Roy Haynes – Musical, Inventive

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: This grainy ad photo of Gary Burton’s innovative jazz/rock fusion band includes the forever evolving drum great Roy Haynes on a beautiful four-piece Ludwig drum set. This version of the Gary Burton Quartet recorded the groundbreaking album, Duster.

Listening to Roy Haynes in any kind of musical setting, as sideman or bandleader, you always know it’s him. To paraphrase another great drummer, Max Roach, you can always hear Roy’s one original idea in everything he plays. Haynes always swings, he takes chances, and he’s always musical.

“Not everything I play has a name,” he once told me about his drumming.

Here’s a look at the Burton Quartet in concert, and also, a link to the Duster album.

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Max Roach Plays Tronicdrums

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: This 1968 full-page advertisement shows Max Roach behind Meazzi Hollywood Tronicdrums. With the gift of hindsight, we know Tronicdrums did not make “other drum sets obsolete.” But they are pioneers in the history of electronic drums.

We have two Tronicdrums YouTube videos. One with Roach in concert on a set. And a second video, possibly a video made from a demonstration record, of available Tronicdrums effects.

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Paul Butterfield – End of an Era

Posted on March 4, 2023 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Musician/bandleader Paul Butterfield was one of my musical heroes during my high school years. Starting with his East-West album, which was the Butterfield Blues Band’s second album, my high school music friends and I absorbed Butterfield’s albums through all his different bands. From his standard blues sextet to his horn bands, Butterfield’s bands were ultra cool and so very musical.

Paul Butterfield’s obituary here is from the Maryland Star Democrat newspaper. I first read it, standing in my yard, on that spring day in Oxford, MD. Butterfield’s death was sad for many reasons. I wish he had taken better care of himself. And Butterfield’s death also felt like the end of a very important part of my life.

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Russ Kunkel and Leland Sklar

Posted on March 2, 2023 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Hats off to the Drum Channel for their three-part series interview with one of pop music’s exemplary drums-bass partnerships: Russ Kunkel and Leland Sklar.

The fourth video here is the trailer to a documentary, “The Immediate Family,” about Kunkel, Sklar, and the rest of the players who were the band behind James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Brown, and many others.

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Elvin Jones Rewrote Jazz Drumming

Posted on March 1, 2023 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: From my box of old jazz newspaper clippings comes this March 5, 1992 Peter Watrous review of Elvin Jones’s band at the Blue Note.

“Mr. Jones rewrote jazz drumming in the 1960’s as a member of the John Coltrane quartet. He made the phrase, in all its variety, more important than the rigid delineation of the bar line. As a result, he opened up jazz to a loose, more fluid rhythmic idea. His innovations reflected the era: there’s a searching quality to his playing, a willingness to experiment.”

Reading these older “eyes on” accounts of jazz greats such as Elvin Jones is often fun and instructive.

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