SKF NOTE: I still enjoy looking at drum advertisements. Not all of them. But especially pre-internet ads. Short of seeing drummers live at clinics (rare), or in concert (rarer for minor age drummers), or on t.v. (rare) – photos in magazine drum ads provided hours of study when I was growing up.
Like this Buddy Rich ad for Rogers Drums. What a great still shot of how Buddy holds sticks and his hands. I guarantee many drummers tried tilting their snare drums after seeing this ad. And as I was looking at this ad a day or two ago, I noticed the flattened cardboard box wedged between Buddy’s snare rim and the side of his small tom-tom.
Plus, even as stand alone photos, many of these old drum ads – done by great photographers such as Chuck Stewart – are priceless. Yes, a picture is still worth a thousand words.
Legendary drummer Carl Palmer coming to Pawtucket
November 30, 2014 01:00 AM
BY SUSAN MCDONALD / Sewsoo1@verizon.net
PAWTUCKET, R.I. — [O]ne of the most respected drummers to come out of the 1960s….
Still touring.., Palmer likes to think…his fans appreciate that he always offers something new and different in each show, on each album.
These days, Palmer splits time on the road between gigs with Asia and others and with his own band, The Carl Palmer Band, for about 80 shows a year.
He first picked up the violin, then settled in behind a drum set after seeing the 1959 movie “Drum Crazy” (also called “The Gene Krupa Story”), starring Sal Mineo. Krupa and Buddy Rich became his idols and he progressed from lessons to a seat in his father’s dance band.
A half century later, he’s still progressing, looking ahead to a new album in 2015 he says will include classical adaptations of his hits through the years. He is also an artist and transforms his drum work performances into colorful pieces in the medium of rhythm-on-canvas.
…Palmer keeps to a strict physical regimen of running and swimming, even on the road, so he has the stamina to power through the demanding drum sets in each show. His mind is always racing, searching for new ideas. The latest will be to possibly add virtuoso players into The Carl Palmer Band for added effect.
“I’m a working musician. Fame isn’t what drives me,” he says.
The Carl Palmer Band will perform a multi-media show on Tuesday, Dec. 2, at 8:15 p.m., at The Met, 1005 Main St., Pawtucket. For more information, go to themetri.com.
SKF NOTE: Excerpted from my late 1983 or early 1984 interview with Freddie Gruber. I don’t know how much, if any, of this excerpt is in Modern Drummer’s Focus on Teachers interview, but this excerpt differs in one respect. These are Freddie’s words verbatim. The MD interview was somewhat edited. // This exchange took place at Buddy Rich’s kitchen table in Buddy’s New York City apartment.
Scott K Fish: Is it necessary to know the rudiments?
Freddie Gruber: Let’s ally it to other instruments. You wouldn’t want somebody to learn the piano or the violin and have them sit down and start to play parts from a Stravinsky octet or something. It’s just ridiculous. He has to learn touch and control so he doesn’t abuse his instrument. He has to really get familiar with the instrument to the point where he can really make some music. And there has to be some way, or means, for arriving at these objectives.
So, these other instruments have histories. There are many valid persons playing piano or violin, throughout the centuries, who’ve established very valid approaches to the development of the correct way of playing those instruments. It’s up to the individual to get to the point where he sings his own song, and expresses what the composer had in mind.
They have scales. So, let’s call the rudiments the scales of the drums.
If the person is that much of a beginner, you need something. He has to use his hands. He has to make a tap-tap of some kind. You have to start somewhere. There are only so many combinations before he starts to get rhythmically inventive.
If he’s that rhythmically inventive, and he’s that fluid on his instrument, why have a dialogue with him to begin with? That is, unless it’s some particular thing that he’s expressing is a hang-up, and you’re working on a specific with a guy who’s a pro. And I do that with alot of people.
But, in general, yes, the rudiments are the scales of our instrument. They can be deleted, or creatively utilized, or thrown away and dismissed in total, later on. This is the decision of the individual player. He has option on this as he grows and develops. Nobody can make comment on that. It’s his choice.
You don’t have a person come to you, to achieve and grow with you, and have a joint venture student/teacher relationship, by showing him what you do. That invalidates the whole venture.
You show him a way to get to do what he wishes to do to express himself. To be able to play all that he can hear and feel – as fluidly as possible. And then be as sympathetic as he can to the people he’s playing with.
SKF NOTE: Revisiting the transcript of my early 1980’s interview with Joe Morello today. Five or six times Joe Morello said some things about Buddy Rich which were new to me. I also found Joe’s remarks instructive and/or funny. I will post the remarks separately, by subject, over time.
Joe sat through our entire interview with a pair of drumsticks, sitting near a coffee table on which he had a practice pad. In this post, Morello demonstrates points he was making about Buddy Rich’s playing. Joe did so playing on his practice pad.
Also, the Buddy Rich Quiet, Please record was released when Morello was 12-years old.
Joe Morello: There was a record years ago by Rich called, Quiet, Please with Tommy Dorsey. This was an old 78. And I heard it and…, “Gee, that’s nice. I want to play like that.”
Buddy was responsible for my wanting to play too. ‘Cause I enjoy his playing, y’know. It was dynamic, powerful, and speedy at the time. [JM plays fast single strokes, demonstrating what Buddy played at the end of Quiet, Please.] And I could play it. I said, “Geez, I’m as good as that. Hell, I can play that. What makes him so good?” Y’know? “Man, I can do all that s**t.”
But I always could hear things easily. I never had to slow the record down or anything. I could always hear breaks very easy. That’s one thing that I was lucky to have. The old man left me with somethin’. I could hear pretty good.
You know what happened? I’d be playing these little jobs around Springfield, [Massachusetts], and I’d do the identical drum solo – and it never sounded the same. It never sounded good. “There’s something wrong. It doesn’t sound like that!”
‘Course, what you don’t realize at that stage is that this guy just played it off the top of his head, and he probably never played that thing again.
Grant drum line gets surprise of a lifetime in Hollywood Lured to Hollywood with the ruse of playing a private party for Robin Roberts, the Grant drum line gets a huge surprise.
Sacramento – …Grant High is one the worst performing schools in Sacramento….
[E]asy for young adults to get into trouble. That’s where the drum line and…instructor, James Van Buren, come in.
“The kids that I’m with 24/7, I love them all, none more than the other,” said Van Buren, affectionately known as Mr. V. “I’m very protective of them.”
“A lot of gang members come out here, they sell drugs; but as the drum line, we protect ourselves, we look for each other,” said senior Tevin Lee, a snare and quad player.
“Realistically, they sleep on this floor,” said Van Buren, “There’s times that I’m doing some stuff, they’ll say. ‘I don’t want to go home’, and they’ll fall asleep right here.”
For some, it’s a safe place, …for others it’s an incentive…to stay out of trouble [and] keep their grades up….
They’ve been invited to play at next year’s Independence Day Parade in Washington D.C.
They were trying to raise…money to go — until Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts found out and asked them to play a private party in Hollywood.
It was just a ruse…. Instead, the group was dropped off at the Jimmy Kimmel Live studio, and given the biggest surprise of their lives.
The kids…were part of an elaborate surprise, to bring Van Buren on the set of Jimmy Kimmel while taping for an ABC special called, “Thank You, America!”
Marriott International heard the drumline’s inspiring story and…will…provide all the hotel rooms for the group’s trip to Washington D.C. next year, they also gave them…$20,000…to help with transportation costs.
Community Chevrolet, in Burbank [gave the group] a brand new Chevy Equinox….
Scott K Fish 
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