Jeff Hamilton & John Pizzarelli: Tales From the Road

No moderator required. John Pizzarelli and Jeff Hamilton have been friends since 1984, and it shows — in the stories they finish for each other, the ones they've clearly been waiting to tell, and the ones that arrive sideways in the middle of something else entirely.

This Season 7 opener, recorded live on The Jazz Cruise 2026, is the kind of conversation that could only happen when two people have shared enough bandstands to stop performing for each other. Hamilton takes you back to his first night playing with Oscar Peterson, the Ray Brown philosophy of career preparation, and what it actually takes to pack a bag when you've been on the road since 1974. Pizzarelli traces his unlikely path to singing back to a Nat King Cole reissue, a last-minute Stash Records session, and a father who never missed a teaching moment — even when the lesson arrived as a one-liner. Stories about Bucky, Paul McCartney, James Taylor, and the future of straight-ahead jazz fill out the second half, with audience questions that are as good as the answers.

Pull up a chair. Piz and the Hammer have plenty more where this came from.

• Listen to more episodes of Jazz Cruises Conversations on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. The back catalog contains more than a hundred interviews from past sailings.
• Theme Music: Provided by Marcus Miller from his song "High Life" on his album Afrodeezia on Blue Note.

Transcript

[Lee Mergner]

Hi, welcome to Jazz Cruises Conversations. I'm your host, Lee Mergner. This episode marks the first in our seventh season, and it's our 115th episode overall.

We've had a slew of great interviews and conversations coming your way over the next several months. This week's episode is from the Jazz Cruise from earlier this year, and it features a conversation between two old friends and colleagues, John Pizzarelli and Jeff Hamilton. No moderator was needed, though given their razor-sharp wits, we thought maybe a referee might have been required.

Lots of great jazz names were dropped, but not in name-dropping fashion. The two co-interviewers went to questions from the audience about halfway in, and the questions from our well-informed guests were good, as were the expansive answers. Shout out here to Irene, the mic girl, as she calls herself, for getting those questions from the audience.

Hope you'll enjoy this veritable jazz history lesson from two of our favorite artists. Hello, good afternoon. We have another great conversation.

You know, usually with the conversations, we have a moderator, so I reached out to the guys and said, hey, do you want a moderator? And they said, we don't need no stinking moderator. Indeed they don't.

Please welcome John Pizzarelli and Jeff Hamilton.

[John Pizzarelli]

Hi, Jeff.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Good morning.

[John Pizzarelli]

Now, I saw that the... Okay, here we go. It says Adventures of the Road or something like that.

You know what I want to know. So you went to Indiana University? Go Hoosiers.

You're NCAA.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Yes, I did. I spent two years there.

[John Pizzarelli]

Ah, two years.

[Jeff Hamilton]

It gets deeper as we go, John.

[John Pizzarelli]

No, I understand. So here's what I really want to know. I know this is a really dumb question, so I'm going to lay that out there first.

How did you learn to pack a proper bag? Did you learn from a guy on a band, or did you learn at Indiana? You know, that's the most...

Isaiah Thompson, we joked with him. The first tour that we did of the West Coast, Mike Karn and I had our bags, and Isaiah had one that was the size of the back of the wall, and we sort of looked at him, and we called it Uncle Charles was the bag. And then he sort of went like, oh, I get it.

And then the next time, he had the smaller bag, and he had the thing, and he figured it out. Because I was also a member of the, I have to bring that, and I have to bring that, and I have to bring that. How do you...

When did you get that thing? Was it something on the band, or did you learn by that way, too?

[Jeff Hamilton]

Well, it was pretty easy, because I didn't wear things like orange sport coats.

[John Pizzarelli]

This is mango.

[Jeff Hamilton]

You're right.

The Willard Alexander agency, which a lot of you know booked all the big bands, sent out a notice to all of us young'uns. I mean, I was 20 years old when I went on the new Tommy Dorsey band with Murray McEachern leading it, and they sent out this very strict instruction letter. One suitcase, your instrument, and that's it, because we're on the road for the rest of the year, from April to the end until Christmas.

So I didn't have a choice. I had to learn how to pack. So you learn how to do your drawers in the sink.

[John Pizzarelli]

And was there a band uniform, too?

[Jeff Hamilton]

If you want to call it that.

[John Pizzarelli]

Yeah.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Yeah.

A maroon, polyester, sleeveless, tuxedo, one-piece jumpsuit.

[John Pizzarelli]

Ooh!

[Jeff Hamilton]

Pales in comparison.

And a pink, you know, you used to have the ruffles on the tux shirts, and a maroon velvet bow tie, or whatever they call those big, you know, like, yeah, yeah, look like Jack in the Box, you know.

[John Pizzarelli]

Wow.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Yeah, it's awful. Yeah.

[John Pizzarelli]

Oh, well, and you had rules. Well, that's good.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Yeah. So that's, I mean, I didn't have to, you know, yeah, okay, this, this many pair of this and this, I mean, it just fit in the suitcase. I've got to take two out.

[John Pizzarelli]

Right.

[Jeff Hamilton]

So I just kind of learned by having to.

[John Pizzarelli]

Yeah. And I had a, was a Samsonite, it was the, you know, it opened up, and everything came out wrinkled, you know. But they had a bar in it that said, oh, if you put the suit around the bar, it's going to be fine.

[Jeff Hamilton]

No, no, no. But you and I talked about this with the plastic, you know, like, the preserved without wrinkle. Isn't this interesting?

You've got to listen to this. You leave your suits in plastic, and they don't wrinkle. I mean, look at this.

[John Pizzarelli]

Right.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Don't look at this.

[John Pizzarelli]

Don't look at this.

[Jeff Hamilton]

But look at this, you know.

[John Pizzarelli]

Well, it's, it's the, the packing part of the whole thing for me, it was always, that was a discovery. Like, I was, I was a sucker for SkyMall. SkyMall, do you have anything to sell to me?

And so it was always a look and, and Sharper Image. They had this kind of bag, and it was like, oh, it folds the way it folds and does. And that's like the battle.

And then you have to bring a whole, you brought a whole set all the time.

[Jeff Hamilton]

That's correct. That's correct. When you could afford to.

[John Pizzarelli]

Well, you were not just the trap case guy.

[Jeff Hamilton]

You would get the whole set. Yeah, the whole set. But the leaders wanted that.

But on the band days, you're on a bus, so you just throw everything under the bus, and then you go to the next place.

[John Pizzarelli]

Right.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Set them up, you play. And then flying took over when I joined LA. Well, no, with Monty, too.

We had, he bought a Ford Econoline van for John and I to drive around. And so we just put everything in the van and drive. We drove from Miami to LA one time.

[John Pizzarelli]

Wow.

[Jeff Hamilton]

And, oh, it was great. We had a great time.

Twenty-one years old, we had a ball.

[John Pizzarelli]

Sure.

[Jeff Hamilton]

And so that made it easy. And Woody's band was on the bus. I mean, my first seven years were on a bus or in a van.

And then with the LA Four, we started flying. But everybody I worked with, Monty and Ray, Oscar, they all said, we want you to use what you're comfortable with and we'll get your drums there.

[John Pizzarelli]

Right.

[Jeff Hamilton]

It's very different now with all the airlines not being so friendly with luggage.

[John Pizzarelli]

But you have kits stationed around the world.

[Jeff Hamilton]

I've gotten around that. Yeah. So I fly to that place and then I rent a van and go to wherever the gig is from there.

[John Pizzarelli]

Right.

[Jeff Hamilton]

But these came from Nashville. The back line for the cruise happens to be in Nashville. That's where the drum company is.

So they just throw them on the truck and come down here. So I'm fortunate that way.

[John Pizzarelli]

Yeah. Because it's a lot different for the guitars. I mean, you can check guitars.

Now the cases are better. But that was very interesting that you just have them around and you find them and do it.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Well, it came with Ray Brown. We got hit with excess baggage charges from Osaka to Berlin. And he says, we got to do something.

So he got a bass and left it in Europe. He got a bass and left it in Japan. He says, you need to get the company to do the same thing for you.

[John Pizzarelli]

Yeah. That's the way. And also getting a drum company that makes a drum that you like.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Right.

[John Pizzarelli]

And working on those kinds of things. And you have your own cymbals.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Right.

[John Pizzarelli]

You know, I mean, I have strings.

That's really great. I get strings. It's fantastic.

[Jeff Hamilton]

It's your sound.

[John Pizzarelli]

That's right. Well, you know, and they finally made great guitar cases in the last 30 years that you can check.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Yeah.

[John Pizzarelli]

And people go, you check a guitar? Well, there's no other way around it.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Right. No, they are fantastic. Now, Anthony Wilson with Diana does a lot of people.

I think Bruce Foreman has a case like that. But he still puts it in the overhead.

[Speaker 11]

Right.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Still comfortable for the overhead.

[Speaker 11]

Yeah.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Can I ask you a question?

[John Pizzarelli]

Sure.

[Jeff Hamilton]

So I, the first time we met, you played guitar.

It was Dick Gibson Jazz Party, the granddaddy of all the jazz parties in Denver. And you played guitar.

[John Pizzarelli]

1984.

[Jeff Hamilton]

1984. And we were on a set together. And I didn't know that you sang at the time.

I just, you know, you're Bucky's kid. And I'd played with Bucky, your father. And it was glorious.

And I thought, well, man, the Apple don't fall far from the tree. This is great. And you played beautifully.

I know you said you were nervous and all that. It was beautiful. But it was a surprise to me when I learned that you started singing.

So I'm just curious. I think you're all curious, too, when that developed. And can you tell us, you know, who told you you could sing?

I mean, I'm sorry.

[John Pizzarelli]

What a setup.

[Jeff Hamilton]

I'm sorry.

You know what I mean.

[John Pizzarelli]

Wow. Well, well, I had a gig. I even I've explained it that I had a gig when I came back from college. I worked with this guy and I was playing these gigs.

I had a rock band and all that kind of stuff. I played bars. And then I got solo gigs.

And the first solo gig, actually I had a duo gig with a guy who sang all these standards. And his sister recommended a record to me of Straighten Up and Fly Right from a guy named Frank Webber, was a pop singer. And I learned the song.

And subsequently, Bucky said, get the Nat Cole Trio Records. And they were re-released in 1980, like a two record set. And I was like, holy shit, that's unbelievable.

I mean, it was it was so perfect because I wasn't going to sing Night and Day, you know, or, you know, I Get No Kick. I'm 20. I get a kick.

So, so the best part about the Nat Cole material for this fantastic set of pipes was a song about a highway, was the Frim Fram Sauce, Route 66, Straighten Up and Fly Right, all those songs, Baby, Baby, all the Bobby Troup stuff. And Bucky was going, you got to hear Joe Mooney, those songs. And they were songs.

And these guys were all going, you know, You Need a Gigolo Like a Hole in the Head, all that kind of, oh, that's where this still is. And so I, I did all that. And, and so I learned, I started to do solo gigs.

That was the point of this. I wanted to tell you the story.

[Jeff Hamilton]

It's fascinating. Thank God you're wearing that coat.

[John Pizzarelli]

It saves me all the time. So the, the, the Joe's sister, the girl who gave me the Straighten Up and Fly Right, had a friend who made cards. And you're going to need a card.

So my card said, John Pizzarelli, original guitar, and nothing else. And I would just write all the number, wherever I was living, I put a number here, and it's the number. So I got a solo gig on a Monday night.

It was the night that the Giants were playing the Packers at Giant Stadium. And Zoot Sims came over to the house. And I had to go, and I was practicing.

I borrowed another guy's guitar, and I was singing, like, Eagles songs, as I was going to play this rough little joint that I end up playing at forever. And my father's like, what are you doing? I said, well, you know, I'm playing this place, and I'm singing Take It Easy, you know, and all this stuff.

And he goes, what does your card say? It says original guitar. And he was like, you know, and as I always say, the you idiot was in parentheses.

And so I took, and I sat in front of the thing, and I started to play songs, and all those Nat Cole songs. And in 1983, they had a little studio. We'd already made a solo, a duo record for Stash.

And in 1983, I had been playing I Like Jersey Best, and singing the Nat Cole songs with Bucky all the time. You know, in the middle of the show, sing a song, sing a song. And...

[Jeff Hamilton]

So it's Bucky's fault.

[John Pizzarelli]

It's Bucky's fault.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Okay.

[John Pizzarelli]

And they were gonna, there were two guys who were gonna record for Stash within a month's time. Johnny Hartman and me. How about that?

And poor Johnny Hartman said to Tony Monte, I don't think I can, I'm not, I can't, something's amiss, and I can't make a record. And they already had the studio booked in May. So they said, is the kid ready?

We got, we have a day. So we went to West New York at 9 a.m., and we recorded 10 songs, and I had the mixed cassette, Bucky's trio with me singing at 5 o'clock. And I was at Julio's at 7, playing a solo gig that night, and Bucky came in, and was sitting there, eating, you know, eating, looking at me like, hey, what did we just do?

And we made a record. And that's how it started, with all those Nat Cole things. I was lucky, because I was on to Nat Cole in 1983, and that was sort of, it was sort of still going, what's going on?

And then by the end, I got seven years in the clear, before I got to a good label where I could, you know, people started to recognize.

[Jeff Hamilton]

That's when you started to hire me.

[John Pizzarelli]

That's when I got serious.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Right.

[John Pizzarelli]

And I saw, you know, but I met you, so I met you in 84, and somebody said, no singing at the, at the jazz thing.

No, you shouldn't sing. No singing. And we ended up, we played Cherokee, was me and him, and Carson Smith, bass player played with Chet Baker.

And I was scared, and I just said, well, you know, and I only knew Cherokee. I figured that was, and nobody wanted to play Cherokee, ever, which was dumb anyway, that I was playing it. And so I'm like, I was 24, and he's fantastic.

And Carson, I still don't know if he was there or not. And I, and we got off the bandstand, and I was just like, what the hell did I just do? And he, and he beautifully came up to me and said, listen, man, I, you know, he sort of apologized for Carson.

Not that it was Carson's fault, but it was probably my fault. It wasn't Carson's fault. And, and I was like, oh, there's this, this lovely person came and spoke to me, which was like, oh, you recognized me for a hot minute.

And, and we've sort of been friends since then. So, sort of.

[Jeff Hamilton]

It was a dark suit.

[John Pizzarelli]

Yes. In those days, it was a blue blazer and gray slacks. But I did get to play the last night with Ray Brown.

God bless him, because we, Bucky and I finished our set, and that was the casual day. And I remember getting on the elevator, we were going to get on the elevator, and there's Ray Brown with his bass, as the door opens. And he says, which one of you guys is going to play Round Midnight with me?

And Bucky went, oh, he goes, okay, you. And he points to me. Huh?

I didn't do nothing. And he says, follow me. And we went in a room, and he went, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

That's the chord. A7, boom, boom, boom, boom. And we went up and played, and he introduced me like I was somebody.

I mean, you know, I mean, then you, you were waiting to play with Oscar Peterson for years.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Right, right. For years.

[John Pizzarelli]

Yeah. Well, but how many?

[Jeff Hamilton]

That's right. Well, I played.

[John Pizzarelli]

I mean, the beauty, the beautiful thing about your life is you've done all the things you want to do. You wanted to play with Woody Herman. Did you play with Woody Herman?

[Jeff Hamilton]

Yes.

[John Pizzarelli]

Yes. You wanted to play with Oscar Peterson.

[Jeff Hamilton]

I don't remember.

[John Pizzarelli]

Yeah. Where were you on the night of the?

[Jeff Hamilton]

Yeah, right, right, right, right.

[John Pizzarelli]

But I mean, that's a beautiful thing to have thought out this idea of what you wanted your career to be and to do all those. I didn't know who any of those people were. You know, I was on bandstands.

I mean, I was scared.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Well, I think you did okay.

[John Pizzarelli]

Well, thank you.

But I mean, at the beginning, though, you were here, but yeah, well, yes, but you were much more, you had much more of an idea of what all that was about.

[Jeff Hamilton]

That was guidance from John Clayton passed down from Ray Brown, which is, who do you want to play with? And why shouldn't you be the one to do it? And the way you get there is you buy all the records, you learn all the drummers that ever played with him, you learn everything about the artist, you know, their wife's name, where they came from.

And then when the opportunity presents itself, you're ready for the opportunity. And I've always seized the opportunity by thinking, whatever chair I'm sitting in, in whatever band, they're not going to think of any other drummer at that point. I'm the one who belongs there.

I'm the one that did the most homework to get there. And I'm your drummer. And it turned out on every gig, like that first night, Oscar Peterson never gave drummers solos on the first night.

Ed Thigpen said it took him six months to trade fours with Oscar. And so the first tune, Oscar turns to me and he, you got it, not that, okay, he wants me to blow out all the windows, I'm not going to have anything left. And so I paced myself through the brush solo and pointed to another chorus, another chorus.

After four choruses, he brought the band in. And at the end of the tune, he stood up and he turned to the audience hanging on the piano. He said, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to my new drummer, Jeff Hamilton.

And I took a bow. And while it was bent over, he said off microphone, so you're going to be like that, huh? Then he winked at me and I knew it was okay.

In fact, I'm wearing one of his Rolex watches, which is very dear to me. And Kelly and Celine presented that to me. So I kind of keep Oscar with me every day with this.

Can we talk about Bucky for a minute? Because he had a way with words, original guitarist and all that stuff. So it happened on the cruise and you know the story, but he was featured with the big band one night playing Nuage, which just tore up the place.

Like the whole building shaking when he gets to the end of it. And I had just played my set with my trio in the Queens lounge on the old cruise. And I ran down to hear Bucky play with the big band and I teared up.

It was just so beautiful. And I ran to the stage as soon as I could. And I said, he's packing up his guitar.

I said, Bucky, that was just gorgeous. You really got to me on that. It was just beautiful.

He goes, yeah. I said, yeah. And he says, I heard your set before we came on the big band.

I said, oh, thanks for being there. And he goes, yeah. Listen, in the back of the musicians union newspaper, there's these little ads.

And if you send a dollar and 50 in there, they send you all these things you can say in between your song. So I see John a few months after that. And John says, so, and you weren't on that cruise.

So he said, Bucky walked in the front door of the house and he said, how was the cruise, Dan? Bucky says, I got Hammer.

[John Pizzarelli]

He loved all that stuff.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Yeah.

[John Pizzarelli]

And he always would mention too, he'd say something about, you'd be talking about magazines or something. Or when you read on the plane, he goes, Downbeat. I read Downbeat on the plane.

He was always joking about Downbeat and, or you're one of the metronome all-stars. But he was, now there's a guy, same as you, as I looked at it, I would go, there's a guy, his uncle said to him, there's three possible landing spots for you. Benny Goodman, Count Basie, or Duke Ellington.

Duke Ellington's out, there's no guitar player. Count Basie, you're not going to get in there because he's got Freddie Green. But you got Benny Goodman there.

And you got an idea there. And he went to Vaughan Monroe, he's playing that thing. And he got to the Tonight Show and he played-They understand what that thing is.

Yeah, a little rhythm.

[Jeff Hamilton]

The rhythm guitar.

[John Pizzarelli]

I mean, the world begins, if you listen to my first couple of records where you could just listen to the rhythm guitar, it's sort of like, well, that's not so bad. Actually, Duffy Jackson said he would teach the rhythm section course based on after hours because of Bucky and Joe Cocuzzo and Martin. He'd say, I just tell everybody to listen to that record.

It was just so well, beautifully recorded. Anyway, so Bucky, he played Deep in a Dream on the Tonight Show in 65. And Benny Goodman was watching the show that night.

And so he got a call to do a rehearsal. Now, in those days, because he was cheap, he didn't have an amplifier. And it was still mostly acoustic guitars they worked on.

They had amps in the studios. He was the treasurer of the amp society. That's how he got the house.

All the amps had locks and you got a key. That's true. And so he borrowed his uncle's Tweed Fender amp and brought it to the rehearsal.

And so they were rehearsing, he's playing. And Benny had a cigarette and he put it on the amp. And it burned just a little smoke hole in the Tweed.

And my father felt so bad he bought the amp from my uncle. He said, I got to pay. I'm sorry, I'll buy the amp.

And I had my first gig at the Algonquin, I had that amp and it still had the cigarette hole in it. And so Bucky did the gig at the, in 1966 at the Waldorf. It was a picture with Doc Cheatham.

Maury Feld was the drummer. And so there's Benny Goodman. And then 10 years later, Joe Venuti's in town and Al Caiola cancels and sends Bucky in.

And Al Caiola doesn't get the job back, as Bucky puts it. I said, how did Joe Venuti know? He goes, he heard the box.

You know, he heard the thing. He goes, he heard the box. That's what I'd ask him in the car.

We'd be driving in the car and I'd say, I'd have him, he was stuck, you know. So I'd say, I'd play that record. It's him and Joe Venuti playing it.

It's like fire and brimstone. So I said, how are you? The box.

Okay, well, he heard the box. I'm going to tell that story 40 years from now. And then Grappelli.

He meets Grappelli and they made a, they toured and everything. He went from Django Reinhardt, he replaced Django Reinhardt, Eddie Lang, and Alan Russe, basically. You know, got to play with all, and played with Zoot Sims and all these other guys.

And then took the seventh string and said, and could do anything he needed to do on his own, you know. Yeah.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Well, that's the understatement of that. It's just that, you know, it's like when he came up to the Lionel Hampton Festival and the collegiate interviewer from the college paper was excited to interview Bucky. And so he said, so do you, do you have a ritual you go through?

Like, do you meditate or do you, do you pray or what do you do before you play? And Bucky says, I open the case, I pick up the guitar, whatever's there, that's it. That's right.

And I love that about, about that because, you know, I just, I just did this type of thing with Wynton about two weeks ago. And one of the questions was, you know, we're trying to be very serious about our music. It was a lot of college musicians and they're very, very good.

And how do we, how do we really get our own voice? And we're trying to be serious about what we do. I said, well, first of all, it's great to be serious about the music, but don't take yourself too seriously.

And Bucky was the epitome of that. It's like, ah, just played the guitar and that's what came out. You happen to like it, you know.

[John Pizzarelli]

Yeah. You know, there were nights when Bucky, when Benny Goodman said, turn the amp off. And he's sitting up there playing, you know, and just like, okay, you know. But Benny Goodman, when he would drive back from New York, would say, hey, Buck, can I come for a swim?

You know, sure. You know, and he'd get home and there's Benny Goodman sleeping in the bed. And his boxer shorts and the black socks up to here.

And my mother say, don't wake up the King of Swing. Should we take questions?

[Jeff Hamilton]

Sure.

[John Pizzarelli]

Is anyone here to take with the microphone?

[Irene Mergner]

I have a mic.

[John Pizzarelli]

There she is.

[Irene Mergner]

Just wait for a minute and raise your hand.

[John Pizzarelli]

Anybody? We can keep talking. There you go. She'll hold it.

[Irene Mergner]

Oh, okay.

[Audience Member 1]

John, I've asked you this before, but I'll ask you, how did you get the gig at Radio City to do the Frank Sinatra?

[Jeff Hamilton]

Yeah, I turned that one down.

[John Pizzarelli]

Jeff called me. They did it. How did I get that? Somebody knew somebody and contacted Andy Tenenbaum.

And Andy called me. And there was a show called Sinatra His World His Way. And they had these videos, films of Sinatra singing.

He filmed all the rehearsals with just piano and you couldn't hear the piano. And then Riddle came in afterwards for the TV show and they could split the thing. So the band played live and Sinatra sang just a little flat.

[Jeff Hamilton]

And it'll be our little secret. Yes, I didn't tell anybody.

[John Pizzarelli]

But it was really, it was very, it was just before they got real flat screen.

We had literally had projections and it took forever to get up there, but it was, yes, because they still hadn't got it. Yes, there were people, Mercedes Benz pulled out because they were five. Yeah, they were five days late, but it was a fun little run.

[Irene Mergner]

We have a question here.

[John Pizzarelli]

Yes.

[Audience Member 2]

What was it like for you working with James Taylor on that album?

Because you made him really jazzy and I love James, but he's not really a jazz musician. What was it like for you?

[Jeff Hamilton]

I was too expensive.

[John Pizzarelli]

I tried. I really tried. He, you know, he, James Taylor-ized all those songs.

And, and he had sort of, it was sort of a, just a, it was just the two of us in his barn. And he played like one whippoorwills, and I would play and, and we would, we would, it would be like a six hour process to do one song. And after we got a couple of takes, he'd say, okay, put the rhythm on that.

And I would play rhythm guitar on it. And then after it was all, and we'd had all the things done. And then he went to Nashville and he put on a bass player on certain things.

He kept certain things duo, added some drums. I'm sorry, there were drums on the record. But it was a, it was a great process and he was very open to everything.

I suggested a few songs and, and he was very, it was a really terrific experience. Much like the Paul McCartney experience that we shared with Kisses on the Bottom. We had, we both, we, we weren't on the same things, but it was really, he was fun to be with.

Paul McCartney, I mean.

[Jeff Hamilton]

If I may add a little on James Taylor, Dinah Krall had an annual benefit for a few years for a hospital wing built for her mother in Vancouver. And various artists would be their guest. And one year James Taylor and Elvis Costello were the guest.

And James came out and wanted, and was going to play with her band. So we didn't know what he was going to play, but I'm a big James Taylor fan. I thought, okay, I'm ready for what he wants.

I like, I like what he does. And so he says, how about the Nearness of You? And we said, yeah.

So he's sitting on a stool and he's playing his chord changes for Nearness of You. And Anthony Wilson, our guitarist, is following what he's doing. And I, I teared up.

It was gorgeous. And at the end of it, he turned to Anthony and he says, well, what chords are you playing? Do you want to play some other chords?

I'm not sure about these, you know? And we got, I said, no, it's fine. Leave it alone.

It's beautiful. Whatever you want to do. And he said, I'm not, I'm not sure.

I said, you have the voice of an angel. It doesn't matter. Yeah.

[John Pizzarelli]

It's absolutely correct. And he was always, he had very humble. My original job was just to, he said, if I'm playing any wrong chords and he doesn't play wrong chords, you know, and then you just say, if you have any other ideas, well, the second time he could do this.

Oh, that's nice. And I would do stuff just warming up and he'd go, what was that?

[Irene Mergner]

We have a question over here.

[John Pizzarelli]

Sure.

[Irene Mergner]

That's great.

[John Pizzarelli]

Look at you answering questions.

[Audience Member 3]

You've both played with so many fabulous musicians and in such great venues. If you could go back to a particular venue or a particular period in your career, where would you go and why?

[Jeff Hamilton]

That question resembles one that is like, what is your favorite recording that you've done? And I'm not trying to be a smart aleck, but it's, it's always the next one. And, but looking back on, on a long career that, you know, from going on the road in 1974, shortly after that, John Clayton and I joined Monty Alexander.

And being, being 21 and seeing Montrose, Switzerland for the first time, coming from Richmond, Indiana, you know, you can see Illinois from, from Richmond, Indiana, with all these beautiful, you know, snow, snow covered mountains and beautiful lakes. And, and we were wearing tuxedos for the gig. So I walked from the Montrose Palace with my cymbal bag down past this lake.

And this mountain is coming out of the middle of the lake, the snow cap in July. And it just got me and I just stood there, we were on a plane and are going to be, the festival is starting an hour. And I just stood there and looked at it and tears were just streaming.

I cry a lot, don't I? I'm tearing up a lot. I got to work on that.

And so, I mean, it got me and I just stood there and went, I've never seen anything so beautiful. And then what followed that was Monty and John and I recorded the Montrose Alexander album that we didn't know they were recording. So this live performance, and that ended up being the first record that I was ever on.

So that, that was a pretty exciting time, you know.

[Irene Mergner]

John?

[John Pizzarelli]

I would say, I, mine are more, I have more regrets about certain things. Like I would have, I wish I had played, I got to play with Monty and Ray in like 86 in Denver at the, at the theater, one of those theater concerts.

Yeah. And I, I should have, I could have done that better. I felt like I played baby, baby all the time with them.

And I was like, looking back like, why would they not know Route 66? Why would they not know Straighten Up and Fly Right? What an idiot.

You know, just like, ah. And then, and, and, and then opening for Sinatra in 93, thank you, was, it could have, I, it could have been better, a better experience. I could have done a lot of different things about that.

Those two things in particular. Just even, you know, Denver. Just all those, the best thing was, the best thing about that Denver was I got to be on a set and the front line was just Marshall Royal and Buddy Tate.

And Haggard on bass. Might even have been Jake. And I think Ralph Sutton, who played the best eight bar intros, they were like master classes.

They'd say, all right, and he'd go, boom, ba-do-do-ba-do, ba-beep-ba-do, da-do-da-da-da, boom, boom, boom. I was going, well, that was pretty good. I know exactly where we are.

And, and, you know, and I'd look over at Bob, like if I didn't know the tune, and that said, I knew all the songs. That was why I was so happy. And I sat there and I just played rhythm and nobody bothered me.

Nobody, I didn't play any solos. And I sat there and I played and at the end, as I came off, Marshall Royal looked at me like, yeah. I was like, okay, I got, yeah.

[Jeff Hamilton]

That's all you need. You probably had a nickname right after that, too. If they give you a nickname right off the bat, you know you're in.

If you don't have one for two weeks, you're probably going to get two weeks notice.

[Irene Mergner]

We have a question here.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Yeah. Hi.

[John Pizzarelli]

Sorry about my English.

[John Pizzarelli]

That's okay.

[John Pizzarelli]

The question is, which musician do you like to play with that you haven't played with yet?

[John Pizzarelli]

You've been pretty good.

[Jeff Hamilton]

I don't mean to sound pompous, but there's nobody I'm dying to play with that I haven't played with. But there's so many great musicians around that I approach it as whoever I'm on the bandstand with, I'm going to play as well as I can and do whatever I can to make everybody on the bandstand sound as good as they possibly can. But, you know, Duke Ellington is the only one that I didn't really get to play with.

He died when I was on the Tommy Dorsey band in 74. So I was 20 years old. I never had a shot at it.

But now there's not, and I'm not putting down musicians now. I'm just saying that, like John said, I played with the people I wanted to play with. But I embrace each gig with whoever's there to make all of us sound as good as we can.

And I don't have somebody up here that I'm dying to play with. I hope you're not disappointed with that.

[John Pizzarelli]

I still would love to play with Pat Metheny, he's the only one I can think of. I played with Toninho Horta in my living room, which was fantastic. But Pat Metheny would be the one guitarist that I've talked to him many times, I made a record of his songs.

And somebody that I would like to experience that, you know. So that's the one person I think I can think of, aside from, let's see, you know, Peter Frampton would be fun. Why not?

I can't hear anyway.

[Jeff Hamilton]

John won't be appearing on any more jazz cruises.

[John Pizzarelli]

Marv Throneberry in the second row.

[Jeff Hamilton]

We have a question right here.

[Audience Member 5]

Take two. Could you just talk a little more about the McCartney session and the experience of playing with Paul?

[John Pizzarelli]

The funny part was my phone call from La Puma, which was like getting a call from the producer, which I was like, Tommy La Puma called. And I was like, hey man, he always looked like that. Hey man, I got a record date for you.

I can't tell you who it's with. It's with Paul McCartney. He was the greatest guy on the planet.

And his hand was permanently affixed to his forehead. Hey man. And so, you know, it was just, I remember going out to do the dates.

I tell the story, you know. I was going to San Francisco. I had already booked the one date.

And then they added a date. And I couldn't do the other date. I go back across the country to do a date.

And he said, can your father do it, man? And I said, he's in the book. As Bucky always says, I'm in the book.

And they called Bucky to do it. So Bucky came out the same day I did. I flew in from Savannah, Georgia and got to the studio before everybody.

I got in at 10. And I was with Al Schmidt. We were saying hi, Al.

And so then everybody came in. And then Paul came in. And Sir Paul.

And then Bucky came in. And Bucky would just stay hanging. Because he was the next day.

But then he was like, hey, we got to do that thing with two guitars, man. And Bucky and I went out to play. And they finished.

And they went in to listen to the take. It was Paper Moon. And I always tell the story of the girl ran out, woman ran out with some papers.

And it was the nondisclosure agreement. So I signed it. Because it just, you know, don't tell everybody you're here.

[Jeff Hamilton]

We couldn't speak about it or anything.

[John Pizzarelli]

Right. You couldn't post. Everybody would show up.

So I handed it to Bucky. And he says, I said, you're supposed to sign it. He said, all right.

Best wishes, Bucky Pizzarelli. But the thing was, is I thought we were on the only date. And he was on another set of dates.

They did a whole other thing. So nobody knew anything that was going on. So then I was sort of like, oh, you did the McCartney.

So we were like, I thought about you. And you were great on it.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Well, it was his first day. And we were at Capitol. And the deal was, he wanted Diana Krall to produce the record.

And she said, OK, but I got to have my band to do that. And he said, OK. So he came in a little late after the 10 o'clock downbeat.

And we're ready to go. It's like, man, this is exciting. And he walked in.

And he looked a little tired. And Anthony said, so where did you come in from? And he said, Brazil.

And I went, well, no wonder he looks a little tired. And I said, I love Brazil. I said, there's nothing like the samba clubs.

And he just looked at me. He says, I can't do any of that. And I went, of course you can't go out in public and do a samba club.

And I didn't even think about it. So it's like, oh, yeah, it's Paul McCartney. Don't exchange your stories like I am with John here.

That's it.

[John Pizzarelli]

That's the thing. It's another league. Yeah, it was amazing.

[Irene Mergner]

We have a question here.

[John Pizzarelli]

She holds the mic.

[Audience Member 6]

One thing I wonder about is we have some wonderful young musicians on this cruise. And unfortunately, though, the audience for mainstream or straight-ahead jazz seems to be more and more limited.

What do you see as the future for this music?

[Jeff Hamilton]

You don't see younger people on this cruise because they can't afford it. But I also don't see 70- and 80-year-olds in the clubs that I play where they're attending. So it's, well, we're in good shape.

Did you see the drummer last night in the big band? Yeah. Dom O'Branch.

I met him when he was 15 at a jazz camp. So we're doing OK.

[John Pizzarelli]

I met Isaiah when he was 16.

[Jeff Hamilton]

There's another one. He was in Essentially Ellington. Yes, yes, yes.

So yeah, there are great players, but their friends are also listening to them. I mean, there's a whole youthful surge. Oh, it's unbelievable.

Essentially Ellington I do every year, which is all the high school bands. And then some of those people are now in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. And the following is also their colleagues that love the music.

So we're in good shape.

[John Pizzarelli]

Tyler Henderson was recommended by Isaiah and Mike. They found these guys. And then there's another kid.

So Isaiah is now 28. I met him when he was 16. Tyler's 25.

And then the other kid that they recommended, they recommended him when he was 16. And he's at Miami now on a full ride. So these guys, they're all, and they know everything. They're sponges.

[Jeff Hamilton]

Also the audience is what you addressed. You play these younger venues and they show up and they're excited that you're there and they've seen you on whatever streaming and they can't wait to meet you.

It's just a different way of them approaching it now. But we're in good shape.

[John Pizzarelli]

Yeah, we're in great shape. It's wonderful.

[Jeff Hamilton]

In fact, I've talked to some of them. When I used to teach, I'd say to my private students, you're going to school and you're paying $60,000 a year to go to college. Why can't you afford to jazz cruise?

You're a drummer. You can talk to Louis Nash, Kenny Washington. One year it was Roy Haynes, Ben Riley, Billy Hart.

I mean, just on and on. Jimmy Cobb. I mean, why wouldn't you spend $2,500 and come on and pull up a chair with these guys and talk to them at breakfast and save $60,000? It worked for me. I dropped out after two years.

[Irene Mergner]

We have what might be the last question.

[John Pizzarelli]

Hi, John. Do you have any memories of recording the CD you did with Bucky and Annie Ross?

[John Pizzarelli]

Oh, yeah. We did it in Pleasantville, New York. They have a media center there that I know the guy who started, they took an old theater and they made it into five and they show art films and they got people like Ron Howard and Spielberg to come up and talk.

And then they built a media lab where they would have editing bins and all sorts of things to teach kids. And then they had a room, a studio that let us use the studio for free as long as you brought an engineer in. And so Annie wanted to do a record of Billie Holiday songs.

And so Bucky goes, she wants to do this record. We're going to do this record now. We're going on.

Shut up and drive the car. And we got in the car, went to Annie Ross' apartment. So they were sitting there and she's going, I like to do this first tune and I'm going to start.

And I'm sitting there. Bucky goes, write everything down. And pictures of her and Charlie Parker on the wall.

Like, holy, what have I gotten into with this, too? So, of course, the time goes away and we don't know. We got a date to do it, but we don't have the keys or anything.

He goes, go back. So I go back to Annie's apartment and she sings the tunes and I'm writing everything down as fast as I can. Now, of course, Bucky, because he's a very prideful man, doesn't tell you he can't see three feet in front of him.

He's like, you know, he's always like, where are you? I'm like, I got an orange jacket on. And I wrote all the chords out on poster board and put them on the floor and he goes, that's a good idea.

See what you did there? And we did it all in a day. And then the best part, we tried to record as much as we could because she would actually, the first takes are mostly what you get.

She just started to sing, we'd play, they'd roll tape. And then in the middle she goes, you know, Sarah Vaughan made a dress for me once. And we'd all...

What? And so we tried to get all, as much as we could, but it was pretty amazing. And my buddy ended up going back with her and her friend and somebody back to the city and they went to the Pleasantville Diner and she said she never had french fries that were better than that.

She'd been around the world. At Pleasantville, you're never going to get better french fries than that, Jeff. You big jerk. How'd we do? Alright, so we gotta go back to work. Thanks everybody.

Jeff Hamilton. Art Carney.

[Lee Mergner]

John Pizzarelli.

[John Pizzarelli]

The June Taylor Dancers.

[Lee Mergner]

What a pair those two are. We call them Piz and the Hammer. What a musical life they've led.

Both John and Jeff will return to the Jazz Cruise in 2027 as it sails from Tampa on January 17th with stops in Cozumel, Belize, and Costa Maya. Headliners include great vocalists like Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kurt Elling, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Katherine Russell, Ann Hampton Callaway, Nikki Haris, and Tyreek McDole. And the lineup of instrumentalists is both stellar and deep.

In addition to John and Jeff leading their groups, we've got Christian McBride, Bill Charlap, Rene Rosnes, Anat Cohen, Sullivan Fortner, Benny Benack III, Bria Skonberg, Randy Brecker, Wyclef Gordon, and of course our host, Emmett Cohen. John Clayton leads Anita's Big Band, an all-star collection of players. It's really a great lineup.

You can learn more at thejazzcruise.com. Our theme music is by Marcus Miller from his song High Life on his album Aphrodisio on Blue Note. And thanks as always to the sound engineer Matt and the production team led by Brian Ratchko for their help with this and the other Learn sessions.

Thanks for listening.