Drummers you want to share with the world

Beaver Harris (who played w/Blue Humans on 'Incadescence' CD) was terrific.

Clarence Penn, another smoking young jazz drummer, his own albums are great and he's on the new Dave Douglas.

Dave Skogen, local Madison drummer and snare drummer for Youngblood Brass Band.

Ralph Peterson, he was playing like Jeff 'Tain' Watts years before Tain made a record.

David King, the drummer from Happy Apple (Minnesota band, the best sax trio ever?) is AMAZING.

Joe Wong, another friend of mine who played in Akarso, this math rock-y band that put out a split cd with Faraquet before both bands broke up and now plays with the main guy from Faraquet.

I could go on and on and on.

has worked with so many great artists, too numerous to name them all. if they want the best, they call Vinnie.

Btw, does anyone really under-rate Tony Williams, Elvin Jones, Vinnie Coliauta, etc.? (not to cast aspersions on those choices, since they are all amazing musicians of course)

Got the latest he did on Tzadik- stunning.

Have to agree on Elvin Jones, Oxley, Ali, stevens, prevost. I'd add han bennik, paul lovens, Ibarra is good too.

Now, if you want to talk about his jazz abilities or stretching out (see Philadelphia Experiment), that's a different story. :>

I guess I can see where you guys are coming fro. I'm a drummer who is into all the hip drum shit, but I've been playing some live hip-hop lately and it's made me appreciate what he does as far as playing exactly what he's needed for those tunes, getting the sound right, dropping out the beat at all the places, blah blah blah.

<3 Jaki, Tony Allen

Lee Harris, the two dudes who played with Long Fin Killie, Jaki. Ringo, even. Every fill's a hook!

I'm no expert but I love the drumming of Everett Moreton of The Beat, the first drummer I ever properly took notice of in terms of style and quality.

From above I gotta second Billy Cobham, who melted my teenage mind when I saw Mahavishnu open for ELP, in... another era; incredible power and precision. Ditto Dale Crover, it is SO hard to play that slow and keep the music moving? Lastly, I've been working on a record made entirely out of Fela breaks, so I now have a deep understanding of how entirely fresh Tony Allen's beats are.

My 2 contributions to the cause are Bill Rieflin & Tim Mooney, both technically proficient players with deeply idiosyncratic styles, superb feel, restraint, and big beats. I was fortunate to see a lot of sets: Bill with the Blackouts, Tim with the Midgets.

I always get a kick out of Nickodemus's "Give the Drummer Some", @ the end where the MC lists off a huge list of great drummers.

Jim Keltner.

best rock drummers I've witnessed live: Kid Millions and Jeremy Barnes.

Tony 'plays like a motherfucker' Williams

I heard a story about when Miles' group was playing at the Village Vaguard and Cecil Taylor was playing upstairs at the Contemporary Center. Williams, Carter, Shorter, and Hancock all went up to listen to Cecil (much to Miles' chagrin), and Tony asked to sit in. He started to play very minimally against Cecil's torrents, just a small hit here and there. After a few minutes of this a fed-up Rashied Ali shouted from the audience, "PLAY YOUR DRUMS, MOTHERFUCKER!"

I was really admiring Moe Tucker's drumming on "Lady Godiva's Operation" the other day. Not just the restraint she demonstrates, but the way her recorded drums sound. The snare is at the perfect pitch, perfect volume.

Two Philly drummers I really like:

1) Tommy Bendel, who has played with Buried Beds, Like Moving Insects, and a bunch of other people. Totally amazing to watch - fluid, balletic movement and great touch and sound.

2) The guy from Need New Body and Man Man, whose name I forget - Chris something? Search his playing on "Tittiepop"

Looks like most of my favorites have been mentioned already (Fish, Ziggy, Elvin) so let me throw out Dannie Richmond from all the Mingus bands and Ed Blackwell. Also about a busful of tabla guys, but especially Alla Rakha and Trilok Gurtu.

Brannen Temple is a local guy who's pretty monstrous.

Tony Newman, who was in the late period T-Rex line-up, drummed on Diamond Dogs and David Live, Beck-ola and Donovan's Barabajagal as well as lots of other things, including some pretty cool numbers under his own name. This is one of my all-time favourites:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_SJolyMc_k

xp lol yeah i was gonna say "THAT Bobby Caldwell?"

xxp, ah ok i don't think he uses foot pedals but it still looks cool to me

Smokey Johnson: legendary New Orleans drummer. Played with Fats in the 50s and 60s. Mentored Zigaboo Modeliste. Got recruited by Berry Gordy to teach the Funk Brothers about his techniques.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFd65IypPW4

Not much mention of free jazz and improv drummers on this thread.

Paal Nilssen-Love
Raymond Strid
DD Kern
Han Bennink
Paul Lovens

Have to agree on Elvin Jones, Oxley, Ali, stevens, prevost. I'd add han bennik, paul lovens, Ibarra is good too.

― Julio Desouza, Thursday, 25 April 2002 00:00 (7 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

damn those typos. did a ctrl+f search for bennink and nothing came up. still leaves me three new ones though :)

sooo dope:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFvgCtomkqE

Sick!
I'm sure you've seen this already, Jordan, but it's a surefire way to get me out of a bad mood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0zJKf6tA5c

yeah, that's wayne from the stooges on bass drum (he's amazing) and the original tuba player for TBC on snare.

don't get me started, but the #2 and #1 videos here have my favorite derrick tabb snare moments: http://chickenintheback.wordpress.com/

i've always loved art blakey, but no-one would call him under-rated

http://wimp.com/wronggig/

That video is great. Thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pa9y3CTD4s

greg fox of liturgy

http://vimeo.com/10408419

every time this thread is bumped my brain overloads with ideas and then i end up not posting about any drummers.

The guy who plays drums on Takayanagi's 'A call in Question' (what the fuck is he on?). Can anybody tell me his name (it has it on Cd but it is in japanese)?

Pretty sure that's Sabu Toyozumi - saw him play in 2001 in a quartet with Fred Frith - awesome drummer

What a hero

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEU2LCjbvr0

I love that guy. I know he's been around for a while, but I love when session/gig musicians get introduced to such a degree that it's hard to imagine the world without them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3XD-qdjWpk

He's got the perfect touch and time, I always think about how his right hand is nearly upside down cradling the stick at times. I saw him do a clinic when I was a teenager and sorta got it (perfect simplicity, the guy on all those MJ tracks, sure sure) but of course didn't appreciate the depth of it until much later.

He tells a story some ways in of getting called to a Whitney Houston session in Atlanta (I think he says he played drums on something like 7/10 of her number ones) to clean up a track. It was recorded in a church, with a choir, the sound is leaking all over, they need to replace the drums and there's no click. So he has to chart out the whole song, where the worst bleed is, where it speeds up, where it slows down, and basically plug in his takes to fix the track. Just invisible hand of god shit there.

Unless I misheard, I think he also tells a story of recording "We Are The World." He and Louis Johnson (on synth bass) were doing the basic rhythm track. The tape is rolling, tere's supposed to be a click, but nothing is in the headphones. He and Louis both realize it at the same time but keep playing, and they're so locked in that they nail it. They let Quincy know at the end, and he tells them there's no reason to do it again, they got it.

Oh wow, I've never heard that. Although if there was nothing else laid down, it's probably not a big deal as long as it feels good, it's not like they were programming to the grid on top of it?

There's a tiny clip of them in the We Are the World doc, one of the few I've seen from that era (no cameras in the studios back then). He looked like a cool dude.

I'm not going to link it, because there's enough of it being served up out there anyway, but there's the latest Drumeo vid where they play Kenny Aronoff Yes's "Changes" (which he doesn't know) and has him work out a part on the spot. His skill and work ethic is impressive, watching him chart out a part, but it really encapsulates why he's never been one of my faves. A total beast on the set, and yet sooooooo boring.

Mr Karl Burns from The Fall who is back.

And whose drumming very nearly ruins the first album.

Well, he was showing off on LATWT (a con) but he was corrected in later records.

I could listen to him talk all day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXgMHmE7YhI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCmPJbynm98

OK, there are maybe better places for this, but hey. I've never been a fan of Chad Smith. I think he's perfectly suited for the RHCP, but as a player I think he's kind of leaden and not funky. I just don't like his grooves, and when I've heard or seen him out of context (Chickenfoot, say) I've largely felt the same way. But I saw his Drumeo version of Deep Purple's "Burn," and for the first time thought, OK, I'm digging this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U2c_YHt03w

But then this morning I saw his version of "Won't Get Fooled Again," and yeah, soooo stiff and uninspiring, not least because it is one of the most fun and free songs to play:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFU1XBLnIRs

Just missing ... something.

I don't like him if I'm thinking "funk", but he's a great rock drummer in the classic sense, and those videos make me like him more (great loud + relaxed technique, great time, he's always got that left foot going). He's definitely one step removed from all those '70s drummers - they idolized jazz drummers, and he idolized them. But he's still more connected to swinging, funky rock drumming than all the drummers who came up idolizing him.

Again, good at what he does but not a drummer I ever want to listen to.

Speaking of left foot, I was just reading about Rush's new drummer. Apparently when she was out with Jeff Beck she hurt her right foot/leg and had to play her bass drum with her left foot! I read somewhere that Josh Freese had to do that once on tour, too; after breaking his right leg he moved his bass drum to the left and put two hi hats (one open, one closed) on the right. Crazy.

I think I could play left foot kick, but definitely not with right foot hh. Jazz drummer Jonathan Barber switched his kick and hi-hat for awhile just for fun, and Homer Steinweiss from the Daptones had some weird focal dystonia thing that led to him permanently (?) switching his kick and hh feet.

If you ever wanted to know what a 19 year old kid named Josh Freese was doing backing Paul Westerberg on his first solo tour, welp let me share him with you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZrmutT7O98

Turns out he was playing drums.

been loving christian lillinger a decade or so
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhz-Bx7E4Vk

He's an absolute freak of nature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl5cs1Q20B4

This is predictably bonkers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY3-bWwOIgo

Again, good at what he does but not a drummer I ever want to listen to.

Speaking of left foot, I was just reading about Rush's new drummer. Apparently when she was out with Jeff Beck she hurt her right foot/leg and had to play her bass drum with her left foot! I read somewhere that Josh Freese had to do that once on tour, too; after breaking his right leg he moved his bass drum to the left and put two hi hats (one open, one closed) on the right. Crazy.

Uh not that crazy tbh … though maybe for a right handed person who has never had to play someone else’s kit with the drums switched around…. Basically I had to learn both ways: native left-kick/right HH and the reverse just in case.

uh rong that is a completely crazy thing to be able to do and shift around like that

I don't know, I think it just depends on what kind of independence you've practiced. I think I could play backbeat music with left foot kick, and leading with either hand, without much difficulty at this point. Honestly playing beats while driving, doing the kick pattern with the left foot for obvious reasons, probably helped. But if I tried to do hh stuff with the right foot, or play jazz, it would probably fall apart.

By contrast, that Drumeo video above? There's no rhythmic independence there, every limb playing 8th notes but moving between voices with different contrary motions. That feels impossible to me, I've never practiced anything like it. But I wonder if it would be easy business for a great pianist.

But if I tried to do hh stuff with the right foot, or play jazz, it would probably fall apart.

I think the kick stuff would be the easy part. If you want to have any kind of finesse on the high hat, it's a lot of work!

Also, I mean, she also pulled it off in a power trio with Jeff Beck, on stage, with short notice. No place to hide, no room for failure, all (many) eyes on her.

Apparently drum guru Claus Hessler is her cousin.

Steinweiss said his bandmates liked his playing more after he switched feet, probably because he played even more intentionally and minimally.

Rick Mithchell's program Jazz In The New Millenium, named for his book, has a recurring/rerunning subseries on drummers, now starting over---last night I was introduced to Obed Calvaire: mainly modern-progressive jazz meets Caribbean themes, like at one point a mixture of originals with carnival songs:https://xray.fm/broadcasts/66218 The shows are almost all music, starting with a really good-to-killer track, usually about 6-7-8 minutes long, a microbio, and then we're off, with minimal annotations, no interviews, no Deep Thots. He's also got one on Andrew Cyrille, excellent Tyshawn Sorey in small groups, Rudy Royston---if you want to browse (front page still has his recent run of guitarists, incl. Lionel Loueke and Julian Lage), can start here:
https://xray.fm/shows/jazz-in-the-new-millenium

I don't know this guy, but I love this guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdsLhCBu5wc

Going back to the OP in this thread, I was in Memphis last week and went to the Stax Museum, which is awesome. One thing they had was a set of Al Jackson's drums. I always love seeing people's actual kits, it humanizes them and also makes their playing even more magical because they're using the using the same basic equipment as anyone else.

https://i.ibb.co/qLPK1BKh/IMG-0648.jpg

Also saw the organ that Booker T. wrote/played "Green Onions" on for the original recording. Not to mention Isaac Hayes' desk (amazing) and Cadillac (even more amazing).

*distracted by kick pedal propped up on the snare drum stand*

and Cadillac (even more amazing).

The one with the chandelier on it?

Chandelier, fur-lined interior, gold plating on the details, a TV set of some kind tucked under the dash …

And yes I’m guessing Jackson had the kick pedal on the floor lol.

Key detail there is the wallet used as a damper on the snare head. Presumably the snare sound gets a little more mellow after he gets paid