SKF NOTE: Writer Eliot Tiegel interviewed Buddy Rich for the March 1982 Down Beat magazine. One of Tiegel’s questions for Buddy was, What are your goals for the future?

Here’s Buddy’s answer:

Buddy Rich: “I haven’t achieved what I want to do, which is play better, and I’m very sincere about that. I think that once you think you’ve played as good as you’re ever going to play, you’re cheating yourself and everybody else.

“And I have never decided I played so good that I don’t have to worry about it any longer. I concern myself with it every time I sit down behind the drums. I have never attained the kind of expertise that I want.””And I have never decided I played so good that I don’t have to worry about it any longer. I concern myself with it every time I sit down behind the drums. I have never attained the kind of expertise that I want.”

Source: “Rich Raps,” by Eliot Tiegel, Down Beat, March 1982