Album Notes

NEA Jazz MasterForeststorn ‘Chico’ Hamilton HITS with "Twelve Tones of Love",taking his listeners on a musical journey of his venerable career and the numerous people who have influenced it and celebrating his lifelong romance with music.

On "Twelve Tones of Love", Chico looks back not as a summation but with the past as a jumping off point to where he is now; the foundation to build off of what he has to say in the here and now.

This album has Chico writing for and playing with an enlarged ensemble, offering us a glimpse of his life’s journey and some of those he has shared it with. It speaks greatly of all the musicians’ skills that they are performing Chico’s compositions yet their interplay becomes another color on his palette, which allows him to further embellish the picture he is painting. This is one of the appealing aspects to all of Chico’s music, an always-organic sense of tension and release.

Guest spots include trombonist George Bohanon, who was in one of Chico’s classic sixties ensembles; vocalist Jose James, who studied under Chico at The New School’s Jazz and Contemporary Music Program; and multi-reedist Jack Kelso, Chico’s lifelong friend.

"Twelve Tones of Love" is a celebration of a lifelong romance Chico has had with music and the relationships that came into his life both past and present through his service to the muse.

Those who forge their own way may travel a harder road but their art loses none of its power with the passage of time because of these trials. "Twelve Tones of Love" is proof of that aphorism to continuously enjoy.

From the liner notes by Maxwell Chandler