SKF NOTE: Antoine Sanfuentes recently posted on his Facebook page some cool pictures of Frankie Dunlop onstage at The Five Spot with Thelonious Monk. Here’s one of the batch. This morning I’m unable to find the rest, but I’ll keep looking.
I’m guessing Frankie’s playing the Slingerland drum set he was so happy to get after playing on, what he called, a “raggedy” set of old drums.
SKF NOTE: I’ve mentioned before in my writings that Freddie Gruber, when I interviewed him, helped me overcome a bad drumming habit I had developed. A few people have asked me to talk about how Freddie helped me. I’ll do so now.
After hearing for awhile about drummers, like Joe Morello, using “finger technique,” I gleaned what “finger technique” info I could, mostly from magazines, and developed my own version. The basis of “finger technique,” as I understood, was that the stick was controlled – mostly the left-hand stick – by the fingers, not the wrist.
As a result, I developed a bad left-hand habit of almost holding my left-hand stick between my middle and fourth fingers, much more than I was holding it in the fulcrum between my thumb and index finger. (Photo 1).
Freddie Gruber showed me, first, how to properly hold a drumstick in my left hand. Position the stick on the open fulcrum between my index finger and thumb, and adjust the position of the stick until, without the hand trying to hold the stick, it balances on that fulcrum. When the stick is balanced, said Freddie, that’s where you should hold it. (Photo 2).
At first it felt, when the stick was balanced, as if I was holding the stick too far up the shaft. But Freddie also showed me how to play with my left-hand naturally, and how to let the stick do the work. In other words, controlling the bounce. Freddie pointed out that the well-known method book, “Stick Control,” is “not meant for developing hot licks.” The exercises in that book, he said, are designed to help drummers control the sticks.
It took practice to break my years-long bad left-hand habit, and to experiment and get comfortable with balancing the stick and controlling the bounce. It’s a technique I could always improve, but it made a huge difference in my playing. Certainly what Freddie Gruber showed me that day was one of those “plateaus” musicians hit throughout our lives. (Photo 3).
SKF NOTE: I would be remiss if I failed to mention Gary Chester’s birthday. Here’s a snippet and link to the full Facebook post.
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Gary Chester The Drummer
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GARY CHESTER!!! Talking to one of Gary’s students this morning he said “what the hell would I have gotten as a gift to a 97 year old GARY CHESTER today??
SKF NOTE: How some music sticks with me, even when I’ve not heard it in decades, I find curious.
Two days ago I bought the digital format of NRBQ’s first album. I owned a vinyl copy of the album when it was originally released in 1969. (Full disclosure, I was given a brand new promotional copy of NRBQ by my neighbor, Ed Matthews, who was, if memory serves, head of Artists & Repertoire at CBS records.)
What happened to my copy of NRBQ’s album, I don’t know. But for the last 52 years, in those life moments when I sing out loud some song snippet, my snippets were often from NRBQ’s first album recording of Rocket #9 or C’mon If You’re Comin’.
Reading the liner notes included with the digital album, I learn, “[T]his session with Eddie Kramer [was] recorded on 12-track at the Record Plant.” Kramer is a legendary recording engineer.
Also, “All the songs are first takes.” Although NRBQ is a studio album, because of its first take makeup, liner note writer Jay Berman tells us it’s as close as we can get to hearing an NRBQ live set. [T]his band doesn’t repeat itself. They don’t play a song the same way twice,” writes Berman.
My gut tells me the reason I’ve kept singing NRBQ song snippets has something to do with NRBQ’s first takes and improvisation. This album has plenty of original songs, but there are also songs by 1950s rocker Eddie Cochran, and jazz composer Sun Ra.
This new album release is on the Omnivore Records label. The sound is better than ever, although part of me always misses the original sound of music I first loved.
I downloaded this album at about 9:30 at night, laying in bed in a Statesville, NC Red Roof Inn after a long drive from Scranton, PA. I listened for the first time in 52 years to C’mon If You’re Comin’, smiled, and went to sleep.
Can’t wait to put on my earbuds and listen to the whole album.
SKF NOTE: In October this year Impulse is releasing for the first time a live version of “A Love Supreme” from the Coltrane Quartet expanded. And now comes news of a November release for the first time of a 1961 concert of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers with Lee Morgan and Wayne Shorter. Excellent!
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Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – First Flight to Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings
First Flight to Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings is a thrilling previously unreleased live recording of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers captured at Hibiya Public Hall in Tokyo on January 14, 1961 during the band’s first-ever tour of Japan. The Jazz Messengers were among the first modern jazz groups to tour the country, and adoring Japanese audiences were enthralled by one of the band’s all-time great line-ups featuring the legendary drummer with Lee Morgan on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Bobby Timmons on piano, and Jymie Merritt on bass.
The concert featured soaring performances of well-known jazz staples including Charlie Parker’s “Now’s the Time,” Thelonious Monk’s “Round About Midnight,” and Jazz Messenger hits including “Blues March,” “Dat Dere,” and “Moanin’.”
The deluxe 2-LP vinyl and 2-CD editions both come with elaborate booklets featuring rare photos….
Audio was newly transferred from the original ¼” tape reels….
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