Lake Hammond
By Mitch Berg
In April, 1985, my college stage band went on its spring trip.
I played guitar on the jazz stuff (and percussion on the classical stuff), which was a fun stretch for me, since I’d not had a huge jazz background. Spring tour was usually a 2-3 day jaunt, playing 2-3 gigs a day at rural high schools in the Dakotas and, once, rural Manitoba.
But in ’85 – my senior year – the band’s director had a serious case of short-timer’s syndrome. A college music teacher since he’d graduated himself, 13 years earlier, he was burning out on the long hours and short pay at our tiny college; he’d spent the previous couple of years getting a BA in Computer Science in his off-hours. So instead of organizing a gruelling working tour, he took his tour budget and splurged on taking the band to Minneapolis to see the Dave Brubek Quartet at the Northrup Auditorium (and, unbeknownst to us, interview at Sperry/Univac in Roseville, for a programming job he got and started shortly after I graduated).
Anyway.
The host of the evening with Brubek was an MPR host named – and I’m not kidding when I say this – “Lake Hammond”. I thought it made sense as an air name for a Minnesota radio personality.
It’s sad to see Leigh Kaman is retiring after 400 years in Twin Cities radio…
(Idiot that I am, it took me years before I realized his name wasn’t Lake Hammond.)
…and interesting to see I’m not the only one who woofed Kaman’s name, at first.
(I, myself, didn’t learn his real name until a year or so later, when I’d moved to the Cities and did a bit on the Don Vogel show spoofing Kaman’s psychedelic delivery)
July 18th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Nothing seemed better on a cold and windy winter night than to hear that theme music come on and Leigh’s voice come through the speakers. He seemed to have the perfect voice for the host of a jazz show…
July 18th, 2007 at 11:09 am
You’re a jazz guitar player?
I’m asking because you have usually described yourself in the past as more of a hobby hack on the gitter and as you know playing organized jazz guitar is much more involved deal.
July 18th, 2007 at 11:17 am
JB,
Today? Probably a hobby hack.
Twenty years ago? I was playing 2-3 hours a day, 4-5 days a week with my band, plus gigs. I was DAMN good back then. I’m not bad now, as it happens, but you know what lots and lots of practice’ll do for ya (and what having kids around does for guitar time).
In college? Probably played an hour or so a day (the stage band plus just playing), plus gigs with various bands.. I wasn’t very good at jazz, but you’re right, it’s a much different animal than I was used to, more organized and disciplined. It improved my style a lot.