Doug Hamilton on forming a trombone band.

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Doug Hamilton on moving to Toronto.

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Doug Hamilton discusses songwriting.

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Q: “How did it come about that you formed a trombone band and started working with it and working towards an album, which is finally released?”

A: “Well, I started loving the trombone probably as a teenager and growing up in a small Western Ontario town, I'm sure in my wildest dreams, I never thought that I'd ever have the privilege of meeting Stanley Kenton, but I was a fan of his as a teenager and as you recall, he always had five trombones that I recall anyway in his band. And I love the sound of the trombone particularly and his way of using the trombone as, in many cases, a major melodic part of the orchestra rather than as an accompanying part to the saxophones or to the trumpet. I liked his players, Milton Burnhart, Frank Rosolino and Carl Fontana and George Roberts. I remember being particularly impressed with a thing that he did called Prologue (This Is An Orchestra!) where he introduced all the members of his band and they all played a little riff and I suppose that always lingered in the back of my mind. I recalled the same Jack Teagarden down at the Club 212 when I was living in Detroit. And of course, we used to go up to Baker's Keyboard Lounge a lot when I was there and there was some great people that used to come in there. And Jim, my son, was studying trumpet in a public school and he decided that he wanted to switch to trombone when he went to high school and I suppose that was more or less the catalyst to get me started with it. Because there was nobody in Hanover that was teaching trombone, so we found a trombone teacher, actually, through Don Johnson who was teaching one of the young lads trumpet in Hanover and Don put us in touch with Dave McMurdoch and so that's how we got started.”