A Cockeyed Optimist
Bali Ha'i
Bobby Hammack Quintet
Producer: Simon Jackson
Cover Photography: Alex de Paolo
Engineer: Ted Keep
Recorded in Hollywood, December 11th, 12th and 14th, 1956
Liberty LRP 3037 (LST 707 Stereo)
Liberty LRP 3037 (LST 707 Stereo)
1957
Jerry Friedman - Vibes, Marimba, Timpani, Timbales & Assorted Gadgets
Wes Nellermoe - Guitar
Irving Edelman - Bass
Bobby Hammack - Piano, Celeste
Milt Holland - Drums, Bells & Bongos
From the back cover: You are about to witness the biggest musical event since Rimsky met Korsakoff an instrumental treatment of "South Pacific!" Bobby Hammack, with a style he himself describes as "calculated spontaniety," vividly interprets the Rodgers-Hammerstein gems with his unceasing vigilance for the melody.
Competition in the record business is stiffer than an Indian's upper lip, but Bobby has achieved and maintained constant success here in Hollywood since his arrival a decade back. You've heard his fine work on ABC-TV and Radio, and in albums for Audiophile, ABC-Paramount, and Liberty. Since being sprung from the Army Air Corps after the Second World Carnage, he's performed with Will Osborne, Eddie Miller, Bob Crosby, Peewee Hunt and Red Nichols. In short, he is busier than a one-legged acrobat riding a unicycle up-hill... through sand. Or, to put it in a more fiscal terminology, Robert Hammack will never be rocking dejectedly on the verandah of the South Encino Rest Home for Indigent Pianists.
Beavering eagerly and accurately, Bobby handled all research and arrangements for the session; and his group, whom you see listed above, can best be described in two words: tuh-riffic. They've worked together as ABC staff musicians four years, except for Milt Holland, the prominent knee-cymbalist, who joins Hammack's hamsters for such special pell-mell assignments as this. Milt is much sought after because he's found a new way to play drums... from the inside, man, from the inside.
This album was the first to be recorded in the resonant new Liberty studios (1556 North La Brea, in case you're taking notes) over the main drawbridge of which is proclaimed, "Through These Portals Pass the Most." Everyone digs Liberty the most. I think you'll find this album the greatest thing since Home Relief.
In what may be the most colossal understatement since Custer's classic remark just before being nailed at the goal line, many records of Broadway productions establish new frontiers of tedium, ending up with fermented triads, clabbered sevenths, and lulls within lulls. This is caused by the leader's stepping gingerly through his arrangement like a queasy chicken. Not so with Robert Vernor Hammack and his giant five-man pit band! He meshes their talents and 30 minutes of SOUTH PACIFIC (why didn't they call it Bali Ha'i-Fi?) cascades through your loudspeaker with vigour, audacity, humour and authority.
Certainly Bob couldn't have selected a score more likely to make your sox unravel, and his timing in creating this album couldn't have been more astute. Rodgers and Hammerstein's SOUTH PACIFIC needs (and will get) no analysis and review here. Unless you've been making the eccentric recluse scene since April 7, 1949 – when SOUTH PACIFIC made its Broadway debut you are well aware of the production's amazing history, both melodically and pecuniarily. Its original star, Mary Martin, is now reviving SOUTH PACIFIC, and it's also about to be filmed. Ezio Pinza, who portrayed the French planter with consummate skill has since retired, which is a melancholy development, but C'est La Ball Bounces.
You would want to burn me in effigy if I didn't tell you about the cover picture. Unless you happened to be flatboating down the freeway at the very moment this tableau was being set up, you would either assume that Bobby and his voluptuous playmate were in an elaborate studio or else had been whisked off to a neighboring atoll. It is a well known fact among no one that the cover was shot at high noon in the debris on the slopes of the Hollywood Freeway with all types traffic churning past, creating the inevitable Noxius Fumes (and his orchestra). The doll with bare-midriff (and notice the way her mid hangs enchantingly over the riff) is a toothsome, unavailable model.
So now enjoy the many-fingered splendors of Pianist Ham- mack and company. I have to leave now – I'm due back at the honor farm. – BILL BALLANCE
About Bill Ballance – Bill Ballance runs rampant six hours daily on KFWB, Hollywood, with "Ballance 'n' Records." He is seen regularly on television with original wry monologues. Ballance entered radio in 1936, graduated from the University of Illinois in 1940, and was a Marine Corps Captain during the Second World War.
From Billboard - 1957: Here's an item which may fare better sales-wise in the pop field than jazz. Tasteful, neatly understated instrumental treatments of the great Rodgers and Hammerstein South Pacific score, highlighted by Hamack's aptly self-styled "calculated spontaneity" at the keyboard. Amusing cover adds up to good display art for dealers.
Overture
Competition in the record business is stiffer than an Indian's upper lip, but Bobby has achieved and maintained constant success here in Hollywood since his arrival a decade back. You've heard his fine work on ABC-TV and Radio, and in albums for Audiophile, ABC-Paramount, and Liberty. Since being sprung from the Army Air Corps after the Second World Carnage, he's performed with Will Osborne, Eddie Miller, Bob Crosby, Peewee Hunt and Red Nichols. In short, he is busier than a one-legged acrobat riding a unicycle up-hill... through sand. Or, to put it in a more fiscal terminology, Robert Hammack will never be rocking dejectedly on the verandah of the South Encino Rest Home for Indigent Pianists.
Beavering eagerly and accurately, Bobby handled all research and arrangements for the session; and his group, whom you see listed above, can best be described in two words: tuh-riffic. They've worked together as ABC staff musicians four years, except for Milt Holland, the prominent knee-cymbalist, who joins Hammack's hamsters for such special pell-mell assignments as this. Milt is much sought after because he's found a new way to play drums... from the inside, man, from the inside.
This album was the first to be recorded in the resonant new Liberty studios (1556 North La Brea, in case you're taking notes) over the main drawbridge of which is proclaimed, "Through These Portals Pass the Most." Everyone digs Liberty the most. I think you'll find this album the greatest thing since Home Relief.
In what may be the most colossal understatement since Custer's classic remark just before being nailed at the goal line, many records of Broadway productions establish new frontiers of tedium, ending up with fermented triads, clabbered sevenths, and lulls within lulls. This is caused by the leader's stepping gingerly through his arrangement like a queasy chicken. Not so with Robert Vernor Hammack and his giant five-man pit band! He meshes their talents and 30 minutes of SOUTH PACIFIC (why didn't they call it Bali Ha'i-Fi?) cascades through your loudspeaker with vigour, audacity, humour and authority.
Certainly Bob couldn't have selected a score more likely to make your sox unravel, and his timing in creating this album couldn't have been more astute. Rodgers and Hammerstein's SOUTH PACIFIC needs (and will get) no analysis and review here. Unless you've been making the eccentric recluse scene since April 7, 1949 – when SOUTH PACIFIC made its Broadway debut you are well aware of the production's amazing history, both melodically and pecuniarily. Its original star, Mary Martin, is now reviving SOUTH PACIFIC, and it's also about to be filmed. Ezio Pinza, who portrayed the French planter with consummate skill has since retired, which is a melancholy development, but C'est La Ball Bounces.
You would want to burn me in effigy if I didn't tell you about the cover picture. Unless you happened to be flatboating down the freeway at the very moment this tableau was being set up, you would either assume that Bobby and his voluptuous playmate were in an elaborate studio or else had been whisked off to a neighboring atoll. It is a well known fact among no one that the cover was shot at high noon in the debris on the slopes of the Hollywood Freeway with all types traffic churning past, creating the inevitable Noxius Fumes (and his orchestra). The doll with bare-midriff (and notice the way her mid hangs enchantingly over the riff) is a toothsome, unavailable model.
So now enjoy the many-fingered splendors of Pianist Ham- mack and company. I have to leave now – I'm due back at the honor farm. – BILL BALLANCE
About Bill Ballance – Bill Ballance runs rampant six hours daily on KFWB, Hollywood, with "Ballance 'n' Records." He is seen regularly on television with original wry monologues. Ballance entered radio in 1936, graduated from the University of Illinois in 1940, and was a Marine Corps Captain during the Second World War.
From Billboard - 1957: Here's an item which may fare better sales-wise in the pop field than jazz. Tasteful, neatly understated instrumental treatments of the great Rodgers and Hammerstein South Pacific score, highlighted by Hamack's aptly self-styled "calculated spontaneity" at the keyboard. Amusing cover adds up to good display art for dealers.
Overture
Bali Ha'i
Happy Talk
Younger Than Springtime
A Wonderful Guy
I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair
There's Nothing Like A Dame
Dites Moi
Honey Bun
This Nearly Was Mine
Some Enchanted Evening
A Cockeyed Optimist
OH yes MUCH better than the usual South Pacific!
ReplyDeletegreat. got more hammack? this was my first jazz album.
ReplyDeleteI don't think so, that I can remember off hand. Thanks for stopping by. Mark
Delete