Wynton Marsalis: Thinking and Playing Are Different Skills

Posted on August 25, 2017 by Scott K Fish
marsalis_wynton_book

SKF NOTE: This tale of Wynton Marsalis‘s life on the road has been on my bookshelf for a few years, waiting for the right moment to read. That moment started a week ago. Here’s a good thought from Wynton I underlined on page 32 of this book. The advice applies to all musicians, including drummers.

“Thinking and playing are two totally different skills. Hearing and playing are also two different skills.

“The thought might not be in what you play because no one knows where his sound comes from. It’s just your sound. You can work on it and make your sound more like you.

“But a lot of musicians would rather play scales and patterns and live in the glow of somebody else’s sound.

“To be heard, you have to develop your own sound. You might as well, because who you are will forever be in your voice.”

Source: Jazz in the Bittersweet Blues of Life, by Wynton Marsalis & Carl Vigeland 

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John Von Ohlen: I Started on Drums at Age 17 (1984)

Posted on August 24, 2017 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: From the transcript of my interview with John Von Ohlen, published in the March 1985 Modern Drummer. John’s relatively late start on drums were preceded by more than a decade of studying accordion, piano, and trombone. And also, have a father and uncle who introduced John to great big band jazz records when John was about six years old. And the final stroke was the 1955 sound of Mel Lewis‘s ride cymbal driving Stan Kenton’s Orchestra.

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Mel Lewis: I Own Four Sets of Drums

Posted on August 21, 2017 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Arnold Jay Smith interviewed Mel Lewis for the June 1, 1978 Down Beat. Revisiting that interview last night, I don’t recall Mel owning four drumsets, each different in configuration, that he used for different situations.

Mr. Smith asks if Mel has played Gretsch his whole life. Mel answers that he’s played Gretsch drums all his “professional life.”

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Mel Lewis: “I own four sets of drums of which the number one set, the road set, is a Gretsch maple with a two tom-tom setup on top, an 8″ x 12″, 9″ x 13″, and a 16″ x 16″ on the floor. There’s a standard snare, 5 1/2″ x 14″, and a 20″ bass drum. I still use calfskin heads on the bass and snare. That’s why the bass has such a nice, big sound.

“I keep a walnut [Gretsch] set at the Village Vanguard. There’s only one tom tom on top, 9″ x 13″. Everything else is the same.

“I have a smaller [maple] set I use for small group work [with] an 18″ bass drum, 8″ x 12″ and 14″ x 14” tom toms. Snare drums are always the same size.

“I also use a little ASBA, a French set given to me by Daniel Humair. It’s a tiny bass and snare that I use for trio dates, a novelty set.”

Mel described his cymbal set-up this way:

“There’s a 16″ or 18″ to my left, depending on the size of the group, a 20” ride and special cymbals. There’s a very old A. Zildjian with a couple of pieces cut out. I bought it in 1944…. With the [Thad Jones-Mel Lewis] band I use a 20″ Zildjian with two rivets, which is all I ever use. I use them all for crash and ride.

“As for my hi-hats, I use two 14″ band cymbals. In marching bands they would be played with two hands…for accents.”

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Alan Dawson – Students as Studio Drummers

Posted on August 17, 2017 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Ron Spagnardi asked me to interview two drummers for Modern Drummer‘s 10th Anniversary issue published in January 1986: Neil Peart and Alan Dawson. I don’t know exactly when this interview took place, but it was certainly in 1985.

Mr. Dawson and I met at his home in Massachusetts. The overall focus of these 10th Anniversary interviews was to ask drummers to reflect on drumming highlights from the decade just past, and also, on what was likely to happen in the drum world over the next ten years.

In this excerpt, I ask Alan Dawson about changes in his students. His answer leads into a broader discussion of the role of studio drummers past and present, and also, a glance into Dawson’s years (1963-68) as a popular studio drummer for Prestige records.

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A Sound All Your Own is Most Important

Posted on August 15, 2017 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: I always read books with a pencil nearby for underlining good passages so I can easily return to them.

Sound is at the heart of the musical conception of great jazz musicians. Miles Davis once said to me: “Sound is the heart of my music. Ideas are a dime a dozen, but creating a sound all your own is most important.”

Sonny [Rollins] agrees[:] “I think that sound is the overall biggest component. It’s more important than ideas, really. …I have found that sometimes ideas can help generate a sound. That can happen if you have a definitive style, that your ideas are usually part of the sound itself. But sound itself supercedes ideas in general.”

Source: Open Sky: Sonny Rollins and His World of Improvisation, by Eric Nisenson (Da Capo Press, 2000)

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