John Hammond Wicked Grin Rarity
Between the Wars: The Swing EraJohn Hammond, Jazz PromoterFor forty years, producer and critic John Hammond leftan indelible mark on American music. Like his contemporaryNorman Granz, he saw jazz, and music generally, as aninstrument of racial justice, a political tool. Jazz criticFerguson captures Hammond's autocratic and self-righteousmanner in this lively piece. Drop into almost any night club, uptown, downtown, oracross, any recording date or broadcast or audition orrehearsal, and if you stick around long enough, you arealmost sure to see John Henry Hammond, Jr., in the flesh, ifbriefly. You can tell him by the crew haircut, which bobsapproximately in time to the music, and also by a habit ofstanding with his legs crossed, and also by the fresh copiesof various trade, intellectual, and left-wing papers underhis arm. Or just find the youngish chap with the crewhaircut who is in the most earnest conversation with whoeveris running whatever show it is, and that will be John.
Lyrics to 'No Wicked Grin' song by John Hiatt: I can see by your tears With all of the years You still hear the call of the blue And I can see. Once in the studio, the album evolved into a selection of Waits' songs, performed by Hammond, produced by Waits. The concept of an artist producing an album of his own compositions performed by another artist is certainly a rare event, if not unprecedented. Yet the results feel as natural as day and night. On Wicked Grin.
Goforward to meet him and his head juts forward at you,slightly lowered as if to charge, but belying any seemingtruculence by the open heartiness of his greeting. He iseither spilling over with enthusiasm (Isn't itswell?) or only partly concealing his disgust (It's acrime, it stinks). He is a little better than average height, under thirty,dark complexion, no fat, soberly dressed, hatless andcoatless. Fairly voluble, socially at ease but with none ofthis greaseball heel-clicking. His enthusiasms, for oragainst, are gusty. He slaps his knee, he clasps his head inhis hands, he strides out of places or sits with his headtoo far back and claps too heavily.
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In theaters he groans,snorts, slaps his knee again, explains to a movie critic thedifference between a camera and Sergei Eisenstein (greatdirector; stayed with him in Russia, you know), or holds anewspaper up high enough to read it in the dim light withpointed absorption. His laugh is somewhat like Joe Penner'sand often a trial to the nerves, especially when used tostress a point not very funny. He is right and right withbells on; but if you happen to have the habit of stepping upand being right, too, he can take it. John Henry Hammond (Junior) is known to practicallyeveryone who ever mounted a bandstand, or plugged a song, orgot on the free list for records and wrote articles usingsuch phrases as gutbucket and out of this world and dig thatstomp-box. He is known as the Critic, the Little Father, theGuardian Angel, and the Big Bringdown, of dance music. Butthe point is, he is known. There are reasons for this, as there are reasons foreverything. John has developed an inclusive set of interestswhich keep him abreast of developments in all of the artsand in the class struggle, here and abroad (Oh yes, he hasmoney to go abroad, and introductions to the head guysthere, and money to take them out to dinner). But hisbiggest kick has always been the dance music of thiscountry: in the field of 'race,' or jazz, or swing, he hasacquired a breadth of scholarship which is more astonishingthan that of the Shakespeare student in that most of it isfirsthand.
That is his interest and the major part of hislife. With the exception of all but an absurdly limited few,people just can't afford to make their hobby coincide withtheir means of livelihood. John Hammond is different. He hasno job - or say he has twenty in the course of a year, someof them existing mainly in his anticipation, some going intoan actual matter of weeks. Probably his longest continuousjob was as second-string music critic on the Brooklyn Eagle,but there of course he was working practically for marblesand didn't have to be around the office. Every place he goeshe presently spies the taint of commercialism in art or thesordid hand of capitalism clutching workers. Hespeaks out. And then he is out.
From Irving Mills to EnglishParlophone to the Esty advertising people to Columbiarecords - the circumstances may vary but the pattern is thesame. Partly he gets bored with the outfit, partly theoutfit gets bored with John, but mostly he smells some kindof smell and won't compromise about it. There is a keynotein that for keynote hunters: John won't compromise onanything because he never learned to and he never learned tobecause he never had to. He has an income, John has. He was born in the kind offamily and educated at the kind of school and given the kindof accomplishments, accent (slightly Hahvud), and clothesthat mean the future is assured and just cushy. He didn'tchoose to be an expensive lawyer like his father, oranything else respectable and gilt-edged that hisWestchester family might have wanted. But he got an amountsettled on him. He lives very modestly on Sullivan Streetbelow Washington Square, but his telephone-answering servicecosts more than the majority of our population pays forrent.
He keeps a car and turns it in so fast you barely havetime to put a cigarette burn on the upholstery. I never sawany holes in his shoes. I've seen him settle for a slew oftop-heavy checks in those spots about town that I can makesay once a month and still not wash the dishes. He is threeor five hundred in this band or that show, but I think thetip-off is that John is the kind of guy who just goes outand buys the magazines instead of waiting for somebody elseto get through with them. That is the financial setup, velvet over a box-springmattress. But if you think it is a soft life, you're crazy -it could be soft, but then it wouldn't be John Hammond. Youcan say of whatever he does that he doesn't have to do it,but there's where you stop.
Not having to be in any oneplace, he is in all places; not having to do one thing aday, he does a hundred. I've tailed him for just one day andI estimate that five days in a row would drop anyone'sarches. And I remember still the horrible fascination withwhich we watched John bounce in one morning this spring, therest of us were doing pretty badly trying to get our eyesopen with a lot of coffee, having had them shut all night.John apologized for not getting in until the fourth cup.
Hadsome things to do in town this morning; had some things todo in Memphis yesterday; didn't get in till late; awfullysorry. Well, he'd driven up from Memphis, solo, nonstop,because it seemed there was some little thing he wanted toask Benny before Benny left for Atlantic City, andpresumably before John got started on the day proper. Atthat difficult low-tide time of the morning, honestly,couldn't you loathe a guy like that? The one day I was talking about, John was doing a littletalent-scouting at the U. Of P., and would I want to dropdown? So we dropped down to Philadelphia, having, as Irecall, a little breakfast coffee on the way, and thenwaited around hours for the stuffy little nance who had theuniversity glee club, and then did a penny arcade in thecolored section.
Then we did a show where Pigmeat Mason wasplaying, and then we did another show somewhere else whereFats Waller was playing and stood around backstageafterward, and somewhere along the line John had bought himall the Philly papers, to find out the state of social wrongand Negro entertainment. Then we drove back to New York fordinner, which we had at a joint where John was interested infixing up the bass player for a job with Fats Waller, onlythe bass player was out and there was some talking aboutthat, and also a floor show, and then wouldn't we now goover and play a few records, which we did, and some peoplecame in to horse-trade for rare copies, and it came twelveo'clock and John thought we'd drive uptown and horsetrade atthe other fellow's place, and all I had left was enough tostay on my feet and say firmly that they could drop me at myhome on the way up, thank you very much.
I had only beenconditioned to bear up under a routine of doing ship's workfrom five to five and standing four hours' watch six nightsout of eight, but was probably going soft into the bargain.Anyway, I was no match for John. John spends practically a third of his life in his car, agood driver, fast but cautious and never letting go. Hedrives until he is sleepy and then takes off his shoes. Withhis feet cold he can't go to sleep, and he keeps on driving.He changes cars but not the car radio, which he has goingfull blast every minute that there is any station withinrange putting anything on the air. He favors thatpreselective trick shift where you have a button under thewheel. He suffers slow and dangerous road-fools withseasoned patience.
He can go anywhere but east out of NewYork for hundreds of miles without looking at road signs.Chicago and Kansas City he takes off for in the same way youwould propose going up to the Savoy because there is a goodband in. All of which feats I regard with awe, and some withenvy. Even while he is in town, he is running up a lot ofmileage. There's a picture here, a recording there, a bandin some Jamaica hideout, a music publisher or magazineoffice where something is to be wangled, there's an opening,a closing, an audition, a conference, a rehearsal, a chap tosee or fix or help or tell off, a class-consciousflea-circus. Stay away from public places and you won't knowhe's alive for days. Then there's a phone call: Aswell guy has just done a swell article onetc., know anyone interested? There's a terrific musiccritic who wants to get fixed up to etc.
There's amagnificent film on etc. And will you etc.?Then in the music business there are even more angles: thisarranger, that recording, these working conditions, thoseroyalties; and there is this song, that guitar player,whosie's band and can you etc. Night and Day. But all the time he is being known to everyone, everyoneis asking what's behind it all, where does he get off, wheredid he get on? John Hammond has none of the vices by whichmen are accustomed to knowing their fellows.
He eats foodwhen he's hungry or when he's in a place where that's thething to do, but he doesn't really lick his chops and wallowin the thought of some barbecue ribs at a rare joint uptownsomewhere. If he is in a night spot where that sort of thingis expected, he will be prevailed on to have from one tothree brandies, and I have even seen him drink beer; but youwouldn't suspect him of ever knocking the top off a bottlein his haste to be at what was inside.
He smokes mainly outof courtesy, his fingers aren't yellow. As for girls, henever seems to be cluttered up with them unless they aremusic critics, in which case it doesn't count. And yousomehow just don't get palsy with a fellow (especially inthe fast life of the music business) if the best you can dowith him is split a stick of gum. But mainly what makes him a figure of mystery to workingmusicians is his insistence on the intellectual purity ofthe thing (to intellectuals, on the other hand, he becomesinscrutable by virtue of talking like a jitterbug). He'llrush up to a well-meaning bird who never heard of the Waragainst Fascism in his life and cut him clear to the floorbecause the bird went to see Schmeling fight. He'll quoteJohn Strachey to someone who learned how to write so hecould sign checks.
He'll urge a demonstration for LoyalistSpain on trumpet men who think that is just another tangojob. As a working critic, John Hammond suffers mainly from acomplete lack of temperance and caution. He hasn'testablished for himself the intervening marks on the scaleof achievement between 'it's terrific' and 'it stinks.' (Even when you say 'It's quite fair,' you can of course putan accent on that will demolish it anyway.) Consequently hegets himself out on a limb when some young and hithertoundiscovered genius develops presently into a turkey; and hegets other people out on limbs when he prints the signal,for all jitteroos to see, identifying this or that one as astalk of corn that ought to be hoed under. As Dean of the Swing Critics, accustomed to deference andnot having his word disputed, he has developed a habit ofknowing the answers and what's more giving them to you - itdoesn't matter whether you asked. For a while he had a trickin writing of referring to himself in the third person, likeroyalty and God. Not I thought, or We thought, but Hammondthought.
John Hammond Jr
Hammond, he would say, is pained. His friendslaughed: So, they said, are we. In most ways people don't find these traits hard to take,because John has a genuine feeling for good music, agenerosity that includes going down the line for the otherfellow (and a pile of cases could be cited for this), aquick ear for new talent no matter what it's hiding under.However, when he gets onto the horse of one of his manyprejudices, the I-John-Hammond complex takes him clear offout of sight hell for leather. He is all for the working class. He's dedicated tothe cause of the Negro. But he is too apt to shut hisear to the music of someone who didn't pay off on a date orsaid nuts to the lettuce pickers, and call it criticism.
Andwhen he goes around saying 'white musician' the way you'duse the term 'greaseball,' he not only confuses his readersand upsets his own standards but starts the Jim Crow car allover again, in reverse. Some will tell you that you're notdoing much to eliminate a color line by drawing it all overthe place yourself, and certainly something ought to be doneamong those of Mother Hammond's Chickens who have been ledinto believing that criticism consists in saying: Which isbetter, black or white? And raising all that hell. Some whopractice in other fields will tell you something else:Critics, as Bessie Smith might have said it, critics oughtto learn how to take their time. Every now and then someone is combing around through thebars looking for Hammond to punch him on the nose. Forone thing, there's no tradition of criticism for the boys toget used to, and they take a poor report card as an insultto their mother. But mainly - and, monkey-see-monkey-do, ithas a depressing national effect - it's the way John willcome belting down like God off a mountain with the Word, theone and only.
He never seemed to pick up from his readingthat there are so many tastes, in all things, that no onecan be sure his is the only one, and must accordinglyproceed with caution. Indeed there are more ways ofcomparing two things than saying one stinks, and the lesscomparing a critic does the better, anyway.
And when he doessay he doesn't like a thing, he's got to make the groundsfor divorce very clear; and if he only dislikes it a little,he's got to mind his words, for they are going out in publicwhere they'll do a lot of damage. And they're going to havea boomerang kick, too, because the guy who's stomped on isgoing to turn critic himself a little - it was an education,while Hammond's brood of critics were digesting Hammond onKrupa, to hear Krupa on Hammond. And the good lord knows that when John's got a newfavorite, the N.F. Can be off the beat and off the chordhalf the night and you'll still see that crew haircutbobbing along and it's still aces, every inch. I could curlyour hair with the kind of language you'll hear on thissubject, and I don't mean among second-rate musicians. Inaddition, of course, there are some mild and funnyvariations on known themes- 'How can you sit there and callyourself a swing musician, you never washed no cars,' 'Itmay swing for you, but wait till you read about CountBasie,' 'Why, you no-good motheree, you just ain'tintegrated,' etc. And the phrase 'Uh-oh, the Bringdown'shere' is as familiar in some quarters as 'Soup's on,' withdifferent effect. John Hammond has got behind a lot of good men and helpedput them over, and in more cases than you can count he hasthrown his weight on the brake handle when they gotskidding. The famous funny skit where John kept saying 'Ipersonally was in the studio at the time' was right bothways, because John always is in the studio (personally) anddoesn't omit the fact from mention.
He's had the money,energy, and leisure to do more work on Count Basie'sorchestra than the Count himself, and he was carrying thebanner for Henderson and Goodman in the rocky days when notvery many others were (that's just to mention three out ofdozens). And that certainly is the best work a critic cando; it should be an ideal. In the same way, he's talkedhimself out of one thing after another hitting at abusesthrough the music industry at large - and that's evenbetter. His play has been more work than most people getdone, and if he's the most important name in his field, itisn't by chance or position. But this leads up to the big BUT. He has his ideas andhis fancy steps and he won't take telling. He must rush offand write about it. It isn't that as a technician he's sobad a writer as he boasts: he simply won't even try to worklike a critic, and his idea of giving a musician a hint isto hit him in the face with a shovel.
The revenge is cruelbut at least in kind (for his caprice and thoughtlessnesshave pushed down just as many men as he's helped up). He hasas many enemies as friends, and what the enemies say is(among various things of course unprintable) 'What are youtelling me, John Hammond said this or that? You know athing? That guy really doesn't like music, I mean he doesn'tget knocked out that way.' And that's a statement just assweeping, just as true-and-false, as the ones he has pinnedup for everybody to read. Somewhere a long way back, probably - somewhere it wasn'tdone because he had the inside rail and the silver spoon andthe velvet cushion - John Hammond should have been taken inhand and his ears beaten down a little, and he should havebeen made to write out five thousand times over, for his owneventual good, the sentence: CRITICS OUGHT TO LEARN HOW TOTAKE THEIR TIME. Society Rag, September 1938reprinted in: The Otis Ferguson Reader.
DorothyChamberlain and Robert Wilson (eds.) Dato, IL: DecemberPress, 1982.