Billboard : 08/19/1957
Score of 80

Heavy advertising of this picture should help album sales. Side one presents selections from soundtrack; side two, in free concerto form, extended improvisation on themes from picture. Chamber music setup of Hamilton group delineates variety of jazz moods. Music has strength on own; likely even more impressive in picture where it coordinates with the action. Buyers of modern jazz and fans of off-beat musical backgrounds for movies will go for this.

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Cashbox : 08/24/1957

The quintet performed in the well-received The Sweet Smell of Success pic. On this Decca release seven moody and frenzied jazz themes written by Hamilton and the quintet’s cellist, Fred Katz, are played, while the flip side is a studio “concerto in jazz” improvisation of some of those themes. A highly original, primitive-sounding atmosphere is created by the group, one that jazz buffs should consider a highlight in jazz recordings this year. Waxing could become, with support from the film’s popularity, a jazz LP smash.

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San Antonio Light
Renwicke Cary : 09/01/1957

The exciting “cool” jazz themes the Chico Hamilton quintet played for the soundtrack of the Burt Lancaster–Tony Curtis starrer, The Sweet Smell of Success, have been released in a new Decca album. Like the movie itself, the music is provocative stuff, with drummer Hamilton’s skill and imagination coming into full bloom on the Check into Chico theme. The sound track music occupies only the first album side. On the second, Hamilton and his fellow jazzmen perform extended improvisations of some of the same items.

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Down Beat : 08/08/1957
Chico Hamilton: “I Just Had To Lead” by Jack Tracy

It was a day early last spring.

Chico Hamilton sipped from a paper cup of beer, watched Larry Doby take a full cut at a batting practice pitch, and asked ruminatively, “You ever stop to think what would have happened if Jackie Robinson hadn’t made it? We wouldn’t have had any of this.”

He gave a general wave of his hand at Minnie Minoso, standing near the batting cage, and at a visiting Cleveland delegation that included Al Smith, Larry Raines, and other Negro ballplayers.

“And that goes for jazz, too. Look at what Duke did years ago, when the going was really rough. He was a giant, both musically and for the help he gave to the people who followed.”

The scene was a box at Chicago’s Comiskey park, where the White Sox were preparing to play the Cleveland Indians in a game that ultimately turned adversely for the home folks. But Hamilton was having a ball. Not only is he a Cleveland fan, he seldom gets a chance to see big league teams play.

Between exclamations at the blue of white that is Herb Score‘s fastball; shooting up some 25 feet of color movie film (“My boy is going to flip when I show him these!”); several futile tries at getting a beer vendor to change a $10 bill (when finally accomplished, he jammed the wad of wet, well-handled singles into his camera case and told the vendor, “When you need one, just reach in here”), and insistences that it wouldn’t rain (“It wouldn’t dare”), he talked about music, particularly his group.

It would seem impossible that anyone acquainted with jazz would not by now be familiar with the Hamilton quintet.

In a little more than a year on the road it has established itself as one of the best-drawing small units in the field.

He has become solidly established through a successful Newport festival appearance in 1956 (“I had to give up a full week of bookings to take that one night, but it was worth it,” Chico says), exposure via several concert packages, and excellent bookings at such well-known spas as the London House and Birdland, plus imposing sales of his Pacific Jazz recordings.

The initial impact undoubtedly was helped by the quintet’s instrumentation. Buddy Collette on flute, clarinet and saxes (chair is now held by Paul Horn); Fred Katz, cello; Jim Hall, guitar (since succeeded by John Pisano); Carson Smith, bass, and Chico, drums, presented something on an innovation in sound. Never did they overpower, or use decibels as a substitute for inventiveness.

“I’ve never thought of expanding the size,” he said. “I like the size of the group just as it is. We can play just as funky as can be, then turn around and be dainty and petite. There’s nothing pretentious about it. We’re just trying to play good and in tune. I don’t care if people call it jazz or whatever they want to. We just wan to play good music.”

“Hey, how come (Billy) Pierce is throwing like that? Oh, I dig, he’s walking the guy on purpose. I bet they don’t get the double play.”

“Oh, yes, so why should we expand? We can sound like a big band and like a small group. It’s good this way. And with the setup we have, with every guy a great technician as well as a good jazzman, we offer a challenge to guys who want to write for us. Did you know we encourage that, by the way? Anybody who comes up to me and says he’s got a score he’d like us to look at, why, we play it.

“Man, did you see that? So why didn’t I get that with the camera?”

Probably because he is so interested in the quintet, the subject is always uppermost in the Hamilton mind.

But what made him decide to form his own group and become a leader? It is fairly well known that he was living comfortably and doing well as a sideman and sometimes studio musician. He could count on almost $15,000 a year income without the precipitate headaches that sometimes plague leaders.

“I had to,” he said. “I was a sideman for 15 years, and I worked for a lot of people, from Lionel Hampton and Lester Young to Lena Horne and Charlie Barnet. I watched them and learned a lot from them. Then I just had to do it. When you’re ready to lead, you know it.”

“It started when I helped organize that first quartet with Gerry (Mulligan). Then about two years ago I got my own group together. That was it. I’m happy.”

He looked happy. Dressed casually in green chino slacks, ivy league sport shirt, black sweater, and dark glasses (“if I’d known you were going to wear a tie, I’d have dressed,” he said, grinning), he was a relaxed man, relaxed in the unhurried way of persons who have tasted success and acclaim.

But with success also can come some worries about holding onto it. After the seventh inning stretch, he turned and said, “Tell me, what do you think of critics?”

“You mean jazz critics?”

“Jazz critics.”

An admittedly biased answer was given, and so Chico proceeded on a short exposition:

“Maybe I can tell you some of the objections I have to some criticism this way.”

“I talked to a group of college students the other night. They asked a lot of questions, and a lot of them were very perceptive. I told them, ‘You want to know the whyness of jazz. That’s good. The future of the music depends on you young people. But don’t be so coldly and unreasonably critic about some aspects and some musicians as you seem to be. Don’t ever forget that a human being is producing the music. He has his troubles and difficulties, too, and don’t always expect him to play perfectly – especially jazz, which isn’t just giving an interpretation to something, but which requires improvisational skill as well as technical facility.'”

“I guess that’s what I mean about some of the criticism of jazz music today. I’m afraid some writers aren’t taking into consideration the human element that is involved. They expect us to play like some sort of machines and turn out nothing but that aspect of us that they like in big quantities.”

A knuckleballer was now throwing for the White Sox, with Cleveland holding a comfortable lead.

“They should have started him,” Chico observed, again absorbed in the game and in the wild dips and flights the ball took in the short distance it traveled from pitcher’s hand to catcher’s glove.

“Those cats don’t know what’s happening,” he chuckled, as a Clevelander swung in sickly fashion at a ball that almost hit his foot.

But that Chico is pretty hip as to what is happening is neatly evidenced by his ever-growing success (latest big exposure is in the current The Sweet Smell of Success film starring Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster on all fronts. It would not surprise a lot of close jazz scene observers if he became the next big poll-sweeper, both group-wise and single-wise. He’s on the move.

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Liner Notes by Unknown

In employing the Chico Hamilton Quintet to furnish an integral section of the soundtrack of the film, The Sweet Smell of Success, producers Hecht, Hill and Lancaster chose one of the most exciting and stimulating jazz organization of the day to accent the pulsating Broadway-by-night setting of the story. The Quintet, along with Gerry Mulligan and Dave Brubeck, is one of the inspirations of the West Coast “cool” school, whose influence has dominated the contemporary jazz generation.

All of the music on Side One of this Long-Playing record was recorded for the soundtrack of The Sweet Smell of Success. The first five bands feature the Quintet, and the remaining two bands employ the Quintet and additional horns, marking the first time that the Hamilton group has been recorded with an expanded personnel.

Side Two is one of the most unusual jazz recordings ever attempted. It features the Quintet, under normal recording conditions, performing an extended improvisation of several of their own themes composed for the soundtrack of the movie. It will be difficult to believe that not even a sketched arrangement was made for this recording, yet this is the actual case. The resulting music is a beautifully integrated composition conceived in free concerto form, which allows each of the individuals in the group great freedom for expression in the group’s atonal and polytonal framework.

All of the musical themes and songs on this record were written and arranged by leader-drummer Hamilton and cellist-composer-arranger Fred Katz. The remainder of the Quintet consists of John Pisano on guitar, Carson Smith on bass, and Paul Horn on alto saxophone, flute and clarinet.

Goodbye, Baby on Side One, is the dominant theme in the film and is repeated in the Elmer Bernstein orchestral amendment to the soundtrack (Sweet Smell of Success DL 8610). The Quintet version features Horn on the alto playing a warm, moody chorus.

Sidney’s Theme is a frantic, vertically structured polytonal piece dedicated to the film’s hero-heel, portrayed by Tony Curtis. Cheek To Chico is a beautifully designed showcase for Hamilton’s imaginative, tasty and skillful drumming. Susan or The Sage is an offbeat, rather eerie piece which spotlights composer Katz’s full-bodied cello. Jonalah is a swinging group effort. Jam, one of the sides which employs the Quintet expanded by horns, is a wild and wooly session which is one of the highspots in the movie’s story line. Its frenetic quality is enhanced somewhat by a synthesis of sound of jazz being poured out of a low-ceilinged jazz joint. Night Beat, the second piece which employs horns, is atmospheric background music and is a further illustration of the fresh thinking of the group’s major forces, Hamilton and Katz.

Incidentally, in addition to furnishing music for the soundtrack, the Quintet and leader Hamilton are seen in the movie for several sequences.