SKF NOTE: From a drummer’s perspective: Why do most recordings and performances of The Little Drummer Boy (aka A Carol of the Drum) assume that 2,000 years ago, the little boy who played drums for Jesus in the manger, used a pair of drumsticks and a snare drum?
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SKF NOTE: Mel Lewis biographer Chris Smith has some new to me photos and music he’s sharing on Jon McCaslin’s Four On The Floor blog. I especially like the 7-minute live, unrehearsed duet between Mel Lewis and tenor saxophonist Bob Mintzer. Mel’s spoken intro alone is worth a listen.
Jon’s photo of Mel having a conversation with Gene Krupa is also excellent.
In revisiting Chris Smith’s Mel Lewis bio, The View from the Back of the Band: The Life and Music of Mel Lewis, I notice he writes in the book’s Preface:
Several informative interviews with Mel have previously been published in Modern Drummer, Crescendo, and DownBeat magazines. He also did a series of three lengthy interviews with Bob Rusch for Cadence magazine in 1989. These interviews are now out of print….”
I wanted Mel Lewis and Chris Smith fans to know my 1978 Modern Drummer Mel Lewis interview, referenced in Mr. Smith’s book, is available for reading right here on Life Beyond the Cymbals.
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SKF NOTE: Down Beat editors published in their July 15, 1976 issue, A Collection of Lunacy, Prophecy, Controversy, and Commentary From 42 Years of the Contemporary Music Magazine. Forty years ago, when I was starting my career as a music writer, DB‘s special “scrapbook,” loaded with jazz factoids otherwise unavailable, was a treasured resource. It’s still fun reading.
The pros-and-cons of Buddy Rich‘s personality, as far as I can remember, have always drifted in-and-out of discussions about the great drummer. DB‘s 1940 Buddy Rich news item precedes my birth by more than a decade.
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Buddy Rich Gets Face Bashed In
September 1, 1940
New York – Buddy Rich’s face looked as if it had been smashed in with a shovel last week as Buddy sat behind the drums in the Tom (sic) Dorsey band at the Astor Hotel. No one was real sure what happened, except that Buddy had met up with someone who could use his dukes better than Rich.
Members of the band — several of them apparently “tickled” about the whole thing — say that Buddy “went out and asked for it.”
It is no secret among musicians that Rich’s behavior at times has been open to criticism. Only a few weeks back Frank Sinatra, Tommy’s vocalist, belted Buddy around as if he were a punching bag. Sinatra is smaller than Rich. It was not Frank who gave Buddy his latest beating, however.
Source: Down Beat IN REVIEW, Down Beat, July 15, 1976
Photo credit for Buddy Rich with Tommy Dorsey
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SKF NOTE: Shelly Manne in 1974 names his “best” drum solo. An bit of history I saved from Harvey Siders’s column in the short-lived Different Drummer magazine.
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Harvey Siders: Of all the recordings you’ve made, which stands out in your mind as being your best, or most unusual, or your worst?
Shelly Manne: That’s easy. Un Poco Loco from the Swinging Sounds album on Contemporary. That’s definitely my best solo.
My first important solo was on the Kenton recording of Artistry in Percussion, but Un Poco Loco is my longest drum solo, my best, and in a sense really an invention. I’m particularly happy with the way it was constructed. It made sense in relation to what the rest of the guys were playing.”
Source: In-siders Groove, by Harvery Siders, Different Drummer, March 1974
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