Great drum solos

[Jazzrook]

One of the most inventive and gripping drum solos I've heard is from Frank Butler on 'A Fifth For Frank' with the Curtis Counce Quintet in 1956('Landslide').
Also impressive solos from tenorist Harold Land and the underrated trumpeter Jack Sheldon.

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

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

great group jazzrook

[Serial_Apologist]

This is a good subject for a thread, JR!

I'm not sure I'm as keen on drum solos as I was when I first started listening to jazz in my teens. There was a much-envied LP owned by one of the boys called "Drummerama" iirc, consisting mainly of drum solos by Cozy Cole, Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich and one or two others, taken out of their contexts. Everyone wanted ***** to offer it for sale, but he wouldn't let it go, ploughed though it was by the houseroom record player. Tony Williams's solos on the 1964 "Life Time" Blue Note still impress, but probably the last drum solo to have really impressed me was Jack De Johnette's from "What I Say", on Side 2 of the original Miles Davis "Live-Evil", where he lunges forth on a fast rock beat, steadily breaking the rhythm up into smaller components then asymmetrically re-assembling them, all the time not losing sight of the beat, the excitement deriving from the listener maintaining this in his or her head throughout until the release moment when it finally triumphantly returns. It's so different from the many Fusion drum solos one has heard which insist in reiterating the backbeat while just overlaying it. I just wanna to shout, "You're detaining me, man!". Then I heard Tony Oxley's improvised electronic percussion stuff recorded on Incus in the early-mid 1970s - extensions really of the kid Tony Williams's early experiments with texture, space and rhythmic superposition - and it was, like, no looking back.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Yep, wonderful band and an exceptional drummer. Even if he did steal Herb Geller's brand new white TV! Something that Geller never forgave!

BN.

Other drums....watching Clifford Jarvis with John Gilmore avec Sun Ra on "A Train" last night from 1972 @ Montreaux....just amazing.

[Ian Thumwood]

When I got in to jazz as a teenager I always felt that drums solos were the most exciting element about the music and I was brought up to believe that Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich were the greatest exponents of the drums. As a fourteen year old, it was hard not to agree after hearing Krupa's sterling performance on the Carnegie Hall version of "Sing, sing sing. " This concert seemed to be a defining moment for jazz drumming and the only thing I felt matched this at the time was the recording of "traffic Jam" by Artie Shaw which was under-pinned by the drumming of Buddy Rich.

That said, it was this record that blew me totally away and made me doubt that either Rich or Krupa were dominant:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJJ3QrBgHhM

If I had to single out a handful of records that were significant in my development as a jazz fan, this would be in the top five. Prior to hearing this played on the local radio programme "Solent Swing", Chick Webb was only a mythical name as far as I was concerned. However, the track "Liza" stunned me with the ferocity of the drumming and prompted me to explore all sorts of other big bands from Harlem whereby it became apparent that perhaps Krupa and Rich had rivals. This record never fails to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on their ends. It is quite a brutal arrangement and surprising to see than Benny Carter penned the chart. As I said on the other thread last week, it is really easy to see a connection between Webb's approach to the drums and that of his pupil Art Blakey.

Another drummer who always fascinated was Ray Bauduc and this track is great fun. Apparently John Hammond hated this band's rhythm section but I think Bauduc was highly original and distinctive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wHzEub_lnI

It's incredible how fast jazz drumming developed with this style of playing and prowess not being possible until the mid 1920's when Vic Berton created the modern drum kit or at least was important in the process. Drumming like this would not have been possible about 15 years earlier.

That said, the drum solo never regained the status it seemed to enjoy upon the demise of the Swing Era. I think drummers became more "team players" with the modern era with showy and empty bravura making way for mastery and a more musical approach. I first became aware of this when I heard Blakey on the classic recording of "Blue monk" by Thelonious Monk's trio. After hearing this, it was the more musical aspect of drumming which made me prick up my ears.

I agree with SA about Jack DeJohnette and he is one of the drummers who I feel is hugely compelling when he solo's. I also feel the same about Paul Motian who fascinates me with his approach perhaps more than any other drummer. I love the way that he solos and the manner in which he thinks so differently from other percussionists. You can say the same about Tony Oxley and I love his drumming on Tomasz Stanko's "Matka Joanna" which is one of that discs high points. These days, more abstract and thoughtful styles of drumming are likely to catch my attention even if I still enjoy more bombastic styles of playing as well sometimes.

One final drummer who I like hearing perform solo is Hamid Drake. He seems to associate himself with more contemporary styles of jazz yet he is a massive Papa Jo Jones fan and I feel this is reflected in him style. No one can make a frame drum sound so compelling as him - just check out his stuff with Fred Anderson and the criminally under-rated Eri Yamamoto.

[Jazzrook]

The Drum Also Waltzes by Max Roach: www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7ha2iuEti0

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i heard Connie Kay solo at the Blue Note in NYC, he did not play above a whisper and held the full room spellbound

[Old Grumpy]

Most unbearable drum solo:

A full half hour by J DeJohnette as a warm up to the main gig (can't remember who now!).

OG

[Serial_Apologist]

Most unbearable drum solo:

A full half hour by J DeJohnette as a warm up to the main gig (can't remember who now!).

OG

Musta been one of Miles's now almost lost in legendary history...

[Ian Thumwood]

The initial clip is really intriguing. Curtis Counce has seemed an almost mythical figure to me. I've rarely heard anything by him on the radio and my knowledge was gleaned from a book by Stan Britt about jazz which featured his albums "You get more bounce..." and the "Exploring the future" with it's "lost in space" inspired cover. I didn't realise that he had died so young from a heart attack and the sample was much superior to a lot of jazz that you hear from the West Coast in that era. There is a clean-ness about it that is appealing. Butler's drum solo was unusual. It sounds like he was trying to mimic a tap dancer.

I think that Calum is on to something when mentioning Connie Kay as he seemed to be at the forefront of making the drums in to a more musical instrument. The showmanship and theatre from the swing era is totally dispensed with and replaced with a more studious approach. I'd have to say that I'm not a fan of the MJQ and Jimmy Heath's comment about them trying to sound too European is pretty much near the mark. As Heath said, John Lewis was too in to Bach to really acknowledge the Afro-American aspect of jazz and I would concur with this remark even though the MJQ were capable of making excellent music and records like the Ellington one are about as perfect as jazz can get. However, I think the African origins of the drum should never be forgotten and a wider range of dynamics is one of the appeals of the instrument. This is why I love drummers like "Tain" Watts who can make the instrument roar behind an ensemble, reduce the dynamics down to a simmer in a beat and then produce the kind of solo that will just wipe everyone else out. Sometimes this is the only way to go with the instrument.

There is a clip I saw many years ago where Connie Kay was playing drums in a Benny Goodman aggregation and they performed "Sing, Sing, Sing" with Kay taking the role of Krupa yet hardly raising a smile and having a demeanour in marked contrast to the celebrated arrangement.

Solos like the Butler one demonstrate that a drum solo can be hugely compelling and even have a ritualistic element to it. In July I witnessed a drum duet where the instruments performed tunes which, as long as you were familiar with the themes, actually worked as a set. No too sure this could have really sustained more than a 45 minute set but I think it demonstrated that drum solos are not all theatre and there is an artistic element.

[Ian Thumwood]

[Serial_Apologist]

It sounds like he was trying to mimic a tap dancer.

I can't now remember where, but I do recall reading or hearing somewhere that tap dance rhythms prefigured many of those that subsequently appeared in jazz.

[Ian Thumwood]

Have you heard the Geri Allen trio with the tap dancer Maurice Chestnut? It's a bizarre project but I felt the music really works especially on a track called "Philly Joe." I very much like her playing and this is a good example of what you can hear on this album:-

[Serial_Apologist]

I now see the Baltimore-born tap dancer Will Gaines passed on back in May this year.

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/may/14/will-gaines

He was living in Southend-on Sea when I got to be introduced to him maybe 12 years ago, and was known as being quite a character, which I can vouch for. He may have been mentioned by Trevor Cooper on the old bored. I have a cassette of a BBC broadcast of him with a Mike Garrick group including Norma Winstone and John Etheridge from 1985; there are some hair-raising hairpin bends in terms of imprecise timing where he and drummer Allan Cox exchange fours!

[Alyn_Shipton]

Frankly Will Gaines never cut it. He got by because he wasn't anywhere where people took what he did remotely seriously, and survived as a sort of down home anomaly. Check out Jack Ackerman on the Buck Clayton Jam sessions, or the man who danced a lot better than Gaines, despite having one foot fewer:

Drum solos - what about that album that Dizzy and Max made together? Just the two of them...some of which was filmed in the making:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0yANhawGaU