recording

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o he wrote in his 1977 autobiography, John Hammond on Record. Reading these words, anyone who knew Hammond can picture his trademark grin exposing a set of large, horsy teeth as he described privileged expectations he spent a lifetime flouting. Though he grew up on Manhattan’s East 91st Street, he gravitated at an early age to servants’ quarters at rear of family mansion, drawn by fascinating rhythms of jazz records played on a Columbia Grafanola. By time he was 11, he’d heard James P. Johnson’s Worried and Lonesome Blues the record that changed my life he later recalled and embarked on a journey that would take him far away from his parents’ cloistered world. Nearly 20 years after his death in 1987, Hammond still looms large in landscape of American music, revered for his ability to spot important artists at earliest stages of their careers and for his passionate belief that music can promote tolerance