Chico Hamilton’s 1957 song “The Jam” appears throughout the new Netflix show The Residence, which is out now. Brief snippets of the upbeat jazz track punctuate many moments in the Shondaland screwball whodunnit which stars Uzo Aduba as a detective tasked with solving a murder at the White House.
“The Jam” was first recorded for the 1957 satirical noir Sweet Smell of Success, which stars Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. The movie featured a score composed, arranged and conducted by Elmer Bernstein as well as jazz themes performed and recorded by the Chico Hamilton Quintet. The film follows a newspaper columnist who tries to ruin his sister’s relationship with a man he finds unworthy of her. One character, a guitarist played by Martin Milner, was a member of the Hamilton group on screen, and mimicked the playing of the quintet’s real guitarist, John Pisano.
Between 1948 and 1955, Hamilton’s most regular assignment was accompanying the singer Lena Horne. He’s best known for the series of quintets that he led between 1955-1965. Saxophonist and flutist Buddy Collette, guitarist Jim Hall, bassist Carson Smith, and cellist Fred Katz were among the players in these legendary groups. The Chico Hamilton Quintet appeared alongside Eric Dolphy in Bert Stern’s 1959 concert film Jazz on a Summer’s Day, which captures the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.
In the late ’60s, Hamilton began composing for commercials and the studios and he broke up his quintet. He continued to lead various groups that ranged from the avant-garde to hard bop and continued scouting new young talents. In 1989, Hamilton had a recorded reunion with the original members of his 1955 quintet, with Pisano taking Hall’s place. In the 1990s he made a number of records for Soul Note. Hamilton died in 2013 at the age of 92.
