Beat of a Different Drummer

Unlike many musicians who were getting their careers started in the ‘70s, drummer Jeff Hamilton never felt the pull of pop or electric jazz fusion. “Wasn’t even tempted,” he said.

“I never bought into the pop music of my generation. I was listening to big-band music at an early age and always preferred that over what I was hearing on the radio.”

Hamilton, 44, believed there was something unnatural about the electric music that was sweeping the jazz world while he was a student at Indiana University at Bloomington in the early ‘70s.

“Fusion went against everything I had learned coming up,” he said. “I was taught to get a natural sound out of a natural instrument, to let your body make the music, not something that you plugged into the wall. I didn’t want to play drums in a group like that.”

Those no-nonsense convictions have served him well. After visible stints with pianists Monty Alexander and Oscar Peterson as well as a long-term relationship with bassist Ray Brown, Hamilton has a reputation as a hard-driving, straight-ahead jazz player who doesn’t compromise his musical beliefs.

“I’ve always been that way. Never been one to go along with the crowd.”

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Hamilton’s career literally started on the floor. His mother was a church organist and Hamilton would lie at her feet working the bass pedals. The family would gather around the piano at home to sing “Satin Doll.”

“I had a very musical upbringing,” he said. “I didn’t hear a lot of jazz per se, but I did hear a lot of big-band music.”

He began playing the snare drum when he was 8. Five years later, he graduated to a set of traps. “I was all hands and no feet.”

An instructor turned him on to drummers Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich, and their music began to resonant. He spent two years studying at Indiana University, where he met John Hamilton (with whom he co-leads the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra). But he soon left school to hit the road with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra under the direction of Murray McEachern.

From there, Hamilton went on to play with vibraphonist Lionel Hampton.

“It was an incredible time. The first night I played with him I had bruises on the balls of my feet and bleeding hands from playing that backbeat stuff so hard. I learned a lot hanging out with [Hampton] after rehearsals when he would show me new stuff. [Hampton’s] really a drummer at heart.”

Hamilton toured extensively with pianist Alexander and the Woody Herman Band in the mid-’70s before being tapped in 1978 for one of the most prestigious positions of the time: Shelly Manne’s replacement as drummer in the L.A. Four.

“ ‘Replacement’ isn’t the right word,” Hamilton said. “Shelly was so great. I was allowed to sit in his chair is more like it. I remember the first rehearsal with the L.A. Four. Shelly had had a real influence on me and I was trying to play just like him. Ray [Brown] stopped me and said, ‘We want to hear what you have to say. Be yourself.’ ”

After the L.A. Four disbanded in the early ‘80s, Brown tapped Hamilton as the drummer for his trio, a position Hamilton held until forming his own trio in 1994. Today, the drummer has albums out under his name on the Concord and Mons labels and tours Europe, the U.S. and Japan with his trio and the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra.

Hamilton has never regretted his mainstream course.

“The older I get, the more clear my direction becomes. That focus is so important to me. As long as I concentrate in serving the music, good things are bound to happen every time I sit down at the drums.”

* The Jeff Hamilton Trio with pianist Larry Fuller and bassist Lynn Seaton plays Steamers Cafe, 138 W. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton. Friday-Saturday, 8:30 p.m. No cover. (714) 871-8800.