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Post by gregorythefish on Jan 31, 2021 22:02:13 GMT
the list is clearly written from an absurd rock slant, and they threw the only two jazz drummers any rock fan knows on the list in krupa and rich. bellson is a suspicious and odd choice to me, given how forgettable he seems to have been among jazz aficionados, and billy cobham is about as much of a rock drummer as you can be while still being a jazz drummer.
billy higgins, ed blackwell, sunny murray, jimmy cobb, etc are all worthy contenders
and any list of drummers not including both elvin jones and kenny clarke is highly suspect.
it is as though i made a list of the top ten best bands and they were all jazz combos (messengers, silver quintet, classic quartet, second great quintet) and then i threw the beatles on there at perhaps number three. it would be absurd on its face.
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Post by bassman on Feb 3, 2021 8:37:40 GMT
Top 20 jazz drummers? In my own personal list, Ellington's Sonny Greer would be in the top ten. We all know that together with bassist Jimmy Blanton, he was able to create incredible intensity on tracks like "Jack The Bear", "Harlem Air Shaft", and all the rest of them. However, what really made my jaw drop was when I first realized that he was born long before Jo Jones (b. 1911), Gene Krupa (b. 1909), his own boss Duke Ellington (b. 1899) and even before good old Baby Dodds (b. 1898): The year was 1895!
So, in spite of being one of the true pioneers (“I was the first one that tried the hi-hat"), his drumming always sounded fresh and "modern" compared to his contemporaries. He was a drum virtuoso like no other.
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Post by bassman on Feb 19, 2021 18:42:01 GMT
Can't but return to Sonny Greer for a short moment. It was that Impulse! compilation that Jazzhead brought up the other day, and which includes a "Black and Tan Fantasy" by Earl Hines and most of the Ellington men, that sent me back to the original album called "Earl Hines - Once Upon A Time". Among other things, I love it for its remarkable, archaic, quasi-biblical liner notes: "...There was also, within the northern boundaries of the city, an associate of yesterday, a formidable beater of hides, one Sonny Greer, and they sent word that he should come to them with all dispatch, bringing his tambours large and small... " In short, here is Earl Hines with the Ellington élite, recorded in beautiful stereo in January 1966, with Elvin Jones playing drums on four tracks, and Sonny Greer (born 1895, just for a reminder) on the remaining three. It's Sonny's contribution that makes my heart sing, especially on this powerful rendition of "Cottontail". He also played with Jimmy Blanton and Ben Webster on the original "Cottontail", on May 28, 1940.
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Post by bassman on Feb 21, 2022 13:59:36 GMT
Top 20 jazz drummers? In my own personal list, Ellington's Sonny Greer would be in the top ten. We all know that together with bassist Jimmy Blanton, he was able to create incredible intensity on tracks like "Jack The Bear", "Harlem Air Shaft", and all the rest of them. However, what really made my jaw drop was when I first realized that he was born long before Jo Jones (b. 1911), Gene Krupa (b. 1909), his own boss Duke Ellington (b. 1899) and even before good old Baby Dodds (b. 1898): The year was 1895!
So, in spite of being one of the true pioneers (“I was the first one that tried the hi-hat"), his drumming always sounded fresh and "modern" compared to his contemporaries. He was a drum virtuoso like no other. One more thing about Sonny Greer.
Conventional wisdom is that "... in 1950, Ellington responded to his drinking and occasional unreliability by taking a second drummer, Butch Ballard, with them on a tour of Scandinavia. This enraged Greer, and the consequent argument led to their permanent estrangement." (Wikipedia)
What I didn't know, and what seems to me most extraordinary, is that Sonny recorded with Duke as late as 1962 (The Private Collection Volume 7).
So here is Sonny Greer with Duke in 1962, in perfect sound, and in perfect shape:
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dg
Full Member
Posts: 125
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Post by dg on Aug 10, 2022 18:48:46 GMT
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Post by Trainman on Aug 17, 2022 22:25:30 GMT
Did I miss someone using brushes? There is some art in that.
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Post by bassman on Aug 18, 2022 6:50:50 GMT
Did I miss someone using brushes? There is some art in that. Good point. Brushes, among other things, are essential in playing slow while still creating incredible tension. It took jazz people a long time to achieve this goal. In my opinion, it didn't happen until the mid-fifties: Philly Joe Jones in Miles' classic quintet, in close cooperation with Garland and Chambers. Blakey was still - and would remain - searching. I am still talking about slow tempi, of course.
More generally, there have been lots of brilliant brushes since the days of Sonny Greer, Denzil Best, etc. - Elvin Jones could do a wonderful job (Prestige 7134). Which of them was best? Ridiculous.
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Post by Makhnoboy on Aug 31, 2022 23:01:11 GMT
Anybody who's seen a classic Louis Bellson solo MUST know that he has NO peers in the world of drumming! These drumming debates tend to be nonsense, especially when trying to compare the technical complexity of jazz drumming, with the usually no more than basic back up drumming of rock music. It's just plain stupid. Yehudi Menuhin said Stephane Grappelli could do things on the violin that he never could. Louis Bellson and John Bonham. The former was a one off genius; the latter was a brilliant rock drummer. There's a clear message there.
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Post by bassman on Sept 1, 2022 7:08:15 GMT
Hi Makhnoboy! I saw Louie Bellson live a couple of times - both with his orchestra and in a small group context. He was brilliant, he was able to put up a tremendous show, no doubt. He had this fantastic hit, "Skin Deep", with the Ellington Orchestra - but it was Sam Woodyard who turned out to be the ideal choice for Duke's incomparable 1956-1962 band ... It's a matter of context and style, isn't it? That's why you're so right about the Menuhin/Grappelli comparison. But it works the other way as well, right? Why in the world, say, would Rubinstein have tried to play like Monk? Technically, it would have been easy for him. But it still wouldn't sound like Monk. (And would he have cared to copy that missing note in the arpeggio ...? )
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Post by gregorythefish on Sept 1, 2022 14:42:37 GMT
bellson's technical abilities are not in question, but you cannot argued that his popularity has heavily waned. i don't think that's his fault, though. time makes even the greatest heroes forgettable. in 100 years, coltrane will not be listened to nearly as often as he is talked about. we see this now with ellington, for example.
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Post by dottorjazz on Sept 1, 2022 17:34:36 GMT
time makes even the greatest heroes forgettable. in 100 years, coltrane will not be listened to nearly as often as he is talked about. we see this now with ellington, for example. hope you're wrong with Trane. correct with Ellington, but it's listeners' fault. Bach, Ludwig and Amadè don't suffer after hundreds years.nor Shakespeare, Dante, Hemingway, Picasso, Michelangelo, Van Gogh...REAL Art will live forever, at least in my heart (and hope not to be alone).
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Post by bassman on Feb 12, 2023 16:35:06 GMT
In "Jazz on Record - A Critical Guide to the First 50 Years: 1917-1967" (London 1968), one Alan Zeffert describes Gene Krupa as while not being "primarily concerned with rabble rousing, [ ... ] he was never a subtle musician, his volume was gererally forte and though he could swing well enough, his tempos were not always of the steadiest", which sums up most of the prejudices held against him. I have never bought into this kind of over-simplification, though I do understand why some people have come to this conclusion.
Talking about tempos, I remember listening to the Carnegie Hall version of "Sing Sing Sing" for the first time. I did perceive this variation in time, but it didn't, and doesn't, bother me because it obviously didn't bother Goodman's crew either. On the contrary: When Gene slows down slightly during his solo, he does it for a reason. My impression still is of him trying to convey a certain heaviness, like dragging those mighty, heavy-sounding drums across the stage in front of an audience that is obviously, and audibly, admiring this feat.
I would call his style "elastic" on occasion, and I can hear traces of that elasticism in drummers such as Louie Bellson and even Mel Lewis. And am I stretching it when Elvin Jones or Tony Williams pop up in a much later, but related, context?
Why return to good old Gene Krupa? Chance would have it that I found a Verve disc on Youtube I had neither seen nor heard before: Krupa in the company of the élite of late nineteen-fifties studio (jazz!) musicians, playing a hit parade of classical (!) music - differently. The focus is on percussion. This is not jazz, for most of the time. But I do enjoy every note Krupa is playing. The sound, luckily, is very agreeable too. And yes, Gene Krupa was, indeed, a "subtle musician".
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