All That Jazz
Randy Hamm can swing it with a saxophone—just add in a little sushi and a class full of student musicians.
Until recently, I’ve been successful at blocking the memories from my days as a member of the Osage Junior High School student band. But walking into Randy Hamm’s jazz improvisation class took me back—way back—to that fifth seat in a row of prepubescent alto saxophone players, a motley group that fidgeted with our neck straps as we played squeaky renditions of the school fight song.
Randy’s band room is eerily similar to the one I used to know: music stands crowded haphazardly in the corner, props and costumes reminiscent of the drama department strewn on nearly every surface, random pieces of dismantled set waiting for their revival. And yet the jazz improv students, nine in all, seem at home, comfortable playing in front of each other and their respected teacher, an associate professor of music at Missouri State University.
Randy’s voice reverberates through the band room during lectures. “How many of you mentally practice?” He waits for a few head nods from students holding saxophones, a trombone, a trumpet, an electric guitar and a cello, plus three students alternating at the piano. “I lie awake at night playing my horn in my head,” Randy says.
When class ends, the students don’t pack up their stuff and rush out, happy to flee the tyranny of the band room. They linger far longer than the professor, discussing notes they need to work on and strategies for the next class. After all, it was the students who rallied to bring back the jazz improv class after its long absence from Missouri State’s music department.
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Randy plays the piano as a studnet plays along on his saxophone. |
Finding the Music
Randy’s breezy, chummy relationship with his students comes from his own experience as a young musician. His guitar-playing father, Lee Hamm, exposed Randy to the jazz greats: Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington. When Randy was in high school, his father quit his job as an auto parts manager in Indiana and opened a music store. “I didn’t understand the commitment that he made then with six children,” says Randy. “Had it failed, he could’ve lost our home.” But Lee’s leap proved successful, and the family-owned store enjoyed a 30-year run. Noticing how consumed his son had become with music, Lee encouraged him to play weekends at local Elks clubs and dining halls. At 15, Randy started accompanying his father on gigs with his band, The Master Sounds. “I gained experience learning standard songs and learning to improv by ear,” says Randy. “Not understanding theory, but learning on the road.”
Randy’s saxophone gigs took a hiatus after high school, when he joined the United States Air Force and trained to be an emergency medical technician. “I put my saxophones in their cases and didn’t touch them for three years,” he says. But toward the end of his four-year service, after meeting his wife, Shari, Randy realized he was spending a good portion of his military salary on records: Tower of Power, Chicago, Earth Wind and Fire, Grover Washington, Freddy Hover. He had an insatiable need for music, and his record collection wasn’t enough.
After working a year selling health insurance, Randy enrolled in the University of North Texas and received his bachelor’s of music. Randy spent a year playing gigs in Dallas five nights a week and teaching 25 private saxophone students before he reenrolled in UNT and earned his master’s degree in music education.
Of Sushi and Saxes
The Hamms and their three children left Texas for the quiet of 417-land. In 1989, Randy joined the Southwest Missouri State University music department to teach saxophone and jazz studies. Shari is a third-grade teacher at Weaver Elementary School. Randy was no longer hopping stages in the fast-paced Dallas music scene, but his musical talents were still in high demand. For the past six years, Randy has been playing up to four nights a week at sushi hotspot Haruno.
Most recently, Springfield Symphony Conductor Ron Spigelman invited Randy to perform with the orchestra at a fundraiser entitled “Swing Swing Swing!” He played a solo from the Pink Panther theme song, and the orchestra even performed one of his own arrangements. “To hear my music played on that level and deliver my sax on top of all that beautiful music was really fun,” says Randy.
If weekend gigs and full-time teaching weren’t enough, Randy keeps busy as a founding member of the saxophone quartet Thrascher. “It’s more fun than humans are allowed to have,” he says. The band’s forth album, Music for No Occasion, will be released in the spring. Randy’s newest project is to record a CD of his own original compositions in fall 2009.
Teaching Intuition
Throughout his years as a professional musician, Randy has toured with Kenny Rogers, Mel Tormé, Neil Sedaka, Clark Terry, Slide Hampton and Buddy DeFranco, just to name a few. But he’s comfortable in a classroom, teaching students in a cluttered band room about the concept of improv, how to produce chords and scales and encouraging them to explore the theoretical aspects of their instrument. Randy instructs his students to use the saxophone to their advantage, encouraging proper physical alignment, hand positioning, how to breathe and simple tongue techniques. The more intuitive aspects of improv are difficult to teach. “The saxophone does nothing more than what you tell it to do,” he says. “It’s a tool you need to use properly, and the goal of getting control enables you to get to a higher level of expression. It’s all personal expression.”
The bulk of Randy’s teaching responsibilities comes from one-on-one teaching in his saxophone studio.
Randy preaches self-discovery to his musicians. His goal is for his students to leave the classroom and not need him anymore. “Students need to be able to discover on their own what you can’t teach,” he says. “Whenever they spend their time studying, listening and practicing, they can pursue advanced knowledge without a teacher.”
But for now, his students still need him, so he’ll continue leading his assorted group of jazz students through yet another rendition of “Maiden Voyage.” And hopefully, they’ll never have to play the school fight song again.
