【F】 The New Hamilton Jazzmaster Quartz Octet

Tell me, do you prefer bebop over cool jazz, fusion over hard bop, or are you more the swing type? No matter the answer, the top artists in any of these genres can be considered jazz masters. Now, please welcome to the stage the Hamilton Jazzmaster Quartz Octet! Eight watches in two sizes with six dial colors to choose from. But you can’t choose the rhythm section. The new 40mm and 32mm Jazzmasters all have a quartz movement. Say what you will, but it guarantees tight, locked-in timekeeping. Take it away!

The eight Hamilton Jazzmaster Quartz watches give me a swing vibe. They’re clean and crispy, and although somewhat playful with color, they’re too clean to be labeled bebop. They’re just more Woody Herman than Charlie Parker. But that’s okay; swing is feel-good music to dance to, and a bit of dancing never hurt anyone. Just don’t try to perform any moves like the “Airplane Spin” or a “Flipping High.”

Introducing the Hamilton Jazzmaster Quartz in two sizes

Comfortable proportions and a mainstream look make the eight new Jazzmaster Quartz iterations easy to wear and easy on the eye. The Jazzmaster collection is the most refined series of watches in the Hamilton catalog. The collection’s name links to the Swiss brand’s American origins, and the watches are versatile and perfect for everyday use. The eight new 40mm and 32mm steel quartz watches, all with a 7.8mm profile, are modern, accessible timepieces created to attract a new generation of jazz/watch lovers. They are contemporary dress watches with a streamlined look, melodic and flowing like swing, not complex and frantic like bebop.

The case Jazzmaster Quartz features horizontal brushing, vertical brushing, and polished chamfers. That level of finishing is a nice touch for the eight new watches, priced at CHF 395. It offers a bit of extra subtle swagger to a watch that doesn’t want to stand out like a saxophone player starting a 10-minute solo but, instead, like a trumpeter inserting a subtle ad-lib while playing the main melody.

Shades of the Jazzmaster Quartz

The Jazzmaster Quartz’s sunray-brushed dials blend classic restraint with contemporary energy. The more traditional shades available are black, silver, and Arctic Dawn Blue — colors you can wear with virtually everything. But there are also more virtuoso-like dials with expressive hues, such as warm rose and bright turquoise. The skeletonized dauphine hands are a traditional yet not introverted touch. Sword-shaped hands have an undeniable presence. Like jazz hands (pardon the pun), they glide past a mix of applied and printed indexes.

40mm H32461161

H32461121

H32461131

H32461141

The 40mm and 32mm Jazzmaster Quartz models all come equipped with a three-row bracelet. I won’t bring up the likeness to the “OP” if you quickly glance at these new Hamiltons, but now the damage is done anyway. Still, in this price category, having a slight visual similarity to an aspirational benchmark hardly disqualifies a watch.

32mm H32301141

H32301161

H32301171

H3230118

You can count on the quartz movement inside the new Jazzmasters to keep things tight and precise. There’s not much to say about the Swatch Group movement that keeps the beat, and that’s a good thing. After all, you don’t buy any of the new eight Jazzmasters because of what’s ticking inside the 50m-water-resistant case.

What not to do with your Hamilton Jazzmaster Quartz

Now, a final word of advice regarding the press images provided by Hamilton. The pics are cool, but they do portray an unfavorable treatment of watches at an airport. When going through security, never — and I repeat, never — put your watch exposed in the tray in the way the pictures show. The risk of not finding your watch after you’ve gone through the metal detector and after your stuff on the tray has passed through the X-ray machine is simply too high. Fratello advises either wearing your watch through the scanner or putting it safely in a jacket pocket or the bag on the tray. Thank you for your attention.

Watch specifications