Legends of Jazz Drumming Part One

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] worn baby dies was inspired by New Orleans drummers like newest car trail Henry Z no tubby Hall and especially by the press roll Huey Martin who played in New Orleans with trombonist kid ory in his early teens dogs pieced together occlude trap set replete with wood blocks ratchets and cymbals and by 1921 had played on river boats with King Oliver Papa Celestin and Louis Armstrong in 1927 he recorded with Armstrong whose landmark hot 72 if you hear these records today you will hear shades of Buddy Rich shades of Krupa Joe Jones Max Roach this man did it all 55 60 years ago in the days of baby Dodds the symbols could not be recorded very well so the emphasis was on playing press roles instead of hi-hat or ride cymbal even though they had cymbals and maybe a lowboy would they call a lower boy instead of a hi-hat but baby Dodds could make those press rules sound so even that you didn't realize they were press rolls it was just a great sound rhythm sound and Jean picked up on that if you get some of the early Benny Goodman records you will hear gene playing those five rolls and 9s and sevens and baby Dodds did this [Music] baby Dodds most important New Orleans contemporary an informal student was Judy singleton who succeeded Dodds as Armstrong's drummer on the hot five and the hot seven recordings singleton modernized and smoothed out some of Dodds rough edges and played with taste and restraint he never varied too far from his New Orleans roots and was a drummer of choice for legends like Jelly Roll Morton Sidney Bechet and Fats Waller [Music] there were other early groundbreakers like Kaiser Marshall and Walter Johnson with Fletcher Henderson's ban Cuba Austin with McKinney's Cotton Pickers Ben of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings Dodds Protege George whittling and King Oliver's Paul barber [Music] but the first jazz drummer to actually record was Tony Spargo of the original Dixieland jazz band who's recording of barnyard Blues in February of 1917 was a million-seller musicologist Gunther Schuller claims that Spargo was the only one in that band actually improvising saying he varied his courses from performance to performance and achieved considerable variety by the clever use of a collection of drums cowbells wood blocks and cymbals [Music] the majestic drumkit an organic drive of Sonny Greer were almost as much a part of the early duke ellington mystique as Ellington himself career joined Dukes fold in 1919 and stayed until 1951 and though not a soloist or a driving accompanist his use of tone colors and effects were unprecedented and his colorful personality was magnetic [Music] William Chick Webb who was born a hunchback and lived but 37 years was worshipped by every drummer who ever heard him his sense of Swing showmanship explosive brakes and solos and use of the trap kit as a true instrument touch every percussionist who came after him [Music] I remember the great gene krupa telling me that in those days when Chick Webb was at his highest point when he had Ella Fitzgerald singing with him gene was with Benny Goodman and they used to play a battle of bands at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem and every time gene knew that he'd say well I'm gonna get another drum lesson tonight he had a tremendous amount of technique and what he could do better than almost anybody is in those days they had what he called a shout chorus after everybody after you played the head arrangement and everybody plays a solo then you got ready to play the shout course which was going home and it was always set up by a four-bar drum break or a bar drum break and he could really do that better than anybody technique musicianship he had it all and it was just a god-given talent that was Chick Webb [Music] gene krupa synthesized and simplified all that had come before and imbued it with a sense of style and showmanship that truly brought the drums out front by sheer force of personality and his dedication to percussion he made the drums a solo instrument and the drummer of musician to be respected as part of Benny Goodman's ban from 1935 to 1938 Krupa became the first jazz musician to become a matinee idol and his name is still magic [Music] [Applause] [Music] this guy had a touch on the gums and on the cymbals he could draw the sound other than so great and he was such a great person he was into Justin which I was into myself and we just got along great he was like the first really big drummer you know to get really a lot of attention and he could play his innovations were made with more subtly but Jonathan Jo Jones is universally acknowledged as the father of modern jazz drumming when Joe Jones came out with a Basie band there was something very different he was like a fan dancer he played one intensity but it was so so relaxed Joe was the drummer that really taught us how to play the hi-hats how to play the brushes how to do all those things and that was really my teacher right so I have so much respect for him [Music] one afternoon at Newport they had all the drummers there was a drum afternoon Buddy Rich was there I was there at Joe Morello Roy Haynes Elvin Jones everybody and we all resented to our bag did our tricks everything buddy played fantastic everybody and Joe Jones came out with just the high hat and a pair of sticks and when he finished we all looked at one another and said good afternoon [Music] [Applause] [Music] there was a theater in Boston called er Carroll theater when the bands would appear there it would be for one full week so the first time I met him then I stayed out of school for the whole week just listening to Joe Jones and when I wanted to get backstage I said I was his son you know so I guess Papa Joe Jones was proper then and I didn't even realize it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] big Sid Kevin was that rare player on any instrument who successfully made the transition from traditional jazz forms to swing and to Bebop he played with everyone from Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] big Sid Catlett enormous man you would think that a man that size would have a rough sound or a rough touch on the drums but he had one of the most delicate sounds on the drums of anybody he had an uncanny sense of timing there again natural ability he was actually one of my teachers I had a chance to talk to big said many times and he showed me what to do as far as like brushes were concerned how to play the hi-hat how to play the Chinese symbol where to place accents this was a key thing and also he taught me how to be able to listen to the soloists at all times because if you don't listen to a soloist and you don't you can't give them the proper backing you have to really hear them all the time in order to supply them with a proper rhythm that they deserve [Music] every time I see big Sid he'd have a bottle of Heinz it had to be a bottle of Heinz ketchup in his back pocket and he put ketchup on everything he ate I don't care whether it was soup french fries meats fish whatever it was Heinz ketchup and once he had that and he said okay let's sit down and tune up the drums and let's go to work Davy tuff was probably one of the greatest drummers that ever lived Davy was not a technician but he did what was the most important thing for any drummer doing that that is to Reese wing the band [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] Davi could play brushes well he he had a way of playing cymbals also that was very unique but his his task as far as he was concerned in a band was to make the band sound great he didn't bother about four bar solos or eight bar solos or any extended solos he just wasn't a soloist he just played and swung the band that was his tip one of the greatest descriptions of Davey came from Flip Phillips the great tenor saxophone player he said that one night on woody Herman's band they were playing Apple honey and Davy had his big Chinese symbol there and flip happened to be maybe just inches away from where Davey had his drums and he played such a forceful beat that flip philips kept playing one course after the other one course after the other he must have played about 20 courses on Apple honey and when he finished playing those 20 courses the beat that David gave him was so intent that he put his saxophone down and just yelled he screamed you know just like this was like the end you know I'm going to heaven now you know [Music] Raven Duke they used to refer to him as a Dixieland drummer but you know raid the Duke was a swing drummer I used to hear it Benny Goodman talk about drummers and he would you know he always loved Jean Jean was very dear to his heart you know the other drummers that he would mention it would be Ray McKinley and Reba Duke and I asked Bennie one time why did you name those two players besides Jean he said because they could they know how to play the snare drum [Music] [Music] it's almost like March beats you know almost like what drum course would play only he was by adding the bass drum in and all the little things like wood blocks and cowbells and so forth but he could really play the snare drum and to me he fit that Bob Crosby band very well [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Rayne McKinley was never a flashy player but combined singing and an engaging personality as a frontman to become one of the swing eras more popular players his straightforward style was a notable part of will Bradley's boogie woogie group Glenn Miller's famed Army Air Force Band and later his own rather modern crew [Music] the drumming of William cozy coal also spanned generations from his first recordings with Jelly Roll Morton in 1932 a featured spot with Cab Calloway in 1939 too early Bob dates with Parker and Gillespie [Music] [Music] [Music] always a devoted and serious student of the drums coal style remained true to its rudimental roots but was flexible enough to fit in with anyone he was one of the few drummers to have a bonafide hit record with a tune called Topsy [Music] if it wasn't for Chick Webb big Sid Catlett and Joe Jones I wouldn't be playing today [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] some people have said that Ring McKinley was the first to play with two bass drums but he told me that I was the plans were drawn up in 1938 while I was in my dad's music store and accrued homemade set was built that same year the early 50s were very significant for me as a composer arranger and also for the recordings I did with Duke Ellington skin-deep and Hawk talks [Music] Buddy Rich was a god-given talent he was a great great natural player phenomenal technician he really made you played to your top level if you were playing alongside [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he was a special guy he really was I learned an awful lot hanging out with buddy we were dear friends also not only that as a playing partner but also as a good friend [Music] he was a great guy a great player he was very uncanny I loved the way he played his solos because it wouldn't sound like it was something he practiced he was just it was just a very uncanny player and it just couldn't figure with his solos I really miss him Kenny Clark had been experimenting with a different style of drumming as early as 1939 Clark moves a timekeeping Center from the snare drum to the right cymbal and instead of playing for steady beats to the bar on the bass drum used it for occasional accents this style which came to be known as bebop developed during Clark's tenure as musical director of a club in Harlem called mittens here other early exponents of the Bob style like Charlie Parker Dizzy Gillespie Charlie Christian until only as monk came in to jam and experiment lightly by way of those early experiments Kenny Clark changed the way all drummers played and then on [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Max Roach listen very very carefully to Kenny Clark admittance and expanded on his ideas during his stints with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie Roach demonstrated an interest in a compositional structure and melody he wanted you to hear the tune when he took a solo and that's a concept that he evolved even more when he became a leader in the decades to come when I was playing with Charlie pockets the tedious but Paul played opposite us and Max Roach was playing the drums with Bud Powell which really was gonna kick my butt I said now here comes max Rhodes one of the greatest drummers of this music that we're trying to play and he's going to be there opposite me and one night for the first time we played I figured what composition it was but it was a composition that I had not played with Charlie Park at all and Max Roach was right there in the wings checking me and telling me the moves and telling me what to do he's always been really great like that and naturally I listened to him a lot earlier in my career and I listened to him now when I do get the chance and we always stayed even though sometimes we don't see each other for a long period of time we keep up with each other and he's definitely one of the greatest artists of this music max Rhodes [Music] [Applause] [Music] max was always an innovator I would say that between Kenny Clark and Max Roach they really started bebop drumming and a lot of people say what do you mean by bebop drumming well bebop drumming was a very loose kind of feel and yet they had the intensity but the bass drum was the key figure you know they they didn't play for beats to the bar like the hardcore swing guys did like the Benny Goodman's and the basses and Ellington's but they had their their bread and butter beat the right hand beat was constant and syncopation with the left hand and also with the foot because when you had a Ray Brown playing bass he covered the one-two-three-four but Max and Kenny Kenny Clark Luke as we called him they taught the drummer's how to play a little more syncopation with the bass from them and not too much one two three four with each on each bar all right each beat rather and just opened up a new avenue because they did a lot of wonderful things by keeping the right hand steady and playing syncopation between the left hand and the bass drum and they could do it very well because they put the accents in the right place like dizzy said whenever they dropped a bomb was a bass drum it was in the right place because they were listening musically as well as rhythmically [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] this new approach was embraced by all jazz in summers and many of them developed individual styles within the idiom including Stanley V tensile best tiny Colin teddy Stewart Don LeMond shadow Wilson Joe Harris JC heard and Art Blakey Roy Haynes who often played with Parker and Lester Young came to major prominence in the decades to come and so did Shelly man who first came to the attention of the public while with Stan Kenton in 1947 [Music] [Applause] [Music] when art blakey passed away they were interviewing dizzy gillespie and they said dizzy what is it about art blakey that you liked and he said well let me tell you Max Roach was the professor and Art Blakey was a volcano [Music] [Applause] [Music] I first heard our Blakey playing with Fletcher Henderson BAM and the word energy Wow I mean he had it from totally head he could just I remember him with Billy Eckstine band playing it at a place in Harlem called a club Sudan where they had chorus girls and everything I would sit on the end of the stage and he was up in the air but the stage where I was sitting was I could feel a vibration that's coming from the drums and this guy had so much power and such a great concept of who air to put things with a big man how to lead in to explode and with that role he had that press roll it sound like thunder and lightning [Music] by 1950 Styles had consolidated players like Krupa and rich updated their approach and younger players began taking serious note of their predecessors in the process several generations that drummers came together in mutual respect in this clip we have a rather entertaining instance of this mutual admiration featuring Gene Krupa Shelly Mann and yours truly drummer spanning three decades who paved the way for the startling percussion developments to come [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Eric Dupont

Views: 31,223

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Id: 50QgTSdQnHk

Length: 64min 31sec (3871 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 21 2020