Joe Morello on Buddy Rich Part 1

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Revisiting the transcript of my 1979 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. So, I will post the remarks separately, by subject, over the next couple of weeks.

Joe sat through our entire interview with a pair of drumsticks, sitting near a coffee table on which he had a practice pad. In upcoming posts, Morello demonstrates points he was making about Buddy Rich’s playing. Joe did so playing on his practice pad.

Joe Morello: …Buddy’s a good friend of mine. He’s always been nice. Buddy and I have always gotten along very well. And we used to fool around together with the sticks…. He’s got very good technique. It’s not as fast as you would think it is. He looks faster and he sounds faster than he is because he’s clean. Everything he does is very clean. There’s faster drummers, that’s for sure. If you want to just look at it from that. From strictly technically there are much faster drummers, so Jimmy’s faster, Louie Bellson‘s faster….

Scott K Fish: Jim Chapin is faster than Buddy?

JM: Oh yeah. Sure, but Buddy puts it together so beautifully. He builds this picture real nice, y’know.

[Buddy] just does his thing. That’s all. He’s got great ears. He listens. He hears real well.

I remember when we were in Vegas in 1967. He was still with Harry James then. See, for awhile, as you know, he was buried with Harry James’ band. He was with James for quite awhile. When I was winning all the polls and all that s**t, Buddy was coming in like, 12th, 15th. ‘Cause he wasn’t doing anything. He was just in Las Vegas playing Ciribiribin, and he’d do a little think on Caravan, y’know.

I used to meet him on the road once in awhile. I’d say, “Why don’t you start your own band?” He’d say, “I’ll never start another f*****g band as long as I live.” He said, “I’ll just play my three hours a night and go home.” He told me this in San Francisco. That’s when we drove home together and I told him that I knew the way back. Christ! And we got lost. He had a white Jaguar. Oh, Buddy’s nuts. He’s a nice cat though.

I guess Buddy’s still doing very well now, because he’s got a good manager.

Joe Morello on Buddy Rich Pt 2
Joe Morello on Buddy Rich Pt 3
Joe Morello on Buddy Rich Pt 4

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Elvin Jones’s Room

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Scott K Fish

jones_elvinSKF NOTE: For a time in the late sixties, [Elvin Jones] lived in a first-floor room at the Chelsea Hotel. The room was long and narrow and dark, and it was clearly a bachelor’s nest. The bed hadn’t been made, and on a small dining room table were a box of cornflakes and a used cereal-bowl with a spoon in it. The bed was flanked by night tables, an overflowing ashtray and a copy of “The Voyage of the Space Beagle.” The bureau was littered with aspirin and Band Aids and a travelling clock, which had stopped. Wedged between a bass drum and a snare drum in a window alcove were a pair of shoes and a bow tie.

Jones rummaged around in a bureau drawer and pulled out what appeared to be a thick sheaf of hotel bills. “I’m the world’s worst bookkeeper,” he said…. “I’ve been living here for several months, and, man, the seventy-some dollars a week I pay is expensive for me. And Pookie’s Pub, where I’m at now, is not the highest paying club in town. I make about scale, or about a hundred and fifty a week. This morning I got a letter from my wife, who lives near the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco – she’s no hippie – and my kid is sick again, which means more doctor bills. Everybody wants that bread all at once.”

Source: A Walk to the Park, by Whitney Balliett, American Musicians II: Seventy-Two Portraits in Jazz, Oxford University Press 1996

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Brian Tichy: The Importance of Consistency

Posted on November 25, 2014 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: I don’t know Brian Tichy, neither am I familiar with his drumming. But his advice here is spot on for drumset players in all kinds of bands. I will have to give Mr. Tichy a listen.

GlideMagazine.com
DRUMMER BRIAN TICHY (INTERVIEW)
November 24, 2014 by Leslie Michele Derrough

 

Q. What do you think is the most important thing a drummer can do for a band?

There really is only one most important thing and it’s keeping good solid time, and solid doesn’t mean you have to hit everything and smash it as hard as you can and all that. It just means no matter what you’re doing up there, whatever it takes to make that band sound right and groove right and drive the band correctly, the way the band should be….

And I don’t want a drummer to change it up too much. But the main thing is the groove and the timing. And the first and foremost thing you can teach a drummer is the importance of consistency. Every time you hit that bass drum, every time you hit the snare, every time you hit a cymbal, it’s got to sound like one instrument. You can’t sound like a drum, a cymbal, a this, a that. It’s got to sound like a drum set and once you can keep that thing sounding powerful in the band with confidence in your capability, then they’re not worried, they’re not turning around looking at you, and that makes the band play better, makes the guitar player not worry about anything else. That’s the main job of the drummer. You hit the damn drums, you keep it in time and you make everybody feel good about it (laughs).

Full Story

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Alison Geal Wins World Juvenile Solo Tenor Drum Championship

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Scott K Fish

Coatbridge pupil is a world beater
Practice makes perfect for drummer Alison / November 24, 2014

A Coatbridge pupil with a passion for drumming has surpassed all her expectations after being crowned world champion.

Alison Geal (16) won the World Solo Tenor Drum Championship in the Juvenile MSR4 category at the World Solo Drumming Championships 2014 on Saturday 18 October at Glasgow Caledonian University.

The Coatbridge High School pupil said: “To be honest, it hasn’t really sunk in yet; I’m still a bit stunned! It’s been absolutely amazing – last year I was fourth, so I was hoping to do well but didn’t expect to win.”

There were 15 other competitors in her category from all around the world.

“I’ve had a huge amount of support from my school, my instructor David Henderson and of course from my mum and dad – I couldn’t have done it without them.”

Alison only began drumming three years ago, she plays in the North Lanarkshire Schools Pipe Band and also with the National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland….

Alison…plans to become a music teacher…. She is currently studying Higher Music and, as well as drumming, also sings and plays the keyboard.

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Val Sepulveda: What I Want To Do For the Rest of My Life

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Scott K Fish

Nov 22, 2014 11:43 AM EST
Latin Music Artist News 2014: Chilean Drummer Val Sepulveda Talks Career, Rise to Top of Male-Dominated Music Scene (Exclusive)
By Melissa Castellanos

“I have always felt a special connection with the drums. Even as a little girl I would pick out the drum lines in popular music and keep the beat with my fingers until they would go numb.”

…Val Sepulveda…gaining…international recognition in the evolving world of drumming….

Sepulveda, who began playing drums at age 15 (prior to studying piano for seven years), is the Grand Prize winner of the 2013 “Hit Like a Girl Contest” — the only international competition for female drummers organized by Drum! Magazine, Tom Tom Magazine and TRX cymbals, where she competed against thousands of entrants from 35 different countries.

Recently, Sepulveda was a part of the judging panel for the 2014 “Hit Like a Girl Contest,” along with renown female drummers, including Blackman, Sheila E., Hannah Ford and Jess Bowen, among others.

“Oh, course Shelia E. was the mother of all female drummers..,” she said.

“It was…my junior year of high school that my true love affair with the instrument began. …I snuck into a drum class…and began to goof around. [Th]e professor saw my interest and passion for the drums [and] let me stay. I thought to myself, ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.'”

Her family embraced her dream of becoming a professional drummer.

In 2011, Sepulveda graduated from the University of Valparaiso with a bachelor’s degree in music with emphasis in drum performance. In 2013, came her “Hit Like a Girl Contest” win.

Sepulveda is…recording series of drum lessons for Drum Channel and…teaching live lessons for its…website, DrumChannel.com. She is currently working as a TA (teacher’s assistant) at Musicians Institute, Hollywood California.

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