This is the 9th in a series of anthologies that I have published since October of 2023. It’s now available exclusively through Amazon.com as a paperback and eBook. Others in the series are volumes on Gerry Mulligan, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Stan Kenton, Shelly Manne and Jazz West Coast Volumes 1-3.
I thought I’d post the Introduction to Jazz Drummers A Reader Volume 1 to give you some idea as to what’s on tap should you decide to purchase this volume. The Table of Contents for this book along with those of the other books in the series can be found in the sidebar of the blog. Just scroll down to see the details for each book.
The royalties from all the books are being shared with the local high school and community college districts to help purchase musical instruments for individual students.
© Introduction Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
There is a widely regarded admonition which counsels that writers should “write about what you know.” In my case, “know” might be better stated as something about which I am somewhat familiar.
And while I may not be anything to write home about as a Jazz drummer [bad pun], I’ve been a student of Jazz drumming since 1958 and manage to do justice to it and not unduly embarrass it.
If as Pops says - “Jazz is who you are” - then it may be safe to say that drummers impart their personalities on the musical groups in which they perform.
For example, try imagining Art Blakey with the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Or conversely, Joe Morello with the Jazz Messengers. How about Buddy Rich with the Modern Jazz Quartet or Connie Kay in the Buddy Rich Killer Force Band. And then there’s Philly Joe Jones in for Sonny Payne with Count Basie’s Band and Sonny joining the “classic” Miles Davis Quintet featuring John Coltrane.
In fairness to Art, his subdued accompanist side can be heard on the trio recordings he made with Monk on Blue Note, his sensitive work Cannonball Adderley’s Somethin’ Else Blue Note LP and his early recorded work with clarinetist Buddy DeFranco.
The sterling accompanist “side” of Buddy Rich is displayed on the sublime Verve trio recordings with tenor saxophonist Lester “Prez” Young and pianist Nat “King Cole, while Philly’s demonstrates his range with his intermittent association with pianist Bill Evans and also as a founding member of the Dameronia Big Band.
Ed Thigpen who during his many years with Oscar Peterson was thought of primarily as a trio drummer and yet, you can check out his explosive side in a big band setting on the 1967 Impulse LP The Oliver Nelson Big Band Live from Los Angeles.
The point is that although we may be accustomed to hearing a certain drummer in a particular setting, to paraphrase Buddy Rich - a good drummer can play anything [and looks for the opportunity to do so]. To hear this in Buddy’s own words as told to Rick Mattingly in the January 1986 edition of Modern Drummer:
"Now we’ll talk about drummers. I’m so tired of hearing about specialized drummers. This one is a great trio drummer. This one is a big band drummer. That one is a small band drummer. In 1936 and ’37—again we harp back—when Gene Krupa was with Benny’s band, he played with the Benny Goodman Trio, he played with the Benny Goodman Quartet, he played with the Benny Goodman Sextet, and he played with the big band. He played absolutely correct with the trio, absolutely correct with the small group, and absolutely correct with the big band. He didn’t have special cymbals for the small band. He didn’t have special sticks. He played. A drummer plays what the music calls for, and there’s no such thing on this earth as a big band drummer or a small band drummer. You either play or you don’t play."
The history of Jazz drumming as seen through its major exponents is well-documented in Burt Korall’s two volumes - Drummin Men: The Heartbeat of Jazz and Georges Paczynski’s two volumes - Une Histoire de la Batterie de Jazz. [Unfortunately, Mr. Paczynski’s award-winning work has not been translated into English].
But I have yet to find an anthology of writings that treat the subject of individual Jazz drummers from the perspective of a wide variety of authors. So I decided to step up and to humbly try to fill this omission with this anthology.
The presentation of the articles, interviews and commentaries is somewhat chronological - from earliest to latest - but the work is not intended as a history of Jazz drumming. That being said, I did make an attempt to start at the beginning with Baby Dodds, Zutty Singleton, Sonny Greer, et al. and follow the evolution of Jazz drumming from the approximate starting point of the 1920’s.
These are point-in-time pieces, not career retrospectives. A Modern Drummer interview with Jeff Hamilton which originally featured in the July 1986 and was republished in the November 2018 is not a reflection of what Jeff has been doing since the time of the original interview. And yet, that 1986 snapshot is a definite indication of Jeff’s thoughts about and approach to Jazz drumming at that time.
Drummers are people as well as performers and some of the writings I’ve selected emphasize the human dimension along with the artistic side of Jazz drummers.
One axiom which you might want to keep in mind as you read these pieces is that “Jazz can’t be taught, but it can be learned.”
This truism is especially appropriate in this context as there was no such thing as the “formal” teaching of Jazz drumming during the dixieland swing and bop eras.
Learning how to play Jazz drums was more of a process of observation and emulation. Later, as recordings became more plentiful and available, listening and learning was added to this formula.
For as saxophonist Dave Liebman asserts in “Of all the rhythm section instruments, the drums are the most difficult to learn from books and even records. With drums, you have TO BE THERE … one has to see and feel the music, more so than for other instruments whose techniques could more easily be assimilated by studying available recordings.” [In Eric Ineke: The Ultimate Sideman published in April/2012 in a paperback folio edition by Pincio Uitgeverij of The Netherlands
The evolution of drum equipment is another factor in the development of Jazz drumming which in its earliest forms had separate snare drum and bass drum players! The development of the bass drum pedal made it possible for one drummer to play both and this was the beginning of many other refinements to the “sit down drums kit.” The following is from Con Chapman, Kansas City Jazz [2023]
“Another innovation in the jazz rhythm section, although one that is less noted today than the electric guitar because it is further distant from us in time, is the transition from the New Orleans model of two marching drummers—one playing bass drum (with a "clanger" cymbal attached), and one playing snare drum—to a single, seated drummer playing a drum "kit" or "trap set." The term "trap" is generally believed to have derived from the "contraptions" that drummers began to accumulate —such as wood blocks,cowbells, and cymbals—and attach to their bass drums to produce a greater variety of sounds. Edward "Dee Dee" Chandler popularized the bass drum pedal in the mid-1890s while playing with the John Robichaux Orchestra in New Orleans. "Chandler, with Robichaux's encouragement, constructed a crude foot pedal so he could play a snare drum and a bass drum at the same time," wrote Samuel Charters, which "made it possible to present the music with a softer, more subtle beat than the insistent sound of the bass drum usually added to ... small ensembles."
The following remarks by drummer Jim Keltner’s on the physical dimensions involved in playing drums are another differentiating factor in Jazz drumming:
“Jim: Even physically, the way you’re built has something to do with the way you play. Recently, I was looking at some pictures of Buddy and he’s not a big man, but his arms are big. He has no wrists; the arms just come down to these big mitts. Shelly has the same kind of hand, but Shelly is a big man. I’m kind of a big guy but I have these little tiny wrists and relatively small hands. I know that has got something to do with the way I play. I’m not sure what, but I know it has something to do with it. This guy here [indicating Vinnie] really epitomizes it. You’ve got real long arms, and the way you play, you look like your arms are extra long. They’re like whips.” [L.A. Studio Drummers Roundtable, Part 1 - Jim Keltner, Hal Blaine, Shelly Manne, Craig Krampf, Vinnie Colaiuta - Robyn Flans, January 1984 Modern Drummer].
But however it comes together, the drums have a strong effect on the overall performance of the music as exemplified in pianist Mel Powell's description of Sid Catlett’s short-lived tenure with the Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1941 [from Whitney Balliett, Goodbyes and Other Messages.]:
“Sidney Catlett joined Benny Goodman early in June of 1941 and was fired in October. His place was taken by a mediocre drummer named Ralph Collier. When Goodman was asked many years later why he had done something similar to Toscanini's firing Vladimir Horowitz, he said, "It's always been one of my enigmas—drummers." The band appeared that summer at the Steel Pier, in Atlantic City, at the Hotel Sherman, in Chicago, and at Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook, in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. It broadcast almost every night, and it went into the recording studios in Chicago and New York seven or eight times. From all indications, Catlett, who suddenly found himself in the challenging and auspicious position of being the first black drummer ever hired full time by a white big band, behaved with his customary tact, taste, and brilliance.
Here is what Mel Powell, now a classical composer and professor of music, said of Catlett the other day: "I always thought that this giant of a man had no peer as a percussionist. After all, he was playing on nothing but a set of traps—a snare drum, a couple of tomtoms, a bass drum, and some cymbals. Yet he invariably sounded as if he were playing delicately tuned drums. Where he hit his snare with his stick, how hard he hit it, where and how he hit his cymbals and tom toms—all these things transformed ordinary sounds into pitches that matched and enhanced what he heard around him. His sensitivity and delicacy of ear were extraordinary. So was his time. He'd nail the band into the tempo with such power and gentleness that one night I was absolutely transported by what he was doing. Watching him lift and carry us, I took my hands off the keyboard and missed the beginning of a solo. I don't think I have ever been more awed by a musical performance. Sid's personality reflected his playing. He was lovable and loving. He was gentle. He was
compassionate and concerned. He was also vulnerable. I saw tears in his eyes the night he was told, just after he'd joined the band, that his uniform wasn't ready yet, that he'd have to play in his street clothes, and so—to him—look unfinished. He had a wonderful sense of humor. I have never been able to figure out why Benny fired Sid. All that comes to mind is that Benny was not a follower and neither was Sid. But Benny was the boss."
This work is by no means definitive in any way but is incomplete in every way.
Jazz drummers not included in this premier volume may be included in a future volume, “God willun’ and the creek don’t rise!”
And once again, a word about repetition. Although expressing different opinions or points-of-view, the basic facts of a particular drummer’s career remain the same and are often repeated in the introductions to the articles, interviews and commentaries that comprise the features in this Reader. It is, after all, an anthology and not a narrative.