JEFF HAMANN: Bassist/Teacher!
By CP Christopher Peppas
It’s not a criticism to say that Jeff Hamann took a very circuitous route on his way to becoming one of the best players on the upright bass, or bass fiddle, in this area.
And it may not be the template or boilerplate form that one would recommend to someone else. Naturally, he blazed a trail directly to the bass by learning to play the drums. Wait…what?
“I come from a very musical family,” Jeff said in a recent interview. “Both my parents played piano and sang. There wasn’t a lot of jazz, mostly Classical, Show Tunes, Ballet and Opera. There was music on all of the time.”
It was in kindergarten when Jeff was exiled to the gulag of taking piano lessons, like his siblings before him. “I didn’t have a choice, really,” Jeff said. “I didn’t like it, but I did get some good things out of it.”
Then, fate stepped in. “The reason I took up the drums was because of Animal. I saw the great Buddy Rich playing with Animal on The Muppet Show. And I wanted to do that.” Jeff would watch the tape of the show over and over and try to play along using those long, wooden spoons you use for spaghetti.
In third grade, Jeff finally got behind a kit. “They offered me a trumpet, but I didn’t want it, I wanted to play drums,” he said. But the skins were a mere placeholder to what would become his vocation and avocation all rolled into one.
“My Mom took me to the Red Mill a couple of times where I could just sit and watch these guys play jazz. She told them I wouldn’t drink.” He’d often ride his bike there, ditch it in the bushes and watch the guys who were in the Pantheon of players at the time in the 1980s like George Pritchett, Chuck Hedges and more.
It was in middle school where Jeff turned his attention from the drums to the bass. He credits Greg Stark with whetting his appetite. Greg was a year older and playing Big Band stuff. Another early influence was Spike Nelson.
“It was right around then that I got serious about music,” Jeff said. It was around the same time that he met classmate and fellow musician, Mark Davis, who is regarded as one of the best tickler of the ivories in the area and is his bandmate and his boss as Director of the Milwaukee Jazz Institute, which Davis co-founded in late 2019 and successfully built up its reputation as being a quality music educator of students of Jazz. Hamann teaches the bass, ‘natch, and works with the combos and the Jazz Gallery for The Arts as MJI’s monthly jazz jam.
And the two have a standing gig on Thursday and Friday evenings at the Mason Street and can be seen together in a crazy quilt of endless combinations at Blu at the top of the Pfister, Bar Centro and a whole mess of other venues who know good jazz when they hear it.
But before that, in his teen years, Jeff got a chance to sit in and play with another Milwaukee native who has made his mark in the Big Apple and around the country, David Hazeltine.
Dave’s bass player was the incredible Gerald Cannon, who has become Hamann’s mentor and friend. David and Jeff kept in touch and David spent some time with Jeff’s son Aidan on a recent trip to New York.
Cannon decided to shoot to New York in 1990 and it was Jeff Hamann who filled the void and played with Hazeltine until, that is, Hazeltine made his way east two years later.
After high school, the path led to the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. “I was lucky enough (read just that good) to earn a scholarship all four years, Jeff said. It was there that he got a chance to play with Manty Ellis, Berkely Fudge and Don Linke, who were on staff.
Hamann morphed from being a student to being a teacher at the Conservatory in 1998 until following Davis at the very genesis of MJI. They all played in the popular We Six combo, whose concerts there and Jazz in The Park and other places became destination shows and raised money for scholarships at WCM.
Jeff lists Ray Brown, Ron Carter, Sam Jones and another local boy who made good, Skip Crumby-Bey among his influences.
Jeff teaches bass one-on-one in his home as well. No doubt his students will list him as one of their influences when the spotlight shines on them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CP Christopher Peppas is a Journalist, Jazz Vocalist and Conga Player in the Greater Milwaukee Area and Correspondent at Large for the Jazz Unlimited Newsletter and Content Manager/Chief Contributor to CreativProse, Ltd. (sic), Social Media, Brand Management.
