Three Roy’s and a Dawson: In Concert 1971

Posted on January 30, 2019 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Here’s another hour of in concert video of some top shelf musicians. The drummers are Roy Haynes with Jimmy Smith, Roy McCurdy with Cannonball Adderley, Alan Dawson with Dave Brubeck, and Roy Brooks with Charlie Mingus.

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Gene Krupa’s Wisdom for the Ages Pt. 2

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Recently I posted a quote from Gene Krupa in which he tells us some of what he learned about drumming from Baby Dodds and other older drummers. He’s more from Krupa on the same topic. Thank you writer Rudi Blesh for sharing Krupa’s words for posterity.

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Now at last Gene [Krupa] was hearing in person the real masters who had led his generation into jazz. He finally heard Louis [Armstrong] and Earl Hines…. He also met and heard the New Orleans drum giants who had nourished [Dave] Tough and [George] Wettling. There was Tubby Hall and Zutty Singleton….

[Krupa said,] “They were great! They knew every trick and just how to phrase the parts of the choruses behind the horns, how to lead a man in, what to do at the turnarounds, when to use sticks and when to use brushes, when to go for the rims or the woodblocks, what cymbals are for.

“But there was only one Baby Dodds. He was at Kelly’s Stable with his brother Johnny, cornetist Natty Dominique, and a piano player. Baby taught me more than all the others — not only drum playing but drum philosophy. He did all that the others did, and more. He was the first great drum soloist. His concept went on from keeping time to making the drums a melodic part of jazz. It was partly the way he tuned his drums — the intervals he used. I got that from him. And it was partly his concept of tone. Baby could play a tune on his drums, and if you listened carefully, you could tell the melody.”

Source: Eight Lives in Jazz Combo U.S.A., by Rudi Blesh, Hayden Book Co., NY (1971)

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George Benson on Motown’s Jazz Musicians

Posted on January 28, 2019 by Scott K Fish
George Benson – Photo courtesy http://www.georgebenson.com

SKF NOTE: A music history lesson from guitarist/singer George Benson. He’s absolutely correct about Motown’s now famous studio jazz musicians.

I was surprised at first to learn how many rock musicians of the 40s and 50s were either jazz musicians, or were strongly influenced by jazz. But the more I thought about it, there was no reason for my surprise. Jazz was a demanding, creative American music. Why wouldn’t serious young musicians aspire to be jazz musicians?

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George Benson: I’m using my artistry to show kids who have been told not to listen to jazz. You had musicians who came out of the jazz era recording for Motown records and selling a hundred million copies and creating the number-one sound int the country. But the kids don’t know that, they don’t know that it’s not the Jackson Five playing the music behind them. Those were jazz people and we never got the credit. Now we’re stepping forward and getting the credit.”

George Benson, Bensonality, Riding on a Blue Note: Jazz and American Pop, by Gary Giddins, Da Capo Press 1981

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’72 All-Star Swing Festival: Great Drummers Throughout

Posted on January 27, 2019 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: I just came across this 1972 Timex All-Star Swing Festival with great drummers throughout.

Harold Jones with Count Basie, Rufus “Speedy” Jones with Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa with Benny Goodman Quartet, Alan Dawson with Dave Brubeck, Bobby Durham (?) with Ella Fitzgerald, and Barrett Deems with a Louis Armstrong Tribute band.

Good stuff. Harold Jones is a study in motion. He wastes none of it. Alan Dawson is on his four-piece set of clear Fibes. And Krupa is Krupa. Good music all around.

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Gene Krupa’s Wisdom for the Ages

Posted on January 26, 2019 by Scott K Fish
Gene Krupa

SKF NOTE: This is worthwhile drumming advice from Gene Krupa. I’ve written before on Krupa’s comments on starting “a roll or sequence of beats with the left or right hand.” Glad now to have identified the quote source.

Krupa’s comment on “how to keep the bass and snare drum in tune” is also unclear. Is Gene talking about keeping the bass/snare drums tuned to each other? Or is he talking about the importance of keeping both drums tuned well?

Either way, this is good stuff. Put it in your “Drummer Wisdom for the Ages” journal.

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Any idea that I knew anything about skins had to go out the window once I started hitting those [Chicago] South Side joints. For one thing, I had no idea of the wide range of effect you could get from a set of drums. I picked up from Zutty Singleton and Baby Dodds the difference between starting a roll or sequence of beats with the left or right hand and how the tone and inflection changed entirely when you shifted hands. Those Negro drummers did it nonchalantly as though it were a game.

Taking my cue from what I heard, I next went to work on the tom-toms trying to get them in tune and knowing when to use ‘em. I punched holes in them with an ice pick, as Zutty told me, until they were just pitched right.

Another trick I got from Baby Dodds was how to keep the bass and the snare drum in tune and how to get cymbals that rang in tune and were pitched in certain keys.

Then came the cowbell and the wood block.

You see, most white musicians of that day thought drums were something you used to beat the hell out of. The monotonous pattern made you feel weary after listening to it for a while. Few of them realized that drums have a broad range of tonal variations so they can be played to fit into a harmonic pattern as well as a rhythmic one.

Source: The Book of Jazz: From Then Till Now, by Leonard Feather, Dell Publishing, 1976

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