 1955.

The quintet caught on quickly, turning up on film and festival stages and making the cello briefly seem like a natural jazz instrument. For Jim Hall it was the start of everything, and twenty years before he cut Concierto the warm, unhurried touch is already here. The group stands as a high point of the West Coast scene, proof that cool jazz could be intricate without turning cold.

This is the 1979 Japanese pressing on Pacific Jazz, manufactured by King Record Co. in mono as part of its Pacific Jazz 1800 series, wearing William Claxton's cover photograph.