Jimmy Hamilton 05-25-1917 > 09-20-1994

Jimmy Hamilton was my friend and mentor for about 17 years.  I was his steady pianist for much of that time;  when I lived on St. Croix, and even some after I left. After Hurricane Hugo I moved to New Jersey (1990), and Jimmy allowed me the honor of performing with him in New York at "Carlos One" Jazz Club (6th Avenue just above the Village) for a week in 1991.  We stayed in touch always and I spoke to him about performing again only a week before his untimely passing.  I write this because I know of few other people who would preserve this information about Jimmy, a man who was much loved by many, many fans on St. Croix and around the world.   He was a dedicated teacher, writer, and performer, and a beloved friend to a great many people. Here are some little known facts about Jimmy Hamilton:

1. He practiced classical clarinet pieces almost every afternoon after returning home from teaching at St. Croix Central High School; to prepare himself for performance and as he put it; "To help me remember who I really am." Several friends and I would sometimes gather at one's home (he lived down-wind, in the valley below Jimmy's home on Mt. Welcome, St Croix) to listen as Jimmy warmed himself up with the Mozart Clarinet Concerto. It was a meditation for him and for us on those hot, tropical afternoons.

2. Among Jimmy's fans and musical collaborators were a wide variety of celebrities. During the years that I played with him I met Maureen O'Hara, Liv Ullman (she once held a family reunion at the Buccaneer Hotel and filled the hotel with about sixty, swing dancing Scandinavians), Robert DeNiro, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Rouse (we performed in concert with him), Cab Calloway (also a concert guest), Lucille Armstrong (Mrs. Satchmo) was a close friend of Jimmy's deceased wife, Vivian Jones-Hamilton (though she still came to visit after Vivian's passing), Paul & Linda McCartney (who parked their yacht in Christiansted Harbor), Blues master - James Cotton, Al Hibbler (another concert guest), Bootsie Barnes (Jimmy's cousin, a great tenor sax man who is still performing today), Clifford Jordan, drummer - Specs Powell (actually a St. Croix resident at that time), Billy Paul, Maria Muldaur, Richie Cole, Boots Randolph (Boots sat in with our band several times over those years), Paul Horn, Jimmy Buffet, Gary Burton (we performed in a series of concerts on a split bill with the GB Quartet), and I am sure there were others I have forgotten to mention. The point is that all of these people went out of their way to visit Jimmy and to hear him play. St. Croix wasn't and still isn't the most popular destination in the Caribbean, but all of these people who knew of Jimmy's residence there, made it a point to go and see one of the last of the Ellingtonians.

3. Jimmy was a great piano player and arranger and often he would show me a requested song at the piano just before performing it. In fact, we never even played most of those selections again, because people were always asking for different things. His repertoire was vast, although he had certain favorites that we almost always performed.

4. Jimmy was a perfectionist as a performer and a leader and it was always a thrill to play a steady diet of Ellington along with his favorite standards. He made sure that every set of music went along smoothly from tune to tune with little hesitation.

5. Jimmy Hamilton became a Ham Radio operator after the age of 60. During the early 1980's I remember him sitting in his van on intermissions and listening to tapes of Morse Code, memorizing letters and words by their musical rhythms. More than once when I would drop by his house for coffee in the morning I found him talking to Benny Goodman (also a Ham enthusiast) who had a home on St. Marten. Jimmy was a friend to Benny during the war years when clarinet reeds were really at a premium and I remember Benny telling me over the Ham radio "If Jimmy had reeds then I had reeds and if I had reeds then I made sure that he did. That's just how we were. We took care of each other."

6. Jimmy was an expert instrument repairman and kept an instrument repair shop and parts supply in his Volkswagen van; which had the logo- "Tuneyville Portable Music Shop" painted on the side (I still have a few of his business cards with that logo in my scrapbook-see bottom of page). He kept his music dealership and operators license up throughout his life.

7. Jimmy was a multi-instrumentalist who could still get a great sound on Baritone Horn, Trumpet, Tuba, Trombone, and all brass and reed instruments, at least until he retired from teaching. He played piano, as I mentioned above, and guitar as well (he always kept one in his van and worked out the chord changes to songs with it during his breaks at school or on gigs).  He told me that he picked up guitar because he was doing a lot of his arranging work for Duke while traveling in busses or on trains.  His fondness for the sound of the guitar is evidenced in some of his early recording sessions where he used only guitar (two at once on some tunes) instead of piano for the entire session.  Jimmy particularly excelled on the alto saxophone, on which he chose to model his sound after Benny Carter, one of his favorite saxophone stylists. He could, however, call up the spirit of Johnny Hodges in an uncanny way, or get a bop sound like Charlie Parker, whenever the mood struck him. Jimmy was also an excellent flautist, although Duke Ellington refused to let Jimmy play flute with the band because of his personal superstitions. Jimmy told the story that once, when they were supposed to debut an arrangement of "Stormy Weather" (which featured Jimmy on flute), there was such a great flood that they had to cancel the show and were stranded in that town for an extra day.  As a response to the storm, Duke decided that both the arrangement and Jimmy's flute playing were out, just in case either might have been to blame for the inconvenient weather.

8. Jimmy and his Quartet (with his wife, Vivian on piano) had a weekly radio show (WSTX AM radio station) throughout the early 1970's (1971-1977) which broadcast their Friday night gig, live from the Holger Danske Hotel in Christiansted. That broadcast made them fans all throughout the Caribbean.  In later years, I met many people from all over the region who told me how much they had looked forward to his weekly broadcasts, and that they had traveled to St. Croix specifically to hear him play again. The show was only discontinued when the station was sold and became a Calypso only station.

9. Jimmy was a great composer/arranger and wrote a lot of original music that was recorded for Muzak, arrangements for singers (Dinah Washington, for one), special compositions and arrangements for Duke & for Johnny Hodges, and other things that were great but were never recorded for one reason or another.   Duke frequently featured Jimmy's original compositions and arrangements.  Some were designed to feature the virtuoso talents of his friends in the band,  like "Theme For Trambeam" which featured Britt Woodman's trombone.  Also popular were Jimmy's arrangement of "Tenderly", or his first contribution to Duke's book: "Clarinet Melodrama";  both of which were designed to feature his talents on the clarinet.  Jimmy loved the blues and penned an arrangement entitled "Hi-Ya Sue", when Ellington asked him to create a feature for his gutsy tenor saxophone sound.  Some of Jimmy's later works were recorded with "Clarinet Summit" and on a few other recordings he made near the end of his career.  Jimmy told me this during an arranging class: "Write something new every day, even if it's only four bars of a sax ensemble or a bass part for a new arrangement. It will keep you fresh and creative. That's how Duke did it!"  He would know, Jimmy was on Duke's copying and arranging staff for 25yrs.!

10.  During the years before he began performing and recording with Duke Ellington, Jimmy performed with Teddy Wilson's Trio, Yank Porter's Band, and Eddie Heywood, (Heywood was best known for his hit song "Canadian Sunset").  When Jimmy took the job with Duke he actually had another offer on the table from Count Basie.  Basie wanted him to perform only on tenor sax, however, and Jimmy wanted the chance to perform on clarinet, as well.  Jimmy also commented that he was a great fan of Ellington's compositions and that Duke was sure to challenge him with new material.   He was certainly right about that!  Duke and Billy Strayhorn wrote many featured parts for Jimmy's clarinet and tenor sax improvisations (Air-conditioned Jungle, Deep Purple, and Bluebird of Delphi; to name a few).    Among Jimmy's recordings from the "pre-Duke" years is the famous hit, "Gloomy Sunday"  with Billie Holiday, recorded during his stay with Eddie Heywood.

11. Jimmy was a great supporter of the St. Croix Botanical Gardens and held a concert to raise money for that facility every year. He and his wife, Vivian, are among only a handful of people who have been granted the privilege of making that beautiful nature sanctuary their final resting place. They are buried there, side by side.

12. Jimmy traveled the world with Duke and played and recorded with him, with Johnny Hodges, and several times on his own here are a few related pictures collected from the archives:

Above ^ Duke, Ben Webster, and Jimmy                Above^ Jimmy & Bootsie Barnes

Click on Jimmy's business card to view an MPG video of

his sign off from the St. Croix Island Center Performance.

(For more on Jimmy visit "Greg's Music Scrapbook")