SKF NOTE: I think collecting well-written, first-person, live performance reviews of the great jazz drummers is useful. This was review was in Radio Free Jazz: The Magazine of the Pros, which, its name notwithstanding, was a newspaper out of Washington, D.C.
“[Max] Roach‘s first solo seemed reflective, while the second displayed his knowledge of African percussion sound; his snare was turned off and the flat tone blended perfectly with his tenor tomtoms [sic]. His articulation here was not concerned with speed and showcase effects, but with the vocal properties he knew he could coax from the kit. Roach is simply a master at accompaniment and perhaps the most structured drummer ever.”
Source: An Evening With Betty, Dexter And Max: Avery Fisher Hall, June 25, by Ron Wellburn, Radio Free Jazz: The Magazine of the Jazz Pros, August 1978
SKF NOTE: Last night a new friend, a non-musician, asked me two drum questions:
Can you explain what it’s like playing drums in a band? Does music need drums?
I answered with non-technical language. I said:
Next time you’re listening to your favorite music — rock, jazz, blues, country — imagine how it sounds without drums. If you can, that’s a quick way of answering your second question. Technically, most music doesn’t need drums: Solo pianists and guitarists. Duets. String trios and quartets. Folk singers. A cappella groups.
But drums add to music definition, punctuation, shading and power. A drummer’s basic job is to hold a song and a band together by keeping time. It’s the same idea as parade groups marching together. A parade group where everyone is marching freestyle might be amusing, but it’s no way to organize a parade group.
With bands of any size or musical style, the musicians should be playing together, in sync, functioning as a team.
What is it like playing drums in a band? Well, when the other members of the band can keep good time on their own, when they can play songs tight together without the drummer — that makes the drummer’s job much easier, more enjoyable.
Have you ever driven a car with steering that pulls persistently right or left? Keeping a car like that in the center of the driving lane is what drumming feels like when one or more band members has a serious problem keeping time.
In bands where timekeeping is a given, where none of the band members needs the drummer or anyone else to keep time for them — the drummer still keeps time, but he or she can spend more time having musical conversations with other band members.
When that happens, playing drums in a band is like having one of those perfect days.
SKF NOTE: A bittersweet story. At what point do people involved in The Star Making Machinery voluntarily do what’s right and see that artists are paid monies they’re owed?
November 11, 2015
Happy Ending
Man who wrote ‘the most famous drum sample of all time’ finally gets paid for it
[A] drum solo from a little-known track called “Amen, Brother” could very well be one of the most famous beats in the world. However, the beat’s creators — a funk group known as The Winstons, fronted by Richard Spencer — never saw “a single penny for its use in the countless music that contains it,” according to a GoFundMe campaign…set up to right that wrong.
Believed to have been used in around 1,862 tracks, “Amen, Brother” itself might not ring any bells. But Amy Winehouse, Oasis, N.W.A., and hundreds of others have used “the most famous breakbeat and sample of all time” in some of their best known music:
Now, 46 years after “Amen, Brother” was written, around $36,400 has finally been raised for Spencer….
…Spencer thanked contributors for the money on Facebook. “Thank you so much for this great contribution to my life,” he said…. “Thank you very, very much. A-men!” Gregory Coleman, the drummer who…played the Amen Break, “died a broke and homeless man” in 2006.., according to the GoFundMe campaign.
You can learn more about the history of the Amen Break in this BBC documentary below.
SKF NOTE: I think collecting well-written, first-person, live performance reviews of the great jazz drummers is useful. This was review was in Radio Free Jazz: The Magazine of the Pros, which, its name notwithstanding, was a newspaper out of Washington, D.C.
You must be logged in to post a comment.