John Hammond and Martha Glaser: A Cold Correspondence
This post was written by Adam Lee, graduate student, Jazz Studies.
Erroll Garner famously won a lawsuit against record production titan Columbia Records in the early 1960s, which allowed him to launch his own label Octave records. While the details of this lawsuit have been covered by news outlets such as Variety (The True Story of Erroll Garner, the First Artist to Sue a Major Label and Win), the fallout of this suit would continue to echo throughout history in the form of a feud between Garner’s manager Martha Glaser and Columbia Records producer John Hammond.
John Hammond was a scion of the Vanderbilt family through his mother and by the 1930s had become one of the most influential promoters and producers of jazz, acting as a patron to such jazz legends as Count Basie, Billie Holiday, and Benny Goodman (who became his brother-in-law in 1942). He is often lauded for his staunch stance against racism through his promotion of jazz in a time in which it was considerably less common to find white people of status working to promote Black artists. Not all jazz artists would receive Hammond’s full support, however, as is made clear with his lukewarm response to Erroll Garner’s work.
Hammond was the producer working for Columbia when the events that led to Garner’s lawsuit came about, and later would become involved again in a Garner reissue project in 1975. Martha Glaser, writing on behalf of Garner, wrote to Hammond expressing her disdain for the way Columbia, and thus Hammond himself, was handling this project in the last few years of Garner’s life.
Image from folder “Correspondence from John Hammond,” Erroll Garner Archive, 1942-2010, Box 1, Folder 62, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System.
Glaser writes that Garner and she were reluctant to be involved in a Columbia production, understandable from their previous contentious relationship, but initially thought that Hammond would be supportive of the project: “It was with considerable trepidation that we got into the PLAY IT AGAIN, ERROLL project, because of past experiences at Columbia. However, with your reassurance, and Jim Brown’s support, we thought there would be no problems.” Clearly, there were problems and Glaser had no reservations expressing her feelings later in the letter writing: “We are most dismayed that our good friends at Columbia have so little regard for Erroll or myself, that we can’t reach them, or get a reply.” The venom in her language is clear, the Columbia producers are no friends of theirs.
Image from folder “Correspondence from John Hammond,” Erroll Garner Archive, 1942-2010, Box 1, Folder 62, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System.
Several years later, after Garner’s passing, Glaser and Hammond got into another conflict via letters sent between them. We do not have every record in the archive of this correspondence, but by looking at the letters we do have we can extrapolate some of the content, and it is increasingly hostile. The conflict seems to begin with Glaser’s objection to a quote in George Goodman Jr.’s June 28, 1981 article about Miles Davis titled ”Miles Davis: I Just Pick Up My Horn And Play.” In the article, Goodman attributes a statement to Hammond (which Glaser notes is not written as a quote, but more as a statement of fact): “To John Hammond, the authoritative critic and jazz patron credited with the ‘discovery’ of such greats as Bessie Smith and Louis ''Satchmo'' Armstrong, Mr. Davis is the only major performer of his generation who broadened rather than contracted the appeal of jazz music.” Glaser vehemently objects to this characterization, and overtly questions Hammond on it in a letter dated the next day, June 29, 1981: “Whether it accurately states your opinion, I can’t tell – but I certainly wonder about it.” Glaser goes on to contradict the assertion that only Davis expanded jazz appeal, referring to Garner’s public success with scathing and sarcastic language: “… if he was ‘contracting’ the appeal of jazz, then I wonder who all those people were in all those SRO audiences through the world for all those years…,” and “Indeed, he was sock box office…despite the heavy-handed treatment of CBS Records, and the subsequent results. I can fill you in, but I am sure you know much of what happened.” Obviously Hammond knows what happened, as he was the head of A&R (Artists and Repertoire) for CBS/Columbia Records at that time.
Image from folder “Correspondence from John Hammond,” Erroll Garner Archive, 1942-2010, Box 1, Folder 62, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System.
Hammond’s response is dated July 16, 1981 and specifically refutes the Goodman article for the Times, attempting to redirect the ire against him to the Times itself saying, “Why the Times is so sloppy in its music coverage and quotes is beyond belief.” While he could have continued to play diplomat, he instead doubles down on the conflict and writes some very specifically cruel things about Garner and Glaser “…the greatest mistake he ever made was in leaving CBS for purely financial reasons. When I came back there in the very late fifties, I did my best to patch things up, but I must say that I found both you and Erroll greedy, to say the very least.” He follows this with an attack on Glaser alone: “Unfortunately, the nit-picking that went on by you (acting on behalf of Erroll) left you with very few friends in the company. When I tried to sign Erroll in the mid-sixties, I was warned that if I did, I would probably suffer another heart attack and was ordered to cease and desist my efforts.”
Images from folder “Correspondence from John Hammond,” Erroll Garner Archive, 1942-2010, Box 1, Folder 62, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System.
Glaser counters the attacks directly: “’Greed’ was not the reason for the litigation. It was at a great sacrifice – including a financial one – that Erroll was pressed into this litigation by some substantial violations of his contract.” Ever the stalwart defender of Garner, Glaser accuses Hammond of hiding this opinion from Garner behind a smiling face: “I wish you had told Erroll, at the time, or in the almost 20 years subsequent to the litigation, that you thought he and I were motivated by ‘greed’. This might have put a different face on how he reacted to the entire situation, and to you, since he always said – ‘Don’t put John in the middle’, and was concerned about your well-being.” Glaser continued to take issues with Hammond’s specific phrase “nit-picking,” and notes the implications of such language: “I sometimes wonder where such an appellation might be sexist. When a man works as hard and carefully as I have to maintain quality standards, he is considered to be on top of things.” The jarring final statement is loaded with a sarcastic feel, like Glaser is writing pleasantries because these things are included in letters by practice but not by meaning: “I hope we can talk one day. In the meantime, thank you for your attention and response. Wishing you the best with your new enterprises. Sounds most exciting.”
Image from folder “Correspondence from John Hammond,” Erroll Garner Archive, 1942-2010, Box 1, Folder 62, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System.
To this letter we do have Hammond’s response, dated September 19, 1981. And once again, venomous statements are bookended with pleasantry. Hammond first apologizes about the greed comment, but by the third paragraph he outright tells Glaser that Garner would have been more financially and professionally successful if they had stuck with him and Columbia Records.
(Above) Images from folder “Correspondence from John Hammond,” Erroll Garner Archive, 1942-2010, Box 1, Folder 62, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System.
The final document in this record appears to be a draft of a letter typed by Glaser before the final version dated September 9,1981. While this document does not have a date, it does follow many of the same points of the dated letter and responds point by point to Hammond’s July 16, 1981 document. This draft has numerous redactions and corrections, and the language in it is much stronger than the one that eventually replaced it, (including one parenthetical where Glaser notes “have to change this” after expressing that Hammond’s letter was “character assassination.”) And it is perhaps for the best that it wasn’t sent, but in it we can see the rage that Glaser had for Hammond and the industry, and the vigor by which she was ready to protect Garner’s reputation and status. This draft letter too shows some significant insight into the things that Glaser thought were important, but (in contrast with the final letter) chose to hold back, almost certainly as a result of professional considerations. She writes “That Mr. Garner, a Black – jazz – artist – with a female manager – in those pre-consciousness raised days – both in the fields of race and sex – had the audacity to go up against a major corporation to defend his artistic rights – apparently didn’t sit well with the corporate heads. It was a ‘first’ and they made it clear he had to be broken and punished. Surely, you were aware of that.”
All in all, through these letters, we can see the conflict between Glaser and Hammond, and the not-so-subtle attempts by both of them to conceal resentment and animosity. Hammond’s position of power and reputation in the industry allowed him to feign magnanimity, but Glaser had neither the luxury nor the desire to sugar coat her arguments, although we can see from the differences in her brutal draft letter from her significantly more (but not entirely) diplomatic final letter version that she did take these things into consideration. In the end, Glaser once again proved that she would stand up for Garner against even industry giants like John Hammond, in a way that was uniquely her own.
Works Cited
Erroll Garner Archive, 1942-2010, AIS.2015.09, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System.
Goodman, George. "MILES DAVIS: 'I JUST PICK UP MY HORN AND PLAY'." The New York Times. June 28, 1981. Accessed April 27, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/28/arts/miles-davis-i-just-pick-up-my-horn-and-play.html.
Ouellette, Dan. "The True Story of Erroll Garner, the First Artist to Sue a Major Label and Win." Variety. December 02, 2019. Accessed April 27, 2021. https://variety.com/2019/music/news/the-true-story-of-erroll-garner-the-first-artist-to-sue-a-major-label-and-win-1203413083/.
