Foreststorn “Chico” Hamilton, a distinguished jazz drummer and bandleader who was a architect of the West Coast cool jazz style and was known for discovering young talent, has died. He was 92.
According to Huff Post:
“An NEA Jazz Master saluted as a Living Jazz Legend by the Kennedy Center, Hamilton recorded more than 60 albums as a band leader, beginning in the 1950s, and also appeared in and scored films.
He founded a commercial and film music production company after moving to New York in 1965 and helped found the New School University Jazz & Contemporary Music Program.
Born in Los Angeles in 1921, he was in a high school band with Charles Mingus and Dexter Gordon and other classmates destined to become jazz innovators.”
