Freddie Gruber’s Drum Lesson on Buddy Rich’s Table Top

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Scott K Fish

freddie-gruber4SKF NOTE: Yesterday, driving, my drum lesson with Freddie Gruber came to mind. He was in NYC for a limited time and seemingly impossible to get to do the Modern Drummer interview he said he would do.

Our last chance took place in Buddy Rich’s NYC apartment. Freddie, a pair of drumsticks, and I are at the kitchen or dining room table — and he’s leading up to saying yes to the interview, speaking all these drum pearls of wisdom while asking me NOT to turn on my tape recorder.

FINALLY, my pleading that we should be capturing his pearls on tape hits home. Freddie gives me permission to fire up my tape recorder.

He talks a bit more. (When was Freddie ever NOT talking?) And I take the occasion of his taking a breath to insert a question and, God willing, focus the interview. At least for awhile.

“Suppose I’ve just walked into your studio for my first drum lesson. What happens next?” I ask.

Sometime later, my first drum lesson with Freddie Gruber is over. Using a pair of drumsticks and a formica table top, Freddie analyzes my playing — with amazing accuracy. For example, he says, “You don’t have much big band drumming experience, only small groups.” “How can you tell?” I ask. “By the way you hold your arms close to your body,” Freddy says.

And, miracle of miracles, Freddie corrects how I was using my left hand, clearing up a challenge dogging me for years and years. A major breakthrough for me. In the blink of an eye Freddy showed me a simple, natural way of playing and holding the stick with my left hand. Not much different from the way I had been playing. But, in practice, Freddie’s adjustment made all the difference in the world. One of those plateaus musicians reach now and then after a long struggle.

A one-of-a-kind man. I am grateful he and I had the chance to meet and share some time together.

–end–

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Scott K Fish New York Times Band Review

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Scott K Fish
Scott K Fish New York Times Band Review

Playing with Honest Tom Pomposello on Long Island, New York. This was a fun band.

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Ringo Starr and The Rooming House Pay Phone

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: During my three years as Managing Editor for Modern Drummer I was the go-between among MD, our writers and photographers. When we scheduled a feature interview, I had to make sure writer and drummer were meeting, and that we had photos for the interview. MD‘s first interview with Ringo Starr – a milestone – was no exception.

I lived in a Nutley, New Jersey rooming house: one room, no cooking privileges, no refrigerator, shared bathroom with the other tenants. I had a telephone, a land line. There was also a pay phone in the hallway outside my door. In those days it was possible to make a pay phone call by charging it to a different phone number. For example, Modern Drummer‘s phone number.

Ringo was in California where it is always three hours earlier than in New Jersey. And I was asked to call him, hours after MD‘s offices closed for the day, to set up a day/time/place when writer Robyn Flans could interview him.

At the appointed hour I stood in the rooming house hallway, picked up the pay phone receiver, dialed the Operator, and billed MD‘s phone number for this long distance call to Ringo Starr in Beverly Hills. A man answered – not Ringo. I introduced myself and asked for “Mr. Starr.”

Then Ringo came to the phone. I said, “Hello, Mr. Starr.” And went on to arrange for his feature interview. For a guy who remembered vividly first hearing The Beatles’ I Want To Hold Your Hand, first seeing him on The Ed Sullivan Show, my phone conversation was surreal.

The interview went off very well. Robyn Flans was disappointed, I remember, that Ringo was wearing sunglasses during their time together. At the end of the interview, when the photographer was taking cover shots of Ringo, Robyn asked if he would mind removing his sunglasses – even briefly. And Ringo obliged her. That moment was captured by the photographer and became the MD cover shot.

When the phone bill arrived at Modern Drummer, Isabel Spagnardi, founder/publisher Ron Spagnardi’s wife, asked me why I had called California at night from a pay phone. I explained I was setting up the Ringo Starr interview. Isabel said, “If Ringo Starr wants to be in our magazine, he can call our offices between 8 and 5 like everybody else.”

She was a hoot! I think of Is often.

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What I’m Doing Here

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Scott K Fish
Scott K Fish circa 1982 at MD interview with M’Boom. Photo by Charles “Chuck” Stewart.

SKF NOTE: My Life Beyond the Cymbals blog is about music mostly; the parts of my life I would pass on to my children. My hope? That some of these stories will be helpful to someone. Maybe aspiring musicians, music historians, or music journalists.

Music and drumming are my first loves, starting at about age six listening to my Uncle Bob’s Verve recording of Gene Krupa playing China Boy. The first half of my life was devoted to playing, teaching, studying, and writing about music. Mostly, not always, drummers, and all kinds of music: jazz, rock, blues, country, classical, folk.

Those years prepared me first as a freelance writer for Modern Drummer and other magazines, and then as managing editor of Modern Drummer magazine (1980-1983).

I started freelance writing for MD in 1976. By the time I left MD in October 1983 I had written almost half the magazine’s feature articles.

My drummer feature interviews include Max Roach, Mel Lewis, Neil Peart, Charlie Watts, Bill Bruford, Gary Chester, Joe Morello, Freddie Gruber, Roy Haynes, Paul T. Riddle, Butch Trucks & Jaimo, Artimus Pyle, Jim Gordon, Fred Below, Ed Soph, Paul Motian, Jim Keltner, Alan Dawson, Carmine Appice, Dave Weckl, Max Weinberg, Jason Bonham, Teri Lyn Carrington, Barry Keane, Roy McCurdy, Tommy Aldridge, Paul English, Sonny Greer, Les DeMerle, M’Boom, and Ed Blackwell.

I also wrote the first published History of Rock Drumming as a five-part MD feature series.

My writings have been cited in several books including, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz; Max Weinberg’s The Big Beat, and Robin D.G. Kelley’s Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, and and Joel Selvin’s Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon.

I never lost my love of music, never stopped listening, playing, studying. I’ve been blessed to have met some incredible musicians. Some of them remain close friends.

So my blog is about passing on drumming and music stories.

During my 1983 MD interview with drummer Bill Bruford, he paused at one point and said my interview questions were not the run-of-the-mill drum interview questions about what happens when a drummer is sitting at a drumset, i.e. What kind of sticks do you use?

My questions Bruford said, were more about “life beyond the cymbals.”

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