Jimmy Giampa

Jimmy Giampa is a percussionist who lives in West Saugerties, NY. I have had the pleasure of playing with Jimmy a couple times at local venues in Woodstock. He is subtle and steady, and knows when to let go and when to reign it in. These are qualities that make, in the author's humble opinion, an excellent drummer.

Jimmy began playing drums when he was a teenager, in the 1950's. He started with pots and pans, he said. He taught himself how to play. His cousin was a jazz drummer and Jimmy would watch him play. He couldn't play much at home, he says, as he lived in a 6-family apartment house in the Bronx. He would lock himself in the closet at school so he could play without being interrupted. Then he "started playing in the park with the latin guys - you gotta learn that clave," he says. From there, he started playing with latin bands in the 1960's.

In the late 60's, Jimmy came upstate with a friend of his who was working on a demo at Karmic Gardians. Jimmy did carpentry work at the studio. This was somewhat of a sister studio to Micheal Jeffries' Electric Ladyland recording studio in NYC. Jeffries was Jimi Hendrix's manager and in 1971, he asked Jimmy to come down to record on Looking Glass's 1971 hit "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl").

Brandy
Jimmy went to the studio, and without having heard the track before, laid down a conga track in a couple takes.

He reflects that he was playing with some hot latin bands in New Jersey and New York at the time and says that the "Brandy" track was easy and tame in comparison with what he had been accustomed to playing.
He toured with Vassar Clements.
His favorite of all the musicians he played with was American folk and bluegrass songwriter and musician (and former West Saugerties resident) John Herald.