Doug Hammond
Drums, percussion, vocals
Born Dec. 26, 1942, in Tampa, Fla.

Doug Hammond started playing music in Florida as a sideman working in blues and R&B bands. He practiced and learned as many songs as possible so he could play with working bands, and his will to succeed led him to eschew holding a day job. The strategy worked and through records he schooled himself with some of the great masters of blues, jazz and swing. In the early 1960s he worked alongside Earl Hooker, The Five Royals, Sam and Dave, and Little Willie John. He had his eyes on New York but in 1965 moved to Detroit as a warm-up for the Big Apple. His early Motor City associations include Kirk Lightsey, James “Blood” Ulmer, and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. He built a reputation as a spare drummer who accented the nooks and crannies of the music while still swinging. That soon led to work with the likes of Donald Byrd, Sonny Redd, Joseph Jarman, Betty Carter, Chet Baker, Sonny Rollins, Hank Crawford, Focus Novii and Marcus Belgrave — covering everything from blues to bop and free jazz. In 1967 he was a founding member of the Detroit Creative Musicians Association, and served as vice president and coordinator of the organization that presaged some of the ideals that later led to Tribe’s founding.

Hammond moved to New York in 1970, and over the next decade worked with Kenny Durham, O.C. Smith, Charles Mingus, Sam Rivers, Howard Johnson, Lonnie Liston Smith, Howard Johnson, Marion Williams, Etta James, Lowell Fulson, Arthur Blythe, Sammy Price/Hal Singer, Dorothy Ashby, Nina Simone and Mal Waldron. He co-led an octet with saxophonist Sonny Fortune. His 1974 Tribe release with keyboardist David Durrah evidenced a fusion of jazz, African grooves and light, soulful melody. Lyrically he stood against the war in Vietnam and called out to African Americans to live positive lives.

In the late 1970s and into the 1980s he led the Doug Hammond Trio, and played in Peter Giger’s Family of Percussion. His resume stretches further in work with Paquito D’Rivera, Arnett Cobb, Wolfgang Dauner and Stephan Kurmann. In 1984 he moved to Germany and worked from that base until 1988 when he returned to Detroit for a year. In 1989 he moved to Linz, Austria, to teach jazz percussion at the Anton Bruckner Private University until his retirement in 2007. Over time his music has evolved toward blues and rhythm chant forms spiced with American and European avant garde.

Hammond has written several books of poetry, song lyrics, essays and drum instruction, including: Lonely Music Man(1982); Percussion and Rhythm Workshop(1993); In This Maze of Seeming Wonders(1994); 10 Melodies for Memory(1998); and Times On the Planet Earth(2000).

Hammond has recorded many times as a sideman over the decades. As a leader his albums include: Folks(1980); We People(1989); The Original Doug Hammond Trio; Perspiciuty(1991); Spaces (1992); It’s Born(1996/2000); Singing Smiles(2005); and A Real Deal (2007).


Doug Hammond feature in Waxpoetics