SKF NOTE: According to the Cygnus-X1 Rush tribute web site, Neil Peart’s “Scissors, Paper, Stone” essay was part of the band’s “Presto” tour book.
My copy of the essay is in a format often used in record company press kits for album promotions. Neil’s essay is printed on 8.5×11″ light gray, heavy stock paper, stapled together.
I don’t remember how I have it. If it’s not part of a record company promo package, perhaps Neil sent it.
SKF NOTE: Jazz music and names of jazz greats appear in unlikely places.
Here’s an excerpt I highlighted from a book about brave war photojournalist Dickey Chapelle. She worked at the battle front in WW II, Korea, and Vietnam, where she was killed. In this excerpt Chapelle is on patrol with a tough anti-Communist militia group in Vietnam called the Sea Swallows.
“Sometimes when the air was cool enough, the militia’s radio picked up the Saigon jazz station that was piped through an enormous Pioneer loudspeaker, washing the village in Coleman and Coltrane, Evans and Getz, Mingus and Roach. The resounding percussive of tanggu drums called the devout to evening prayers at the Our Lady of Victory Chapel. In the dark, gongs made from flattened mortar shell tips rang out the all clear every hour on the forty-five, except when incoming Viet Cong bullets made them chime like kindergarten triangles. This music played almost every night”
Source: “First to the Front,” by Lorissa Rinehart
SKF NOTE: This is a screenshot from a letter from Neil Peart I found last week combing through a box of assorted papers.
Written from Toronto on October 25, 1986 on Neil’s “new Macintosh computer,” this snippet has Neil sharing some insight into his use of electronic percussion.
I don’t know if he ever made a “sound sheet” for Modern Drummer. I’m sure someone will let me know.
SKF NOTE: Roberto Petaccia is probably best known for his drumming with Maynard Ferguson’s big band.
The first time we heard from Roberto Petaccia at “Modern Drummer” magazine was through a letter: “My name is Roberto Petaccia and I am contacting you in regards to my interest in writing for your magazine.”
I called him up because he had many good ideas. From his pictures, I’d imagined Roberto to be gruff, but he wasn’t. He was soft-spoken with direction.
We kicked around some ideas and he submitted several articles, some of which were published in MD‘s “Rock ‘n’ Jazz Clinic” column. The ideas were great and the manuscripts Roberto submitted were near impeccable, yet he would always apologize for them.
This week, going through a box of books and papers I’ve been carrying with me, here to there, I found this impressive Petaccia column.
I wish you could see Roberto’s manuscript white out marks. He was that caring and attentive to detail, that caring about his craft.
MD Founder/Publisher Ron Spagnardi wrote in his November 1981 “Editor’s Overview,” “I’m saddened…the drum world recently lost a dear friend in Roberto Petaccia who died of cancer in New York City at the age of 29. Roberto was MD’s primary contributing editor for “Rock ‘n’ Jazz Clinic.” Those of us who work on the magazine feel a very special loss, as he was truly a key member of our team.
“Roberto was really much more than a superb drummer. He was an unselfish gentleman whose deep compassion for young players, and insatiable enthusiasm for performing, writing and teaching, were infectious.
“He was the essence of that special camaraderie which exists between drummers universally.”
SKF NOTE: This strikes me (no pun intended) as a strange Zildjian cymbal ad. Instead of the more typical ads showing pristine, shimmering cymbals, here we see a black-and-white pair of high mileage cymbals allegedly belonging to drummer Jimmie Cobb.
Also unusual, the ad copy reads as if it’s a collaboration between Zildjian and RCA Victor records. We have a dual cymbal/album promotion happening.
The 29-minute “Son of a Drum Suite” album, along with Cobb, features Louis Hayes, Gus Johnson, Don Lamond, Mel Lewis, and Charli Persip.
Not Zildjian’s best ad. The photos in the company’s legendary “Cymbal Set-Ups of Famous Drummers” books, especially the early editions, had some marvelous black-and-white photos.
I’ve spent hours studying them. I’m sure I am not alone.
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