Out Now! - A Trio of Doug Hammond Reissues
Manufactured Recordings is proud to reissue the legendary composer, writer, percussionist, singer and coordinator, Doug Hammond’s, distinguished albums Ellipse (1977), Folks (1980), and Spaces (1982). Hammond’s career has eschewed typification and stylistic categories, as he has excelled at everything from blues to bop and free jazz. The albums will be available on vinyl again for the first time in decades on November 15th.
Though he may be most remembered as the composer and one of the vocalists of “Mingus Moves,” Hammond is much more than that. His journey began as a musician. Before his high school graduation, he was playing blues music with Barney Lowis and B.B. King, who went onto get him his first gigs sitting in with Earl Hooker. By the grace of pianist and vocalist Kitty Daniels, Hammond was inducted into jazz, at first playing with Andy “Gump” Martin and then, upon graduation, The Five Royals, Little Willie John and Sam and Dave
Splitting his time between New York City and Detroit in the 60s and 70s, Hammond lent his percussive and vocal talents to Donald Byrd, Sonny Rollins, Kenny Dorham, Charles Mingus, Sam Rivers, Etta James, Nina Simone, the Dorothy Ashby Trio and more. In 1967, he became a founding member and vice president of the Detroit Creative Musicians Association, an artist-led cooperative that presaged Tribe, Strata and Strata-East. He was the co-founder of the music and literature collective Focus Novii as well as the longtime coordinator of the Jazz am Berg series in Linz, Austria while also teaching at Bruckner University. Over the years, his compositions have been performed by Charles Mingus, Steve Coleman, Dave Holland Quintet, Duesseldorfer Studio Ensemble of the Robert Schumann Institute/Germany, Jazzanova, Carl Craig, George Crumb Trio, Family of Percussion, Archie Shepp, Walter Haas, Paul Epstein, Michael Riessler, Dwight Adams, Tribe, and more
