SKF NOTE: Remembering my phone conversation with Mel Lewis when he was explaining to me his cancer diagnosis.

Mel said the cancer was a result of his playing while holding his right stick wrong all those years. The butt of his drumstick, Mel told me, consistently press against the palm of his right hand. Over time that movement prompted a cancer in his hand lymph nodes or vessels.

Holding his right stick that way, said Mel, was “wrong.” But, continued Mel, it was the way he played.