SKF NOTE: Starting with my first posting of excerpts of my interview with Freddie Gruber, skeptics came forward asking: Did Freddie ever make any records as a drummer? How could Freddie teach drums if he never demonstrated his ideas while playing on a drumset?
Well-known jazz writer Barry Ulanov wrote his “Shape of Drums to Come” column after seeing Freddie Gruber perform. In the last few months I found, digitized, and posted a phone interview with Jim Chapin describing Freddie Gruber’s drumming back in the late 1940s or early 1950s.
Personally, during our interview sitting at Buddy Rich’s NYC apartment kitchen table, Freddie gave me guidance on holding drumsticks, traditional grip, that answered a physical problem I had wrestled with for decades. I was gripping the sticks wrong. Even though I was sure I understood how to hold drumsticks — especially in my left hand — it was impossible for me to develop stick control beyond a certain level.
Much of what Freddie said that afternoon about holding drumsticks I heard before from other sources. Freddie showed me “how,” and was patient in explaining “why” — physically, mechanically — there was an optimal way to hold drumsticks. Even when I questioned him, he wasn’t insulted, he wasn’t dismissive. Freddie answered my questions. He clarified, he took aspects of holding drumsticks that most of my drumming life were muddy, and made them clear.
So, I understand the Doubting Thomas-es needing to see and hear their drum teachers. I had some of that skepticism when I asked Freddie, “Let’s say I’ve come to you for the first time for drum lessons. What happens next?” Freddie answered all my questions, and more, and I know he can teach. Because I learned a great deal from him.
SKF NOTE: I am among the millions of drummers first inspired by Gene Krupa’s sound to play drums and study drumming. Krupa has described his role in drum history as making the drummer a high priced guy. Others say Krupa was first to bring drummers to the public’s attention.
There’s no question Krupa’s influence is great, and cuts across many musical styles. Jazz drummers, rock drummers, country drummers — they all point to Gene Krupa’s primary influence.
This is a great movie short of Krupa fronting one of his big bands and trio. The soundtrack seems slightly out of sync with the movie, but it also appears to be a film of Krupa playing live. Unlike a few interesting Krupa clips where he is clearly mimicking, playing along with a pre-recorded song.
Notice Krupa uses his snare drum, not a ride cymbal, as his primary timekeeping instrument. In fact, he really has no ride cymbal. The year 1947 was right on the cusp of Kenny Clarke‘s innovation: keeping time on the ride cymbal.
At one point here, for a second or two, you see Krupa playing with his left (snare drum) arm held above, not below, his right (hi-hat) arm. This awkward way of playing is one reason Kenny Clarke said he first tried using a ride cymbal, liked it, and soon that way of playing drumset stuck.
Krupa’s snare drum playing here with big band and trio is exactly the sound that grabbed my attention on record more than a half-century ago. It’s very musical. Combined with Krupa’s showmanship it’s easy to see why so many people — musicians and listener’s — liked him.
SKF NOTE: This is an excerpt from a 22-minute recorded interview I did around 1982 with American songwriter, arranger, record producer Henry Glover. I was, according to what I told Mr. Glover at the start of this interview, just four months into my research for the five-part “History of Rock Drumming” published in Modern Drummer.
My plan is to transcribe the Glover interview and post it on my Life Beyond the Cymbals blog.
Meanwhile, this audio clip features Glover talking about discovering The Band. Glover was an A&R man for Roulette records when Ronnie Hawkins came in to record some songs. Hawkins’s backup band was the musicians who later left Hawkins to form their own group: The Band.
A major Levon Helm fan at the time of this interview, I was intrigued by Henry Glover’s stories of Levon as a drummer, as co-founder of the RCO All-Stars, working on The Last Waltz, and producing the wonderful Muddy Waters’s Woodstock Album.
SKF NOTE: “I’m stuck in the 60s,” Eileen explains her choice of music on her iPod and car radio. Lots of Beach Boys, Four Seasons, Motown, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and so on. Now and then — almost as if the iPod is weary of hearing the same tunes — the song rotation plays Tony Joe White’s “Polk Salad Annie,” Arthur Conley’s “Sweet Soul Music,” or Jimmy Soul’s “If You Wanna Be Happy” — some wonderful 60s songs that, to my ears, never grow stale.
There’s no telling on any given day what’s on my personal MP3 player. Those of you reading my column recently won’t be surprised when I tell you my MP3 player includes several podcast episodes. Music? It depends on my mood. But chances are excellent I’m listening to one or more jazz albums, usually a Miles Davis album. Recently, I’m discovering vibist Cal Tjader’s albums with percussionists Willie Bobo and Mongo Santamaria.
Jazz as a music genre is tough to define. One reason is the way jazz has changed and continues changing over time, always a reflection of the times, with a small number of visionary musicians leading the musical stylistic changes. So Louis Armstrong was a jazz pioneer starting in the 1920s with both his trumpet playing and singing. Thirty years later trumpet player Miles Davis began emerging as a different sounding visionary.
Some self-proclaimed jazz fans feel that little, if anything, good in jazz happened after Louis Armstrong. Similarly, some fans of Miles Davis’s 1950s music have no use for Armstrong’s music, and sometimes no use for Miles’s music in the late 1960s and beyond.
I listen to all kinds of jazz. In my years as a professional drummer/singer I played jazz. It is often challenging music to play. Jazz is largely improvisational music that functions at its highest level when musicians are literally communicating with each other — and to the audience — intuitively. Improvisation (thinking on your feet) and communication (listening to others, responding to others) are my favorite aspects of jazz.
The long hours of study, often in tandem with periodic falling flat on my face in public, are also — I can’t say “favorite” — but, welcome parts of learning to play jazz, which is historically a merit-based music. A musician either rises to the musical challenges or not. It’s a personal choice. But, as I’ve heard it said, “Nobody slides, my friend.” Do your best to prepare, falling short sometimes is inevitable. It’s a lousy feeling serious musicians respond to by picking themselves up, dusting themselves off, and starting over again.
Jazz is a music of individuals. I like that too. Developing your own sound is a prime, prized musical goal. And it’s not an easy goal. Most musicians start out copying other musicians, favorite musicians. But echoing another’s sound is, at best, a stepping stone. Why perfect Louis Armstrong’s sound when Armstrong’s already done so? The goal is to learn the general language of jazz and use it in developing your own voice. That’s true of jazz players of all musical instruments — even the voice (singers).
I tease Eileen about her favoring ‘60s music, but I am also a product of ‘60s music, and a fan of the bulk of songs on her iPod. Truth is, I’ve studied those songs long-and-hard. Some of them I played in bands. These days I prefer devoting my music listening hours to music new to me, instead of re-listening for the umpteenth time to songs.
Last week I did load the Essential Kinks music onto my MP3 player. And when Eileen’s four-year old grandson, Grafton, and I are driving in my car, he likes to listen with me to Miles Davis.
Sometimes Grafton even likes napping to Miles Davis.
SKF NOTE: An excerpt from the full transcription of my interview with John Von Ohlen on October 12, 1984. You can listen to this exchange on the YouTube video posted here.
John Von Ohlen: When I first started playing drums I was fanatical, absolutely fanatical. I played all day long. I cut school. I’d tell my mother and dad that I was sick that day. They’d both go off to work. As soon as they left the house I’d hop up on the drums and play them all day until they got home.
I did some good faking back then. For about six months I think I was on the drums all the time.
Scott K Fish: [Earlier], when you played accordion, piano, and trombone — was that by choice?
JVO: Yeah. I always had an affinity for drums, but I never really got turned on to drums until I saw Stan Kenton’s band in person back in about ‘55.
Of course, Mel Lewis was the drummer at that time. The first thing that really hit me — right between the eyes — was the cymbal, that ride cymbal. That was the first thing I heard in the parking lot when we got out of the car. And I kept hearing that burning ride cymbal. That just lit me up so much. I just couldn’t get it out of my mind.
Scott K Fish 
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