Shaughnessy: Dave Tough Like Elvin in His Sense of Time

Posted on September 26, 2017 by Scott K Fish
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Dave Tough

SKF NOTE: In 1985 I clipped and saved Whitney Balliett‘s piece, Little Davey Tough, from my copy of The New Yorker magazine. This was a writer’s standard pre-internet method for building a personal resource library.

Mr. Balliett’s piece is timeless and should be interesting to any one who values drummer Dave Tough, and/or is curious to know drum history’s high points. Balliett interviews musicians who played in bands with, or were otherwise close to, Dave Tough. People such as Bob Wilber, Chubby Jackson, and Ed Shaughnessy.

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…Ed Shaughnessy…hung around [Dave] Tough when he was fifteen or sixteen and Tough was with Woody Herman. [Shaughnessy] said of [Tough] the other day, “No drummer could match his intensity. He used a havy stick with a round tip. He had the widest tempo, the broadest time sense, and in that way he was like Elvin Jones. He was always at the center of the beat, even though he gave the impression he was laid back.

“He played loosely, with not much tension on the stick, and he tuned his drums loosely. He kept a glass of water and a cloth on the bandstand, and before each set he would dampen the cloth and wipe the footpedal head of his bass drum with a circular motion. That drumhead was so loose it almost had wrinkles in it.

“He told me he did this because he didn’t want the bass drum to be in the same range as the bass fiddle. He didn’t want the two to compete. And he tuned his snare and tomtoms the same way, so that they were almost flabby.

“He was a master cymbal player — maybe the greatest of all time. He had a couple of fifteen-inchers on his bass drum, plus a Chinese cymbal and what we call a fast cymbal — a small cymbal you use for short, quick strokes. And he had thirteen-inch high-hat cymbals.

“He’d use his high hat, wiether half open or open-and-shut behind ensembles, and when things roared he would shift to the big, furry sound of the Chinese cymbal. He had a very loose high-hat technique, and he was always dropping in offbeats on it with his left hand.

“He often used cymbals for  punctuation where other drummers used rimshots or tomtom beats. He told me he didn’t want to interrupt the rhythmic wave.”

Source: Little Davey Tough, by Whitney Balliett, The New Yorker, November 18, 1985

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Jim Gordon: What Made You Want to Be a Pro Musician?

Posted on September 23, 2017 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: I explain how this interview came about here.

This latest excerpt, except for a deleted question about the weather, and the removal of tape hum and a few tape clicks, is the beginning of my taped conversation with Jim Gordon. Also, I’ve deleted a couple of throat clearings and stammerings.

Where this excerpt ends, our conversation begins on an earlier excerpt I posted here:

Jim mentions touring at age 17 as drummer for The Everly Brothers, and meeting the Beatles in 1963-64. The Everly Brothers were part of an English tour which included Bo Diddley, The Rolling Stones, and Little Richard. You’ll hear me asking Jim about Bo Diddley’s drummer, at a time I was trying to fill in holes while writing my History of Rock Drumming.

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Jim Blackley: ‘Take the Weight Off Yourself. Just Play.’

Posted on September 20, 2017 by Scott K Fish
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Bob DiSalle (Courtesy HeadHunters Drumsticks)

SKF NOTE: I found out about Jim Blackley’s death from Jonathan McCaslin. Jon asked if I had interviewed the great drum teacher, Mr. Blackley. I had not. Neither did he and I ever meet face-to-face, but we did have a few enjoyable phone conversations about drums and life. When the phone rang, and it was Jim Blackley calling, that was always a good thing.

T. Bruce Wittet interviewed Jim Blackley for Modern Drummer.

McCaslin, I think, was also collecting stories about Mr. Blackley from pro drummers for possible use in tribute to Blackley. As McCaslin writes on his blog, Four On The Floor, “Blackley has undoubtedly had an important influence on Jazz drumming in Canada and his methods and books are really worth checking out.”

Here’s an excerpt from my 1983 interview with Bob DiSalle. Bob was telling me about his studies with Peter Magadini and Marty Morrell, then about meeting Jim Blackley.

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Bob DiSalle: Then I studied with Jim Blackley. I took about a year off from studying…and went to see Jim at a time I really needed some direction. He was bang on as far as that goes. He was a great teacher.

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Jim Blackley

When I was studying with Jim Blackley he was very good for me as far as direction. I remember telling him, “I’m really confused. I’m working really hard, and I don’t think I’m a great player, but I think I’m good enough to work and make more than I am now. It’s like I’m barely getting by, and I just really wish that things would happen.”

My wife and I were talking about starting a family and wanting to buy a house — just the things in your private life that you want to put together.

Jim said, “Just keep working and don’t worry about it. Take the weight off yourself. Just play. Put half your efforts into the music, and with the other half, keep your private life together, and keep yourself together.”

I’d walk away from my lesson feeling like there wasn’t any weight there, and that, sooner or later, things would work out. It just seemed that shortly after I adopted that attitude of relaxing, and letting things go the way they would, things started to work out.

That’s when I started working with Bruce [Cockburn]. I started to get more work around town. The jingle thing started happening. My wife and I got our family started. I bought a house last year, and we’ve got another little addition in the family.

Things — privately and musically — seem to be working towards where I would like them.

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A Unique Look at Buddy Rich’s Drumset

Posted on September 19, 2017 by Scott K Fish

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SKF NOTE: Eames Drumshell Company founder, Joe MacSweeney, gives us a unique insight into Buddy Rich‘s drumset. Mr. MacSweeney collected and refurbished 1940-44 vintage Slingerland Radio King drums, using them to create a five-piece set, with original hardware and calfskin heads, for Buddy Rich.

During a 1982 meeting, MacSweeney said Buddy Rich “said that the perfect wood snare drum for him was a 5 1/2 x 14 Radio King,” which Joe found, reworked – including calfskin heads – and presented to Buddy. Rich “was…almost like a young kid getting his first drum,” said MacSweeney.

The two men talked about putting together a full set. MacSweeney said, “Buddy…referred to his style as simple, and he thought that set should be a basic, simple instrument. He was mainly concerned with the snare drum; the other drums were just tonal effects….” Rich wanted “a set…he’d be comfortable with.”

“Buddy always played relaxed. That was [a key] to his style,” MacSweeney continued. “He always considered the drums…should be played like any other instrument — not banged or hit.”

Drums were “tensioned,” not tuned, Rich believed. “He would actually let them get quite loose before he bothered to pull them up again,” said MacSweeney. “He got an amazing sound out of…the eight lug Radio King [snare] – by keeping the bottom head quite tight and the snares very tight, and he got depth from the drum by keeping the top head loose,” said MacSweeney.

That observation is new to me. I’ve always thought Buddy’s snare batter heads were tight. They sound tight. But, MacSweeney, says Buddy let his batter head “get quite mushy at times,” and he “loved to use calfskin when weather permitted.”

The bass drum, said MacSweeney, was the only drum Buddy muffled.

Source: Buddy Rich: A Special Tribute, Modern Drummer, August 1987

 

 

 

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Max Roach: Every Drummer Should Play a Melodic Instrument

Posted on September 18, 2017 by Scott K Fish

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SKF NOTE: This exchange with Max Roach took place on July 15, 1981 at his home in Connecticut. The back story is posted here. 

I asked Mr. Roach if he thought musicians should be aware of the business side of music. He said, yes, musicians should be aware to guard against people taking advantage of them. But, said Roach, musicians should leave the business side to professional music business people, and concentrate on the creative side.

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Max Roach: When [I] teach up there at U. Mass., or I get to advise a student, I tell him to concentrate on the art. Concentrate on developing technique in every aspect.

I am a firm believer that every drummer should play, should also perform on, a melodic instrument. Mallet instrument, preferably.

And, of course, keyboard harmony on piano.

I teach theory…at the school. That was my major in school, not percussion.

When I get a student who plays a melodic instrument, I insist they learn how to play drums. Just keep time.

So, say I have the reed section. I insist they have a jam session amongst themselves — and create their own rhythm section out of the reed section.

The drummers…should do the same kind of thing. They should have the melodic and harmonic properties available to themselves — and learn these properties. It all helps, even though their major is percussion. [W]hen [a drummer] sit[s] down, [they’re] not just sitting in there as a percussionist, and that’s all [they’re] aware of. You’re aware of everything that’s going on around you.

And I find — especially working with M’Boom today, some of the most interesting and original compositional concepts are coming from percussion players. I listen to some of Tony Williams‘s work. I listen to some of the things Billy Cobham hears. It’s interesting, and it’s another concept.

So, I encourage students who are drummers and percussion players to do some writing as well.

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