SKF NOTE: Lovely gesture by Ozzy Osbourne. This percussion group is aces.
Ozzy Osbourne Donates $10K to Children’s Percussion Group
BY ALEX HEIGL @alex_heigl 05/11/2015 AT 10:30 AM EDT
After seeing the video of the Louisville Leopard Percussionists’ rendition of the song [“Crazy Train”] (originally posted in 2012), Osbourne wrote the group a note that included a $10,000 check, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. “Myself, my whole family and my fans all loved your rendition of ‘Crazy Train,’ ” Osbourne wrote in a letter dated April 24. “Keep up the good work.”
wsj.com
Review of ‘Eddie Condon & Bud Freeman: Complete Commodore & Decca Sessions’ These two masters of a hot, bouncy style forged in the late 1920s helped keep Chicago jazz alive in New York.
By MARC MYERS — May 20, 2015 5:04 p.m. ET
Joining Condon and Freeman on the box’s recordings are a wealth of Chicago jazz giants, among them…drummers George Wettling and Dave Tough. All are part of the box’s back story—Chicago jazz’s strategic move to New York, the center of radio and recording at the time.
Police drummer Stewart Copeland still keeping busy
BY JANE STEVENSON, POSTMEDIA NETWORK
MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015 02:07 PM EDT
Q. [D]o you foresee another Police reunion in your future?
A. I’m trying not to imagine such a thing… I mean, we all get along really well, there’s no reason not to so who knows but it’s absolutely a blank page…of history yet to be written!
Q. Why was it “a relief,” (as stated in your bio which you didn’t write) when the Police reunion tour ended in 2008?
A. Because even the most incredible adventure when it’s time to go home, there’s a sense of relief. And it was an incredible adventure but it’s all encompassing. ‘Tour-zilla’ we called it… We were relieved when we could back to our families, to our lives, to our own cool stuff.
SKF NOTE: How I came to interview Gary Chester is explained here. The typed transcript is 64-pages, edited for publication in the April 1983 Modern Drummer.
Gary gave many life beyond the cymbals “life lessons” during the interview. Here’s one example that probably deserves explaining in one area. When Gary says, “I look at them as little people,” he is not demeaning his students. He is saying that he talks to his young students as if they are adults in childrens’ bodies. As if Gary’s spirit is speaking to the student’s spirit.
Gary Chester: A perfect example of what I’m trying to explain to my children, my students. I keep saying “children” because I call them all “baby” and “honey.” I look at them as little people.
Anyway, I bought a thoroughbred Japanese rose plant one day. The most beautiful rose. It had maybe three hundred petals on it. It was gorgeous.
But, I put it in the wrong place.
Now you, as a student of mine, are this little rose. What ate my rose up? The weeds!
So, when you’re playing with musicians that are beneath you, they’re going to eat you up.
The first thing you should do is find somebody who’s close to your level or better so you can learn something, rather than play with people that are worse than you to make yourself feel good. Because that rose died because the weeds ate him up.
That’s my philosophy. And it has been like that ever since I was a kid. Every time I learned the book – with all the bands that I’ve been with – I quit!
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