Bob Hammer

Howard Robert Hammer ( born March 3, 1930 in Indianapolis ) is an American jazz musician ( pianist and arranger).

Hammer studied at Michigan State University and the Manhattan School of Music. He then took private lessons with the composer Henry Brant.

Hammer first worked with Bob Wilber (1955), the Sauter - Finegan Orchestra, and in the quartet of Roy Eldridge (1956 ) and with Gene Krupa (1956 /57). In 1957 he worked on the album A Swinging Introduction to Jimmy Knepper. He then worked at Red Allen (1958-1962) and Eddie Condon (1959 /60). Charles Mingus drew him in this time to approach as an arranger for his larger orchestral formats ( Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus, for example, and Mingus Town Hall Concert), and occasionally as a pianist. He described Hammer as his Beethoven. In 1963 he played with Pee Wee Russell, but again with Krupa and Eldridge. He then went on tour with Bobby Hackett, before he worked from 1965 to 1967 for the Merv Griffin Show. He continues on with Jimmy Knepper, Johnny Hartman, Woody Herman, Clark Terry and Elvin Jones. Then he returned to the jazz scene in the back and worked from 1977 to 1988 in Las Vegas.

Then worked at Slide Hampton, was between 1989 and 1995 at a college as a teacher of jazz improvisation and applied music worked and played in the octet of Jimmy Cleveland. He also worked with Barbara McNair, Tommy Newsome Quartet and the Jerry Lewis Telethon. In 2004, he participated as a pianist with the Quintet of the flugelhornists Floyd Standifer.

• Jazz Pianist
• Arranger
• American musician
• Born in 1930
• Man