
Producer
The son of a Vanderbilt heiress, John Hammond listened to jazz records with his parents’ servants, went to Harlem as a teenager, and became a regular in clubs where very few white faces ever appeared. Taking a little family money, Hammond went across racial lines in pre–World War II America and came back with recordings of some of the greatest jazz musicians in history. By age twenty-two, he had c...
The son of a Vanderbilt heiress, John Hammond listened to jazz records with his parents’ servants, went to Harlem as a teenager, and became a regular in clubs where very few white faces ever appeared. Taking a little family money, Hammond went across racial lines in pre–World War II America and came back with recordings of some of the greatest jazz musicians in history. By age twenty-two, he had c...
