The scene is the Newport Jazz Festival, 1958. One great act follows another, including Thelonious Monk and Dinah Washington. Then Chico Hamilton's group takes the stage and begins the ballad "Blue Sands." Playing a hypnotic pattern with mallets, Hamilton makes the drums sing. The performance, captured in the film "Jazz On A Summer's Day," is absolutely mesmerizing.

Over the past seven decades, Hamilton has given no shortage of stunning performances. At 89, he's still leading his band.

Growing up in Los Angeles, jazz was his soundtrack. "My mother took me to see Duke Ellington when I was 8 years old," Hamilton says by phone from his studio near the United Nations building in New York City. "The band set up in a pyramid and at the top was Sonny Greer. Man, he had more drums up there than a drum store. Everything he touched was musical. That inspired me to want to play."

At 8 Hamilton was shining shoes, a nickel a shine. He'd stay out on the streets of L.A. every day until he made a dollar. Eventually he earned enough to buy his first drum set.

"I've still got that first drum that I bought," says Hamilton. "Fortunately, at that time Lionel Hampton was living in L.A., doing all those crazy things: playing on the floor, on the walls. I would imitate him."

Hamilton's high school was a hotbed of talent, with Dexter Gordon, Charles Mingus, and Illinois Jacquet roaming the halls. "That was our high school orchestra," he says. "We raised so much hell in L.A. Every time bands came to town they let us out to go down to the station and meet them. Jimmie Lunceford, Earl Hines - we'd rehearse the same day at the union and cop all their arrangements. Our band played Lunceford-style with the two beats - ka-boom, ba-boom da-doom boom-ba-do ba-doom - until we heard Count Basie's four-four style." Basie's drummer, Jo Jones, became Hamilton's mentor.

After a stint in the military (where they placed him in the drum and bugle corps - playing bugle!), Hamilton pursued jazz in earnest.

Gerry Mulligan's piano-less quartet originated in Hamilton's L.A. living room in the early 1950's. In that group was trumpeter Chet Baker, who would later destroy his life with drugs.

"There were two dudes, man: Chet Baker and Miles Davis, two of the most handsome dudes on the scene," Hamilton says. "They both had thin lips and they both played their asses off. The last time I saw Chet, I didn't believe it was him. He looked like a thousand-year-old man."

Hamilton didn't entirely avoid drugs. "I had my times but I cleaned up. I got cool."

In 1955, he started a quintet with Buddy Collette (reeds), Jim Hall (guitar), Carson Smith (bass), and Fred Katz (cello). Critics called it "chamber jazz."

"We were just trying to play in tune," says Hamilton, laughing. "At that time, everybody had gone crazy with the rock stuff. All the horn players sounded like they had boxing gloves on. Everybody was screaming and honking - all that bullshit."

Over the decades Hamilton has been known for selecting superb sidemen, including Charles Lloyd, Eric Dolphy, and Larry Coryell. In 1957 his group was featured in the film noir classic "Sweet Smell of Success."

"We were the film until they got nervous about us. It was the first time they used a jazz group. They watched us for six months because of the subject - smoking pot. They had to make sure we were clean," Hamilton says. "There's only one film director I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for: Roman Polanski."

Hamilton wrote the music for Polanski's "Repulsion." "I had 25 music cues. We only discussed one of them. He never forgot why he hired me," he says

Over his career, Hamilton has played on many landmark albums, including Billie Holiday's "Lady Sings the Blues."

"She didn't have any luck with men," he says. "She went around with some of the skunkiest dudes."

Hamilton, who just completed his autobiography, has thought long and hard about the magic of "Blue Sands" at Newport. "It wasn't the melody that engrossed the people. It was the pattern I played on the drums with my mallets," he says. "Nobody was playing mallets and nobody was playing that rhythm. I've always looked at drums as a melodic instrument. As long as you can get a triad... You tune them up to what you want to hear."

Hamilton sees himself as part of a proud tradition: drummers as bandleaders. "Every drummer that's had a band, the band has been happening - Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich... You got to keep time for all them motherfuckers, man. Say you got a 15-piece band. That means you got 14 dudes keeping their own time. You got to say: Hey, here it is. Here's the beat. Dig - you got to be strong, man."

Chico Hamilton & Euphoria

Kilbourn Hall

6 & 10 p.m. | $25