Stan Kenton and Marion "Buddy" Childers photographed through a fractured mirror to suggest the shattering effect of the Kenton hand's loud, dissonant brass.
I have always found it fascinating to explore how those on the periphery of Jazz relate to it.
The manner in which authors write about the music, photographers take pictures of the musicians performing it and artists and poets depict it in paintings and in verse can be as distinctive as the styles in which Jazz is played.
Take for example, photography.
Both Herman Leonard and Francis Wolff took primarily black-and-white photographs, but Herman used back lighting and smoke-filled “live” performances as his venue while Francis used high speed film and slow shutter speeds to photograph musicians in repose, concentrating on the written scores and playing their horns during the studio rehearsals for upcoming Blue Note recordings.
On the West Coast, Ray Avery was a photographic chronicler of The Stars of Jazz TV show which originated in Hollywood while William Claxton was extremely adept at posing many of the stars of West Coast Jazz either in his studio or on locations such as the mountains, deserts and canyons of sunny Southern California, many of which appeared as cover art for World Pacific and Contemporary Records LPs.
I posted recently about William Paul Gottlieb’s The Golden Age of Jazz, a compilation of his photographs and annotations from the “Hot Jazz Era” through to the beginnings of Bebop, circa 1935 - 1950.
What was unique about Gottlieb’s work in comparison to most other Jazz photographers was that Mr. Gottlieb took his photos largely in support of articles he was writing for the major Jazz magazine such as Down Beat and Metronome and for his work as the Jazz editor of The Washington Post newspaper.
Some of his photographs were posed; some were impromptu; some were thematic, for example: the lead-in photograph to this feature with its theme of the “glass-shattering effects of Kenton’s powerful brass” or the ones that follow his annotation about Kenton which appears in Mr. Gottlieb’s Golden Age of Jazz, some of which were intended to underscore the written description of life on the road with Stan’s orchestra, both in performance and at play.
I don’t recall viewing very many photographic retrospectives of life on the road with a big band so in this regard, Mr. Gottlieb’s approach to Jazz photography provides some very unique insights into the music and its makers.
Stan Kenton
“Stan Kenton was the most prominent of those modern jazzmen whose music was consciously influenced by "classical" forms. Stan had at least one other distinction: he was the most controversial of the modern music makers.
Those who couldn't stand his orchestra found it pretentious, devoid of swing, and just plain awful. Yet such denigrations could, at worst, characterize only his more formal concert pieces. Most of his music over the years did swing—enough so that his orchestra was voted best swing band of the year in the Down Beat polls of 1947, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, and 1954!
It is a fact that his music, which he called "progressive jazz," often favored tightly written scores over improvisation; mixed tempos over strict time; and still other characteristics associated more with European music than with American jazz.
In particular, he was not beholden to the big beat. "It's not the rhythm that counts," he would say, "It's the personalized warmth of the sound." To paraphrase Duke: "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that warmth." But was his music warm? His numerous detractors protested that it was absolutely cold!
Warm or cold, it was loud. Stan's screaming horns presaged the high decibels of the rock age, but his stalwarts did it without electronic amplification. Just old-fashioned lung power. When Stan raised his long arms to call for "more," the men in the brass section blew until their faces reddened, their eyes bulged, and incipient hernias popped.
I once spent nearly a week with Stan and his orchestra doing one-nighters, One-nighters were — and probably still are — a remunerative but baneful part of every "name" orchestra's existence. It meant traveling hundreds of miles a day, day after day for weeks, playing a dance here on one night, a concert there on the next night, and so on, the fees and distances depending on the popularity of the band and the skills of the band's booking agent.
One-nighters could turn into a rigorous, wearisome regimen for the musicians of any orchestra. It was even tougher for the members of the Kenton band, for Stan was a perfectionist driven by two inextricably connected forces: a desire for personal success and a crusade for progressive jazz.
Typically, the band would play, say, a concert, ending at eleven P.M. Stan would give the group a short break, but get it back for a strenuous rehearsal lasting an hour or so. Only then were the musicians released. Generally, they'd go—where else? — to a local music spot for a late snack and to hear what the local cats were blowing.
Then to their hotel. Late to bed. Late to rise. After breakfast, musicians and wives into bus. Instruments into truck. Next town, maybe 150 miles away. Where's Stan? Up early. Raced ahead in own car, like the wind (me along, a little scared). Interview with reporter. Visit to college music department. Session with one, two local disc-jockeys. Stan very bright. Very persuasive. By now, gang has arrived. Check in at hotel. Time and weather permitting, a quick game of intra-band baseball. But not for Stan. He's phoning ahead. Interviews to set for tomorrow, 200 miles away. Now it's concert time. Or dance time. Then it starts all over again.
Some days are a little different. Like that night we went to a club and got talking to a trio of college students, a little drunk, who made it clear they didn't like Kenton's music. I left the club a minute after the rest. Seeing me leave alone and thinking I was part of the band, the trio jumped me. I yelled. Eddie Safranski, an average-sized fellow made husky by wrestling a bass, rushed in like a squad of marines. Very gutsy. End of students.
“Alone Together, it should be made clear, consists of one CD of Brownie material (much of it with Roach) and one CD of somewhat later Roach recordings; these latter are discussed in the appropriate place. As a package it makes a very attractive introduction to both artists. Of Brownie, there is the magnificent 'Joy Spring' from August 1954, the February 1955 'Cherokee' from A Study In Brown, 'Gertrude's Bounce' from January 1956 with 11 other tracks from the Emarcy sessions. No surprises, but elegantly packaged and very desirable.”
- Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.
Sadly, you don't hear much about the late Clifford Brown these days. In a recent conversation with some young Jazz fans, their list of modern school trumpet players made the jump from Dizzy to Miles with no mention of Brownie. When I pointed this out, the reply was "what do you suggest we listen to" and I mentioned that a good place to start is Clifford Brown - Max Roach: Alone Together - The Best of The Mercury Years [Verve 526373-2] as this double CD compilation provides an excellent retrospective on Clifford Brown’s career and that of his closest musical colleague, the legendary drummer, Max Roach.
I have used the insert notes from both CD’s to form this feature because the authors are highly respected artists, each of whom provides a very unique view about the music on these recordings: Reuben Jackson the poet and music critic and Kenny Washington, the excellent Jazz drummer and disc jockey who accurately refers to himself as “The Jazz Maniac.” If you ever engage in a conversation about Jazz with Kenny, one thing you can be certain of - it is going to be a long one.
Since its inception, JazzProfiles has been as much about providing a showcase for those writers who offer insights into and greater understanding of Jazz, as well as, being a forum to highlight the music of Jazz and its makers.
“Clifford Brown - Max Roach: Alone Together - The Best of The Mercury Years, CD 1”
“As almost anyone with even a passing interest in professional sports can tell you, the presence of a couple of bona fide superstars in a lineup does not necessarily guarantee success. (Although historians of the New York Yankees will undoubtedly take umbrage with this thesis.)
And while jazz lovers and critics are as prone to rhapsodizing about its legends as, say, someone who has studied the 1927 baseball season, there are times when the praise is justified, even when it is overwrought with sentiment.
Trumpeter Clifford Brown’s early demise in an automobile accident in 1956 did further kindle the flame of tragic hero worship some are all too quick to associate with Jazz. (Brown as the Lou Gehrig of Jazz - a virile much beloved player felled not by dissipation a la Charlie Parker, the Babe Ruth of jazz, but by fate). And yet to concentrate solely on that aspect of the Wilmington, Delaware native's life does nothing to inform or prepare uninitiated listeners for the still seductive power of his solo and ensemble work.
For whether co-leading a swinging and influential quintet with Max Roach or performing as a guest soloist on dates led by vocalist Helen Merrill or arranger/composer Tadd Dameron, Brown consistently accomplished the easily stated but difficult task of any great artist. Absorbing the innovations of the past yet turning them into personal and memorable statements. (In Brown's case the quicksilver virtuosity associated with Fats Navarro and the lush romanticism of prebop stylists such as Freddie Webster were notably transformed.)
This gift was readily evident even during his first recordings with Chris Powell and His Blue Flames, a rhythm-and-blues group with whom Brown recorded in 1952 after studying music and mathematics at Maryland State and Delaware State Colleges.
His solos on I Come from Jamaica and Ida Red indicate more than a passing familiarity with both the rhythmic complexity brought on by bebop and the fleet, brassy lyricism present in the work of fellow trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Fats Navarro.
But one also hears warmth a midst the virtuosity. Brown seldom lets his astonishing chops get in the way of his music, which never fails to achieve a substantive degree of melodic and harmonic development. He was graced with a full tone that retained its richness in nearly every context.
Still, what makes performances such as the classic Brown composition Joy Spring memorable is the trumpeter's ability to fuse technical prowess, tonal beauty, and wit to the relaxed but infectious swing of the piece, while contrasting yet complementing Land's more bluesy outing.
Brown's performance on Born to Be Blue is one in which his muted obbligatos and solo don't coalesce; his playing is uncharacteristically unsure. The sublime power of Merrill's smoky lament renders his contributions lifeless. There are still heart-wrenching moments in his solo; but when Merrill returns, his emotions exit the room again.
But Brown is probably best remembered for his work with Roach, and their 1954 interpretation of bop pianist Earl "Bud" Powell's Parisian Thoroughfare illustrates their ability to convincingly convey the tumbling melodicism of bop as well as introduce a blues element — which would become characteristic of all the hard-bop ensembles to appear by the end of the decade.
Few bands of that genre had drummers as versatile as Dismal Swamp, North Carolina-born Maxwell Lemuel Roach who, like Brown, assimilated the complexities of bebop but was also familiar with such genius Swing Era drummers as Big Sid Catlett and Jo Jones.
During the period when Roach was regularly performing with such bop icons as Gillespie and Thelonious Monk at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem, he was also working with saxophonist Louis Jordan and playing on bills opposite more traditional players such as trumpeter Henry "Red" Allen.
Judging from the effortless, supple swing he provides throughout Joy Spring and Parisian Thoroughfare, it is clear that Roach's stints with the aforementioned artists meant more than just names on his resume.
For in addition to his ability to effectively drive the ensemble, his solos reveal the timbral richness not only present in the best work of drummers Catlett and Jones but saxophonists Don Byas and Coleman Hawkins as well.
Roach obviously understood as a sideman the tonal and rhythmic possibilities present within the trap drum set, and he carried that knowledge along with his unceasing quest for further artistic experimentation into sessions in which he was the leader.
Some of those innovations, such as Sonny Rollins's Valse Hot (with, in addition to the tenor saxophonist, the undersung trumpeter Kenny Dorham and pianist Bill Wallace replacing the deceased Brown and Richie Powell), is one of the earliest jazz waltzes committed to wax. Roach experimented with various time signatures …. The drummer's Dr. Free-Zee, a feature piece supplemented through multitracking with tympani, has remained in the shadows of his body of work for too long.
Though Roach's subsequent exploration of political themes (specifically, the struggle for African-American human rights) is not documented in this collection, the deepening rhythmic complexity that would mark efforts such as We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (Candid) and Percussion Bitter Sweet (Impulse) begins its trek here.
And his earlier interest in working with Brown as well as more traditional trumpeters and saxophonists makes the fact that he has, in recent years, collaborated with rapper Fab Five Freddy, playwright Sam Shepard, and avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor understandable, if not necessarily suited to everyone's taste.
To return to the baseball metaphor for a moment (I am lamenting the absence of the World Series as I write this!*), if Clifford Brown is Gehrig then Roach is Joe DiMaggio — and the music here shows their great teamwork when they played together as well as their individual accomplishments in separate seasons.
[* Due to a Baseball strike or work stoppage that year, the 1994 World Series was cancelled for the first time since 1904.]
Reuben Jackson
October 1994
Reuben Jackson is a poet and music critic who lives in Washington, D.C.”
“Clifford Brown - Max Roach: Alone Together - The Best of The Mercury Years, CD 2”
“Jazz is synonymous with a relay race: An athlete runs a lap before handing the baton to the next runner, who in turn does the same for the next. A great drummer comes up with something musically unique, and before long he passes his stick to the next inspired musician. I should know. I'm one of Max's musical children.
When I was eight years old, my father introduced me to a record titled Jazz of Two Decades (EmArcy DEM-2). It was a compilation of great recordings of the Forties and Fifties that came out of the vaults of the Mercury label and its subsidiaries. Side two began with the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet doing Cherokee. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, especially from Max. The thing that really knocked me was the way he tuned his drums.
The high pitched tom-tom tuning was so musical and gave each drum its own identity. After listening to this track a few times, I immediately went to my room to practice and see if I could get that same drum sound. After much tightening of the bottom and top heads, I discovered that I too could get it (boy, was I happy).
After about a week of trying to learn that complicated solo, I discovered some cracks in the shell of the drum. Because I played with the heads so tight, it was starting to tell on my little Brand X set of drums. Loosening the heads only made the cracks bigger.
Since my father bought the drums, he used to inspect them every Sunday to make sure that I was taking care of them. He saw what were by now gaping holes and asked me, "Boy, what happened here?" Boy, was I scared. I thought he was going to kill me. When I told him how I was trying to get that Max Roach sound, he laughed for about ten minutes. Soon after, he bought me a good set of drums. To this day, I still tune my drums like that.
If I were to discuss all of Max's contributions and analyze everything he does on these CDs, this little booklet would turn into a textbook. But there are some things I should point out to help you understand the man and his music:
1. Max is really the one who insisted on respect for the drummer. He made listeners and musicians alike realize that drummers were not on the bandstand just beating out rhythms; they had to learn just as other instrumentalists did about harmony and musical form. Listen to any of the drum solos on these CDs: They follow the form and chord structure of the tune. Try singing the melody of the tune from the beginning of one of Max's solos and you'll see what I mean.
2. Max, hands down, is one of the greatest soloists of all time. Even though, as a drummer, it is so easy to show off technique for technique's sake and just make noise, Max plays musical lines with dynamics and space. What he doesn't play is just as important as what he does play.
3. Disc two could easily be called Genius at Work — In Progress. A front line of trumpet, tuba, and tenor — with no piano to boot — is uncommon even by today's standards.
4. Check out Max's Variations with the Boston Percussion Ensemble and you'll hear what I call pre-M'Boom. M'Boom, one of the groups that Max currently leads, plays new work and jazz classics solely with percussion instruments.
5. Max incorporated unusual time signatures in his music as early as 1955. Listen to the last part of the melody on What Am I Here For? and you'll hear four bars in 5/4 time. The same occurs at the end of the piece. Of course he also introduced 3/4 time to modern jazz.
7. Max wrote drum-solo pieces in odd time signatures, and he was also a pioneer of drum solos with bass accompaniment. He felt, Why should the other musicians lay out? After all, he accompanied their solos — why shouldn't they reciprocate?
Max and his contributions are a good part of the reason that Soul Brother No. 1 James Brown could say years later, "Give the drummer some." Thank you, Max!
Kenny Washington
October 1994
Kenny Washington is a musician and host of Big Band Dance Party and Jazz After Hours on WBGO-FM in Newark.”
Given its percussive bent, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles has posted extensively about drummer Tony Williams [1945-1997] in previous blog features, but it only recently came across this interview with Tony conducted by Paul de Barros which was published in the November 1983 edition of Downbeat under the heading - “Two Decades of Drum Innovation, Tony Williams, Classic Interviews.”
At the time of Tony’s chat with Paul, the Jazz world had changed dramatically in the 20 years since Tony first joined the Miles Davis quintet in 1963.
Dating back to when Tony first went on Miles’ band, his style of drumming was often criticized by Jazz fans for being intrusive, unsettling, and bombastic. In a word, Tony overplayed. For such fans, it would only get worse as Tony applied his drumming tendencies to a Jazz-Fusion style later in the decade of the 1960s and for most of the decade of the 1970s.
Interestingly, a few years after this interview in 1983, Tony put together a quintet that recorded for Blue Note and featured Wallace Roney, trumpet, Bill Pierce, soprano and tenor saxophones, Mulgrew Miller, piano, and Ira Coleman on bass along with his compositions played in a somewhat more conventional, straight-ahead style that his critics preferred.
“Tony Williams erupted onto the jazz scene in 1963 as a 17-year-old prodigy with a full-blown, volcanic style of drumming that would blow hard-bop tastiness out the door. Williams’ arrival was hailed with a great deal of fanfare. The week he came with Miles Davis to San Francisco’s Jazz Workshop, the club temporarily relinquished its liquor license so the underage genius could play. (I remember, because it was the first time I was allowed in as well.)
Williams played the drums that week at a level of energy and activity—not to mention volume—that was not only exciting, but liberating. Whirling from crash to ride to slack hi-hat, now pummeling, now ticking, now coaxing, he machine-gunned the bass drum, pulled low-pitched “pows” from the toms and jagged bursts from the snare as if his legs and arms were connected to four separate torsos. His complex, distinct style, which owed a lot to the floating time of Roy Haynes and thrust of Elvin Jones (Sunny Murray’s unbridled freestyle was a simultaneous development rather than an influence), suggested that jazz drumming might exist as an adjunct to, as well as support for, the rest of the band.
Williams stayed with Davis five years. In 1968, like Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter before him, Williams left Miles, smelling rock ’n’ roll in the air. Joining forces with keyboard man Larry Young and British guitarist John McLaughlin (whom Tony discovered but Miles snatched into the recording studio first, for In A Silent Way), the drummer recorded a groundbreaking jazz-fusion trio album, Emergency, for Polydor (recently reissued as Once In A Lifetime, Verve), of psychedelic fervor and volume. For a while it looked as if Tony Williams was going to take the electric ’70s by storm, as he had the acoustic ’60s.
But it didn’t turn out that way. At Polydor he suffered poor management, poor promotion, and poor sales. Fans who had exhaled “far out” for Emergency dumped Turn It Over and Ego into the used record bins. The critics lambasted him, crying, “Sellout.” Williams, for all his bravado a vulnerable fellow, retreated, confused. From 1973–’75 and again from 1976–’79 he vanished as a leader. When he did come back, with Columbia, it was with the crisp, straightahead rock of Believe It, pumped full of hot air by a discoing promotional department. Jazz fans shook their heads, wondering what had happened to their young hero. After an exhibitionist tour de force, Joy of Flying, in 1979, on which he amassed everyone from Cecil Taylor to Tom Scott, Columbia dropped Williams in the middle of a seven-record contract. More than ever, he began to look like the Orson Welles of jazz, bursting into the world with creative energy only to make a long, agonizing finish. One critic, Valerie Wilmer, even went so far as to dismiss him as a showman.
But Wilmer, and others, weren’t really paying attention. While it was true that Tony Williams hadn’t come up with any project matching the creative vision of Emergency or the late ’60s Miles quintet (hard acts to follow), he had certainly held his ground, which is considerable. He is every bit as good a jazz drummer as he was 20 years ago, as his recent performance in Seattle with VSOP II attested. Besides, none of the other great jazz drummers—Max Roach, Art Blakey, Elvin Jones—has altered his style after its initial breakthrough. Williams’ work in rock has been a mighty influence, right down to the current work of Journey’s Steve Smith.
As for integrity, Williams has this to say to his critics: “People have this thing that if you like pop music, it’s because of the money. My career will tell you I’ve never done anything for the money. Writers and critics and people in the jazz world think you cannot possibly like the Police because of the music, which is absurd. I do the things I do because they excite me, and the rest is a load of rubbish.”
Williams continues to tour both in rock and jazz situations. In 1980 he played Europe with young Portland, Ore. fusion keyboardist Tom Grant and Missing Persons bassist Pat O’Hearn; in 1981 and ’83 he toured with VSOP. He plays on one track of Grant’s Columbia album You Hardly Know Me, and on several with Wynton Marsalis, who replaced Freddie Hubbard in VSOP.
In 1977 the drummer moved from New York to Marin County, north of San Francisco, where he lives now with his girlfriend. Three days a week he drives to UC-Berkeley, where he is studying classical composition with Robert Greenberg. When he is not composing fugues or studying counterpoint (“It’s a mountain of work,” says Williams), he is in the studio in San Francisco or busy catching up on some of the things he missed growing up a superstar: playing tennis, swimming, learning German, and driving his Ferrari. Williams says the move to California has revitalized his creative life and helped him to get past the tangled 1970s.
DownBeat: You completely changed jazz drumming in the 1960s. Were you consciously aware at any certain point that you were doing something new?
Tony Williams: Not really. I guess I was aware that I was playing differently, but it was more of a thing that I was aware of a need, like if you see a hole, you think you can fill it. There were certain things that guys were not playing that I said, “Why not? Why can’t you do this?”
DB: How important was Alan Dawson, your teacher in Boston, in your development of independence in all four limbs?
TW: What I basically got from Alan was clarity. He had a lot of independence, but so did other people. I get this question about independence a lot, even from drummers, but they can’t even be clear about their ideas. I mean you hear them play something, and you say, “What was it that he played?” Or if they hear themselves back on tape, they say they thought they played good but that it didn’t sound like that. So the idea is that when you play something for it to sound like what you intended, not to have a “maybe” kind of sound. So that’s what I got from Alan, the idea that you have to play clearly.
DB: Were you thrilled to be part of the Miles band in the ’60s?
TW: Well, when you’re doing things it’s hard to say, “Oh gee, this is going to be real historical sometime.” I mean you don’t do that; you just go to the sessions, and 10 or 20 years later people are telling you that it was important. When you’re doing it, you can’t really feel that way.
DB: What is your relationship with Miles now?
TM: Very friendly. I saw him this summer. I haven’t heard the new albums, but when we played opposite him, I heard bits and pieces of the band, and Miles was sounding good. He’s been practicing. I liked Al Foster [Miles’ drummer] years ago, when I was with Miles.
DB: You’ve played with a lot of illustrious musicians. Being a drummer, you have to adapt to each one differently. Let’s talk about some of them, say, beginning with Sonny Rollins and McCoy Tyner.
TW: Sonny has a very loose attitude about things—the time, the whole situation. With McCoy I always felt like I was getting in his way, or that it never jelled. I felt inadequate. Actually, with both Sonny and McCoy, it’s like you’re playing this thing, and they’re going to be on top of it.
DB: How about John McLaughlin and Alan Holdsworth?
TW: Completely different. John is more rhythm oriented. He plays right with you, on the beat. He’ll play accents with you. Even while he’s soloing, he’ll drop back and play things that are in the rhythm. Alan is less help. With Alan it’s like he’s standing somewhere and he’s just playing, no matter what the rhythm is.
DB: Wynton Marsalis and Freddie Hubbard?
TW: Freddie plays the same kind of solo all the time. I get the feeling that if Freddie doesn’t get to a climax in his solos, and people really hear it, he gets disappointed. With Wynton it’s always different. I don’t know what he’s going to play. It’s always stimulating.
DB: I gather you think Wynton Marsalis’ manifesto about only playing jazz—and not funk or rock—is not that important?
TW:He thinks it’s an important attitude. That’s what counts.
DB: A lot of fans and critics still find a contradiction in your playing what they see as oversimplified rock as well as the kind of complex jazz you played with Miles and you play now with VSOP. What’s your reaction to that?
TW: Well, first of all, just because it’s jazz, doesn’t mean it’s going to be more complex. I’ve played with different people in jazz where it was just what you’d call very sweet music. No type of music, just because it’s a certain type of music, is all good. A lot of rock ’n’ roll is not happening. And a lot of so-called jazz and the people who play it are not happening. Complexity is not the attraction for me, anyway—it’s the feeling of the music, the feeling generated on the bandstand. So playing in a heavy rock situation can be as satisfying as anything else. If I’m playing just a backbeat with an electric bass and a guitar when it comes together, it’s really a great feeling.
DB: You were quoted in [an article in] Rolling Stone, praising the drummer in the Ramones. Were you serious?
TW: I don’t remember the occasion, but I do like that kind of drumming, like Keith Moon, any drumming where you have to hit the drum hard; that’s why I like rock ’n’ roll drumming.
DB: Sometimes so much of that music seems very insensitive.
TW: It depends on what you’re saying the Ramones are supposed to be sensitive to. Just because it’s jazz doesn’t mean it’s going to be sensitive. You’re trying to evoke a whole other type of feeling with the Ramones. When I drive through different cities and I look up in the Airport Hilton and I see the sign that says, “Tonight in the lounge, ‘live jazz’”—I mean, what the hell does that even mean? I’m not saying everybody’s like this, but I can see a tinge of people saying, “This is the only way it was in 1950, and we’re going to keep it that way, whether the music is vital or not, whether or not what we end up playing sounds filed with cobwebs.” When John Coltrane was alive, there were all kinds of people who put him down. But these same people will now raise his name as some sort of banner to wave in people’s faces to say, “How come you’re not like this?” These same people. That’s hypocrisy, and I find it very tedious.
DB: How important is technique?
TW: You’ve got to learn to play the instrument before you can have your own style. You have to practice. The rudiments are very important. Before I left home, I tried to play exactly like Max Roach, exactly like Art Blakey, exactly like Philly Joe Jones, and exactly like Roy Haynes. That’s the way to learn the instrument. A lot of people don’t do that. There are guys who have a drum set for two years and say they’ve got their own “style.”
DB: How can we prevent those kinds of guys from taking up more room than they deserve?
TW: [laughing] Well, we could pass a law.
DB: The Bad Drummer Ordinance?
TW: Exactly. Anyone who does not study is shot! Seriously, though, it’s a big responsibility when you play the drums, and a lot of guys don’t want the responsibility, but they want to play the drums. The drummer is playing all the time. You can have a terrible band and a great drummer, and you’ve got a good band; but you could have great horn players, and if the drummer and the bass player aren’t happening, you’ve got a terrible band.
DB: Is tuning important?
TW: Yes. I hear drummers that have maybe 12 drums which all sound the same. If you closed your eyes, you wouldn’t know where they were on the set. Or else you’ll have guys where each drum sounds like it’s from a different set. It’s important that the drum set sounds like one instrument. Like, if you have a piano, you wouldn’t want the C to sounds like a Rhodes, the D to sound like a Farfisa, the E to sound like a Prophet. A keyboard is a uniform system; a trumpet is a uniform system … drummers are out to lunch. On some of my drums, the bottom head is tighter than the top head. On other drums they’re about the same. And on the bass drum the front head is looser than the batter side.
DB: Have you tried electric drums?
TW: Yeah! I tried the Simmons. The separation you get on tape is great. The programmability, the sound, the sequencing … it’s another thing to do that seems very interesting. I have a DMX [electronic, programmable drum machine by Oberheim] at home.
DB: Will electronic drums be part of what you’re doing in the studio?
TW: Oh yeah, they already are.
DB: Can you say anything more about what direction your music is going?
TW: The popular direction. I like MTV. I like the Police, Missing Persons, Laurie Anderson. I performed with her on a San Francisco date. It was great. I love the new Bowie album. Prince. I like the idea of writing lyrics, of putting images with words that evoke a scene on top of the music. I like Herbie’s new album. It’s really happening.
DB: Are you interested in making a video yourself?
TW: Sure. Growing up in this country, watching TV and movies, everyone would like to make a movie. It’s a new thing to do. You know writers want to be painters; screenwriters want to be directors. Musicians want to make movies. Doing a project and having a lot of people like it and maybe listen to it on the radio, that appeals to me. What I’m trying to do is something that captures a lot of people’s imaginations. If the result is I’m more famous, fine. But it’s not like I’m after being a pop star.
DB: You’ve said in the past that jazz should be popular, not an elitist art form. But isn’t it about time Americans claimed jazz as their art form and started recognizing it with the kind of respect they give European music?
TW: That’s a fine thought, but how much is that really going to do for musicians? I don’t think society really recognizes classical music, anyway. It’s all about patronage, and grants, a certain class of people. Jazz was originally the music of the people in the streets and not in concert halls, so when you lose that, you suffer the consequences. There’s nothing wrong with jazz being an art form, but it has certain roughness and vitality and unexpectedness that’s important. I guess I’m old-fashioned. DB
