Favorite Frank Zappa drummer

My FZ fandom ebbs and peaks in roughly five-year cycles, and it's at a high point lately.

the indian of the group (more of a mothers fan than a zappa fan tbh)

It's hard to vote against Bozzio, but I'm going to ponder this one for a few days. Chester Thompson's amazing, Colaiuta's amazing, Dunbar's pretty great.

I always felt bad about Chester Thompson (who also plays on Weather Report's great "Black Market") getting stuck with Phil Collins so long. He just seems so ... bored.

Bozzio is a monster, and remains so. Don't know what happened to Wackerman (who I never dug). But Colaiuta is every bit as good as Bozzio, only less of a showoff. Granted, he's a born again Christian now (!), but some stories are awesome. There's a tale of him doing a session with several sushi rolls propped up on a stand next to his kit, and doing the take with one hand while he used chopsticks with the other. Got to respect the four way independence! Oh, wait, there it is, on Wikipedia, from Steve Vai:

He's one of the most amazing sight-readers that ever existed on the instrument. One day we were in a Frank rehearsal, this was early '80s, and Frank brought in this piece of music called "Mo 'N Herb's Vacation." Just unbelievably complex. All the drums were written out, just like "The Black Page" except even more complex. There were these runs of like 17 over 3 and every drumhead is notated differently. And there were a whole bunch of people there, I think Bozzio was there. Vinnie had this piece of music on the stand to his right. To his left he had another music stand with a plate of sushi on it, okay? Now the tempo of the piece was very slow, like "The Black Page." And then the first riff came in, [mimics bizarre Zappa-esque drum rhythm patterns] with all these choking of cymbals, and hi-hat, ruffs, spinning of rototoms and all this crazy stuff. And I saw Vinnie reading this thing. Now, Vinnie has this habit of pushing his glasses up with the middle finger of his right hand. Well I saw him look at this one bar of music, it was the last bar of music on the page. He started to play it as he was turning the page with one hand, and then once the page was turned he continued playing the riff with his right hand, as he reached over with his left hand, grabbed a piece of sushi and put it in his mouth, continued the riff with his left hand and feet, pushed his glasses up, and then played the remaining part of the bar. It was the sickest thing I have ever seen. Frank threw his music up in the air. Bozzio turned around and walked away. I just started laughing.

It's hard to make a bad choice here. I'm going with Aynsley Dunbar because of the great run he had including Chunga's Revenge, Filmore East, Just Another Band From LA, 200 Motels, Waka/Jawaka, and The Grand Wazoo. He seemed equally comforatble with both power rock playing and jazzier material.

Chester Thompson and Vinnie Colaiuta could easily get my vote on another day.

how do you not go boz

I'd never read that Vai quote before, but I do remember an FZ interview from that period where Zappa talks about Vinnie's ability to play amazingly complicated stuff -- "four with the left hand, seventeen with the right hand," etc -- so I'm sure it was that incident he was recalling.

The one time I saw FZ live was the '84 tour. Wackerman was technically proficient, but he just never put any eyebrows on the music, as Frank used to put it. His drum solo was five minutes in hell, really.

Went with Chester - as good as some of the others were (and technically, some of these guys were godlike), that Roxy band is everything I love about Zappa without any of the bullshit I don't.

Bozzio all the way for me. Esp his performances in "Baby Snakes".

(I loved his brattiness)

Terry for "Punky's Whips."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeiPfv2H7Gs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M782Ax4b4_0

Yesssss.

Audio only, but here's Vinnie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4QqyuWQ7-s

this is a real embarrassment of riches -- can't go wrong w/ at least a half-dozen of these picks. for instance, i really can't choose b/w thompson, black, bozzio & wackerman. but choose i must at some point.

Man I HATE drum soloing, but that Boz one just above is mindblowing, his arms are a fucking BLUR. how can a human being play like that? AND sing. Crazy shit.

chester thompson played at my high school back in 1985. i don't even specifically remember WHY he was there ... but he was, in the auditorium. this was before i got into zappa at all, and while i vaguely knew that thompson had some connection w/ genesis and phil collins otherwise i didn't know much about him.

Are we voting based just on these drummers' work with Zappa, or do we consider work the drummers did in other contexts as well?

Not my poll, but I say stick to Zappa. Once you open it up you get all sorts of weird (not weird) session dude surprises. I mean, Colaiuta alone has played with everyone from Sting to Megadeth to The The, and on "Nightshift" by the Commodores, too. Both he and Bozzio have worked with Jeff Beck, though of course Bozzie also did Missing Persons. And of course Jim Gordon is a total monster (in every sense), but he more or less took himself out of competition. So, yeah, stick to Zappa.

What he said.

JCB or Bozzio. Bozzio really makes "Sheik Yerbouti".

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I didn't vote for him, but I think Chad Wackerman is unfairly maligned on this thread. He has many moments of brilliant drumming. The album versions of Sinister Footwear 2 and Envelopes are two of my favorites.