SKF NOTE: What a band! I read recently these four compatriots never performed together live. What a shame. Four great players. A showcase for Alan Dawson. This was the first time I heard the side of Alan Dawson that influenced his student, Tony Williams.
Booker Ervin‘s version of A Lunar Tune (Ervin) from his album The Freedom Book. Recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, on 3 December 1963. Produced by Don Schlitten for Prestige Records. Personnel: Booker Ervin (tenor saxophone), Jaki Byard (piano), Richard Davis (bass), and Alan Dawson (drums).
SKF NOTE: Stan Getz collaboration with composer and arranger Eddie Sauter recorded in 1961. One of my longstanding “go to” albums, Focus is beautiful music with some great Roy Haynes drumming.
Check out Roy’s brushwork — his musicianship — on I’m Late, I’m Late.
SKF NOTE: I have fond memories of the time I spent with Michael Shrieve putting together his Modern Drummer interview. Of all of the drummers I interviewed, Mike Shrieve was immersed in the most varied aspects of drumming. Really, he was fascinated with sound and color and how each, separate and combined, is used for positive goals. He introduced me to the fields of music therapy and color therapy.
Mike Shrieve was also among the first drummers using electronic drums. He was also very familiar with what is now called World Music. And he showed me a common sense idea for setting up my drumset I have used ever since: Where to position your hi-hat and bass drum pedals? First, sit down on your drum stool. Place your feet on the floor naturally. Where do your feet go instinctively? Well, that’s where you put your hi-hat and bass drum pedals.
The challenge interviewing Shrieve was this: I would interview him, he’d talk about his current project or band, and then before his interview was published Michael was on to a new project or band, rendering his interview obsolete. So we would reconvene for an interview update.
We finished Shrieve’s MD interview when he had formed Novo Combo — a more pop oriented band. I’ll have to double-check when I find that issue of MD, but I think Shrieve had moved on from Novo Combo by the time his interview was published.
In 1986, Michael’s brother, Kevin, joined Michael and Klaus Schulze on another album, Transfer Station Blue — which I liked very much. Soon after, I lost touch with Michael Shrieve. The next time I saw his name was in 2001 as producer of the Bill Frisell and David Holland and Elvin Jones CD.
Finally, I came across this Michael Shrieve press kit last week. Three photos and three sheets of backgrounder circa 1983.
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SKF NOTE (11/12/15): I came across this review of GO in concert in the December 15, 1977 Down Beat. This existing Michael Shrieve thread seemed a good place to add the review.
SKF NOTE: Cozy Cole was a marvelous drummer. My introduction to his playing was through a CBS imported album I owned called something like, The New York Jazz Scene. It was a collection of late Swing, early BeBop recordings. Cab Calloway‘s Orchestra had two cuts on the album. Both featured drummer Cozy Cole: Ratamacue and Paradiddle. Both performances really impressed me, especially Ratamacue.
I am sorry I missed, that any writer from Modern Drummer missed, interviewing Cozy Cole while he was still alive. I think we must have been focused on interviewing drummers more popular at the time. All MD editors agreed Cozy was deserving of a feature interview, but when? And then Cozy Cole died.
Remember: this was 1981. Long before the internet and blogs. MD‘s editors still had a magazine to publish every month. The contents of those issues demanded our attention first. And, as I’ve written before, MD was a commercial business. The goal was: sell magazines. That wasn’t the only goal. But if we didn’t sell magazines, MD would be out of business.
We thought we would have time to interview Cozy Cole — and we were wrong.
If I had it do all over again? I would have arranged a Cozy interview and worried later about when we would publish it.
Anyway, I ended up being MD‘s unofficial obituary writer. This is what I wrote when Cozy Cole died. I would like to revisit Cozy Cole and put together a piece about his contributions to drumming and to jazz. A couple of weeks ago I sent an email to Bob Breithaupt – a percussion instructor who was friends with Cozy in 1981. I’ll let you know when I hear back from Bob.
SKF NOTE: These days Tommy Aldridge is endorsing Yamaha. I interviewed Tommy for Modern Drummer when he was with Ozzy Osbourne. A very nice guy. Tommy was an intuitive player. That is, he played very, very well — by instinct. So, none of his interview was about what he studied, or who he studied with.
Anyway, I came across this 1976 Sonor ad and thought I’d post it.
Scott K Fish 
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