The underscored parts are mine, probably for research in preparation for my interview with Max or for some other drum article. I also underscore notable passages in books.
Finally, the Max Roach Zildjian and Gretsch ads are included in this Down Beat too.
SKF NOTE: A couple of useful thoughts on drummers and rhythm from one of the world’s renowned rhythm guitarists.
rollingstone.com
Keith Richards on Getting Busted, Zeppelin and Stones’ Future “God knows what laboratory made it, but it’s a kind of natural thing,” says guitarist of Stones’ chemistry
By Patrick Doyle October 8, 2015
“I love studios, even when they’re empty,” says Keith Richards…on a recording-studio couch in downtown New York. [T]here’s nothing but a faint electronic noise. “There’s that little hum. Silence is your canvas. You look out there and you think, ‘Ah, the possibilities! Given a good song and a good drummer.'”
Patrick Doyle: You’ve always managed to kind of screw with sounds and come up with something new…. I tried to learn “Before They Make Me Run” once with a band, and figuring out where you skip beats and go into the chorus a bar early can be really hard to follow!
Keith Richards: [Laughs] It is, yeah. The beat is something to be played with, moved around. The beat isn’t there as some solid, concrete “one, two, three, four.” It’s something to shift and fly and move. I’m very jazz-like — [I like] Philly Joe Jones. I love looseness.
SKF NOTE Jan. 25, 2017. I am very sad to hear about Butch Trucks’s death. He was a great guy and an essential part of the Allman Brothers sound.
SKF NOTE: I don’t need to add much explanation to this first ever interview with Butch Trucks and Jaimo. Bill Grillo was a friend, a drummer, and a big fan of Butch and Jaimo. He had listened to the Allman Brothers much more than I had. His insight was an invaluable help with this interview.
Also, until he settled on spelling his name “Jaimoe,” Jaimoe used several different spellings for his name. In 1981 he used (preferred?) “Jaimo Johnson.” That’s why it appears the way it does in our interview.
Jaimo and Butch are great guys. I need to touch base with them again. I miss them.
SKF NOTE: I found this incomplete column posted awhile ago on The Great Drummers Group Facebook page. When I went back weeks later to find it again so I could credit the original poster, I could not find it. If someone knows or is the original poster, please let me know. I’d like to correct the record.
This is an insightful, detailed description on the finger method of drumming. Louis and Joe Morello were its two best known proponents. This is the best how-to description I’ve read or heard on the subject.
Also, I did not know Louie Bellson wrote columns for Down Beat magazine. I’m unable to find any info about his DB columns online.
The first I remember seeing Shelly Manne‘s name/photo is the early 1970s in Avedis Zildjian’s Cymbal Set-Ups of Famous Drummers booklet. I wanted to buy a 20-inch A Zildjian Ride cymbal, but the local music store had only a few in stock, all bad sounding. So I bought a 22-inch A Medium Ride instead. But I didn’t know any drummers who used a 22-inch Ride, and I went to Zildjian’s Cymbal Set-Ups to find one. And there was Shelly Manne!
The first time I was blown away by Shelly’s playing was on pianist Bill Evans’s trio date, A Simple Matter of Conviction with Shelly and Eddie Gomez on bass. I can’t tell you the precise year, but it had to be around the mid-1970s.
From the opening number, Shelly redefined for me the musical possibilities for drummers in piano trios. I had listened to several piano trios – even great piano trios – but none like this one. And none of the drummers played with Shelly’s conception of musicality, interplay with the other musicians, use of space, humor, surprise, and swing!
Also, Shelly’s playing was simple. Imagine someone with an adequate command of the English language creating unique, beautiful sentences and paragraphs, weaving them into great stories.
Flashback: Joe Morello told me he would have liked to record an album with Shelly Manne. I responded with, “He doesn’t have a lot of chops, does he?” Joe winced — WINCED! — saying, “He has enough.” (Boy, if I could have withdrawn my “chops” statement I wold have done so in a heartbeat!).
Also, a friend and club owner had a compilation album with one track, The Girls of Sao Paulo, by Shelly Manne (percussion) and Jack Marshall (guitar) that absolutely fascinated me. As with all of my favorite Shelly songs, what he plays is exactly right for the music. The Girls of Sao Paulo is on the Manne/Marshall album Sounds!.
I can’t vouch for the Sounds! album because I haven’t heard it in over 40 years. But whenever The Girls of Sao Paulo played in my friend’s nightclub, for one minute and 51 seconds I stayed glued to that song. As with Shelly’s playing with Bill Evans and Eddie Gomez, his playing with Jack Marshall’s acoustic guitar opened a whole new world of drum sound possibilities.
Scott K Fish 
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