Elvin – My Father Was a Wild Man

Posted on July 30, 2022 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Around 1982-83 I attended an Elvin Jones drum clinic in NYC. I remember neither the exact location nor the clinic sponsor. (It may have been Elvin’s 1982 Professional Percussion Center clinic.) Former Modern Drummer Features Editor Rick Mattingly was with me. Or maybe I was with Rick.

We were both still working for MD. Attending Elvin’s clinic may have had something to do with Rick’s 1982 MD interview with Elvin.

During the clinic Q&A a boy who, I’m guessing, was around 10-years old, asked Elvin to solve a mystery.

“You’re Elvin Jones. There’s Philly Joe Jones, Papa Joe Jones, Harold Jones…. Are you all related? How many Jones’s are there?”

The clinic audience laughter quieted. Elvin looked directly at the young man. “My father was a wild man,” he answered, causing the audience to again erupt in laughter.

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Troupe – Miles Believed in Spirits

Posted on July 29, 2022 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: After Gil died, sometimes when I visited Miles, he would tell me of a conversation he had just had with Gil earlier that day. He couldn’t believe Gil was dead. He wouldn’t accept it, believed only Gil’s flesh had left.

At first, I was shocked because Gil had died, in the physical sense. But for Miles he had not died, not in the spiritual sense.

I began to realize then that Miles believed in spirits, in a spiritual presence after the flesh was gone. So, as far as he was concerned, Gil was speaking to him.

Every day Miles also told me of visits from Coltrane, Monk, Philly Joe, Charie Parker, and especially his mother and father. He would sit there, serenely talking about what they had told him and what he had said to them, without batting an eye. For him, they really had been there, carrying on conversations.

He was always smiling when he told me of these exchanges across the divide, his face completely relaxed, at ease. After a while, I used to wonder if he talked to anybody else about these otherworldly conversations, and to this day, I still don’t know whether he did.

But Miles was like that. He was in touch with things most of us weren’t. He saw and understood things differently, and he seemed to feel and know things spiritually, almost to the point of having extrasensory perception.

Source – Quincy Troupe, Miles and Me, University of California Press

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Jerry Granelli – You Were On My Mind

Posted on July 27, 2022 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Recently I listened again to the 1965 hit, “You Were On My Mind,” by the group We Five.

I’ve always liked the song. This was the first time I listened to it while focusing on the drummer’s contribution to the hit song.

“You Were On My Mind” starts with a simple, clean, swinging tap dance sounding beat on unmuffled sounding drums. It reminds me of New Orleans drumming.
The beat continues, with some flourishes, throughout the song.

It took me a few minutes of searching the web until I found out it’s Jerry Granelli on drums. A musical, inventive, inquisitive drummer I first heard in the 1970s on the Denny Zeitlin Trio’s “Live at the Trident” album.

But I’m somewhat red-faced in saying, aside from Granelli’s well-known work with pianist Vince Guaraldi on the Charlie Brown Christmas album, I haven’t listened much to Jerry Granelli.

That situation is changing. Granelli has an extensive discography under his own name, and a long list of appearances on other musicians’ albums. Click here.

I look forward to the listening journey.

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Levon’s Mysterious Left-Hand Callous

Posted on July 25, 2022 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: When I shared my 1977 story about meeting Levon Helm in New York City for a Modern Drummer interview that never happened, I forgot to mention Levon’s puzzling left-hand callous. In the photo here of my left-hand I’ve positioned a USB adapter where Levon’s callous was.

He told me it was from his drumstick. I couldn’t – and still can’t – imagine holding a drumstick, traditional grip, so that it would cause a callous to develop that far back from where the stick rests between the index finger and thumb.

No one at the restaurant table had a drumstick Levon could use to demonstrate. So the topic ended.

But, as drummers often do, I’ve often thought about Levon’s callous, searching for an explanation that may never appear.

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It Was Your Passion for Drums

Posted on July 18, 2022 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Briefly, many years ago, I gave individual private home drum lessons to a handful of students.

Using Facebook Messenger as a portal, one of those students, Shari, recently sent me an unexpected, touching message.

I remember Shari. Over the years I’ve thought of her many times. She was a quick study and an enthusiastic kid.

Shari’s note reminds me of a good life lesson. Throughout our lives, we make an impression on some of the people with whom we spend time. Chances are we don’t know at the time what type of impression we’re making. If we’re lucky, we’ll find out at some point that we made a positive impression.

Here’s Shari’s note. I’ve left out some of her identifiers.

Shari made my day. She also sent me this photo. I have no recollection of where or when this photo was taken. More so, I can’t believe I went out in public with those pants!

=====

Hi Scott,

You were my drum teacher when I was 12 years old.

My mom had to break the news to me that you were touring with [musician] Honest Tom Pomposello and could not be my drum teacher anymore. I got a new teacher.., an old timer. He taught all the kids at school…

Nice guy, but he was no Scott fish who taught me my first rudiment, my very first drum beat, as we rock to Foreigner’s “Cold as Ice.”

It was your passion for the drums that put a fire inside me. 45 years later I still have the fire.

So I say to my mentor and teacher: ”Keep playing.”

Shari

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