Doug Hammond
Saarbrücker Zeitung, Friday, November 14, 2008
by Stefan Uhrmacher
On Tuesday the small series of club evenings in Malzeit came to an end. As part of the festival, the Doug Hammond Trio was featured on the last “American Jazz Night.” By no means is Hammond a showy firebug; he treats drums and cymbals rather unspectacularly: in the best sense he is a sensitive master of music playing with an unmistakable signature. With his head swaying back and forth, Hammond certainly marked highly unorthodox accents and built in tricky maneuvers – without neglecting the stimulating pulse. Concentrating more than ever on the essence, this musician of character was singing at the microphone: And reducing it to the max was the „Charaktermusiker“ - with his distintive , unique style, when intoning with his voice: without frills and with a rather dry charme he sang mostly his own melodies, which are worth remembering. Nowadays one rarely has the chance to hear a duett of voice and drums like Hammond performed.
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