Doug Hammond - A Real Deal (2007)

Drummer and singer Doug Hammond cut his teeth playing alongside greats like Earl Hooker, Sam and Dave, Sonny Rollins and Nina Simone. During the mid-seventies Hammond even spent a five-year period performing and eventually recording with Charles Mingus. Having spent the past fifteen years laying low in Linz, Austria teaching drumming and composition, Hammond got reacquainted with old friend and Detroit-based jazz pianist Kirk Lightsey and set about making this album. Hammond plays a variety of percussion instruments on the album, even opening up with the gamelan-like We People over which Hammond lays a vocal. Next, on Tera, Lightsey joins in with some warm, melancholy chords as accompaniment of another Hammond vocal. We Together Struttin' reverts to a solo format with swinging drums and odd, self-help, pep-talk type lyrics. When he's in full flow the veteran drummer makes quite some racket, soloing wildly, but Kieran Hebden shows up at the eleventh hour to provide a 'club mix', organising everything around a slow breakbeat structure, which actually works rather well.