The Grand Master Buddy Rich

I keep the artist and the person separate.

He was a brilliant drummer.
 
No matter how you feel about his persona and ego, Buddy was the greatest drummer who ever lived. No one can take that away from him.
 
With all due respect, Bob...

Buddy Rich was a great drummer, highly influential, a great pioneer, a great showman, and a great musician.

But the greatest drummer that ever lived?

No. Not anymore. There are a number of drummers alive today who would absolutely smoke him with their repertoire of ability and their musicality, their open-mindedness, and their creativity.

This is not to take away anything from Buddy at all, but to say that he is the greatest drummer who ever lived is an affront to all the drummers in the world who have moved above and beyond everything Buddy Rich did.
 
No. Not anymore. There are a number of drummers alive today who would absolutely smoke him with their repertoire of ability and their musicality, their open-mindedness, and their creativity.
I'm not sure how you're defining greatness. Taken in context, I would argue that nobody who has ever lived would "smoke" Buddy in any of those regards.

The drummers alive today have the benefit of access to everything anyone has done on the instrument for the past 90 years or so. They can take what's come before them and add something new to the lexicon. They're standing on the shoulders of Buddy and what he created. Buddy created an entire canon of work that drummers still study today.

Buddy didn't directly influence me all that much, but I have no problem with people extolling his greatness. There are things he did musically that I don't believe have been done as well by anyone else, before or since.
 
You have to add up the total career achievements of Buddy.
Decade after decade of playing at a super high consistent level.
He commanded the stage. His quirks were part of his charm.
He never stopped. He had heart attacks and he didn't even slow down!
His ability was above human.
Im sorry, but no matter how you slice it, Buddy comes out on top.
Every drummer today owes a debt to Buddy.
 
You have to add up the total career achievements of Buddy.
Decade after decade of playing at a super high consistent level.
He commanded the stage. His quirks were part of his charm.
He never stopped. He had heart attacks and he didn't even slow down!
His ability was above human.
Im sorry, but no matter how you slice it, Buddy comes out on top.
Every drummer today owes a debt to Buddy.

There is a video of Buddy playing absolutely incredible in his later years. But he looked awful, almost like he was deathly ill and ready to keel over. Like you said, he had something almost supernatural about him that allowed him to play at such a high level no matter the obstacle.
 
Never saw him and band live, but I TRIED to play along with his LP tracks on the West Side Story album when I was learning back in 1966 or so. I loved how he drove the big band. I searched this site a bit, and couldn't find this, so I apologize if this recording of Buddy cussing out his band has been posted before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omID1prJHFo
 
There are a number of drummers alive today who would absolutely smoke him with their repertoire of ability and their musicality, their open-mindedness, and their creativity.

You can't put something like that out there and not back it up.

And when did open-mindedness define musical greatness?

Another jazz great, Louis Armstrong, had an intense dislike of bebop - did that make him any less great?
 
Read an autobiography of Buddy Rich written by Mel Torme. He was a quirky guy for sure and I think even his friends had a hard time figuring him out sometimes. I had the pleasure of seeing him in person in 1978. I was, and am still in awe. The absolute best in my opinion.
 
I don't remember too much of Buddy's personality, I can't recall ever really "liking him" very much particularly, but he sure could play the hell out of those drums...
 
You can't put something like that out there and not back it up.

Ignorance of the existence of world-class drummers is not my fault.

Here are five drummers off the top of my head who are either technically or musically equal or superior, or both. Although musicality is subjective, so I don't really care about that side of the equation given the opinions on musicality I often hear from the under-skilled:

Virgil Donati
Thomas Lang
Mike Mangini
Dave Weckl
Vinnie Colaiuta
 
Although musicality is subjective, so I don't really care about that side of the equation given the opinions on musicality I often hear from the under-skilled:

You don't care about the musicality side of the equation? Really? Without it, all the technical facility in the world counts for nothing.

I can't believe you're attempting to have a serious debate while being so dismissive of the single most fundamental element of all. I just genuinely don't believe we can start making any sort of a comparison, especially with a guy like Buddy, without caring about that side of the equation. Ignoring musicality does a huge disservice to his entire body of work and does little more than drag the entire argument down to a pure mechanical level. And that's just not what music or musicianship is about.
 
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I said musicality is subjective. You might not like Dave Weckl's sound, but I do. Does that make you right? No, it means your opinion is that you don't like him (I'm not saying whether you do or don't). And that is why I said I don't care.

With that being said, I like how you ignored my list of drummers who are better than Buddy Rich. Dismissing the point I was making because you are unable to see the big picture is poor form.
 
With that being said, I like how you ignored my list of drummers who are better than Buddy Rich. Dismissing the point I was making because you are unable to see the big picture is poor form.

Hold your horses, I wasn't dismissing the list you presented at all. It was actually seeing a guy like Thomas Lang on your list that prompted my line of thought to begin with.

Ultimately, I see why you'd want to ignore something as fundamental as musicality when pitching that particular example against a guy like Rich. Because it's the only way you could ever make a direct comparison between the two and still be able to maintain a straight face while you do it.

Lang is a technical monster. I have no argument there, but you're kidding yourself if you think that that one narrow element alone makes him "better" than a guy who was at the pinnacle of his craft for so long. It was as much the musical expression that put all the greats of the past (including Buddy) in the revered positions in the history of the instrument that they enjoy today. To ignore it in order to score some points in what amounts to nothing more than a schoolyard pissing contest is just a fools errand.

Look, I really have no issue with your list and my point is not to find examples to diminish it. Lang just stood out of the crowd is all and I thought he in particular, made a great case study in exactly why musicality should be considered. I won't deny that those guys have built on what came before and taken it to heights that would have been hard to imagine by the likes of Krupa and Buddy in their heyday. I've long said that Vinnie is the most "complete" drummer in the history of the modern drumset. Of everyone that's ever picked up sticks, no one seems to have a broader understanding of musical style and the ability to express that variety, than him. But I'd never be so bold as to turn a blind eye to the very reason he enjoys that position in the first place. He's that complete purely because his very musicality allows him to tastefully apply the technicality. The latter is there to serve the former. And in Vinnie's case it most certainly does. But without musicality, a drummer doesn't deserve to be on any list to begin with. There's just no way one can dismiss it out of hand and still make a serious argument. Take that criteria away and all we're left with is glorified WFD. Hardly a compelling argument for well rounded virtuosity.

No mate, it's not a matter of ignoring your list at all. It's a matter of defending the most vital element of them all. The very reason to bother to develop technical facility to begin with. It simply should be taken into account, as it's the embodiment of what we do and why we do it. You can't just chose to ignore it for the purpose of trying to win an argument. That would be the ultimate example of being "unable to see the big picture" as you put it and IMHO for a musician to suggest we ignore something so vitally fundamental because it suits his argument to do so, would be the ultimate in poor form here.
 
Thank goodness, you said something that is reasonable and logical. I agree with you. And in some way, I agree with you about Lang - to be honest I'm not a huge fan of his playing, as good as he is. I think that is more to do with the styles he plays. Perhaps if he had different influences or showcased a different side of things, then I'd feel differently.

The real essence of the point I was making though, is that as great as Buddy Rich was, to say he's the 'greatest drummer ever' or anything like that is an affront to those who have come since and who have pushed the boundaries above and beyond what Buddy was ever capable of. It would be like saying that the Spitfire is the greatest single-seat fighter plane ever made and that nothing that can or will come since can possibly be as good or better. Again, I'm not at all dismissing his achievements or the fact that he was a great pioneer of drumming.
 
When I watch other great drummers play with the Buddy Rich Band, I love ther playing. I love there interpretations of the tunes that Buddy's band made famous.
But, and this is a big but for me. I can close my eyes and tell that they are not Buddy Rich behind the kit. No one can play exactly like Buddy.

People who wouldn't even know what part of a drum to hit know who Buddy Rich was. He was that famous! He could repeatedly be a primary guest on The Tonight Show with Carson! Come on, how many drummers could be that well known and interesting enough to be a recurring primary guest on a late night show of that stature?
Buddy was so unique and interesting that he had world wide recognition like no other drummer before or since.

No drummer has ever made an impact like Buddy. That is why he is The greatest drummer who ever lived.

By the way, I denied that Buddy was the greatest for many years. I felt that someone had to be greater. Max Roach? Jean Krupa? Carl Palmer? John Bonham? Keith Moon? etc, etc
In the end I concluded that Buddy was king.
 
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When I watch other great drummers play with the Buddy Rich Band, I love ther playing. I love there interpretations of the tunes that Buddy's band made famous.
But, and this is a big but for me. I can close my eyes and tell that they are not Buddy Rich behind the kit. No one can play exactly like Buddy.

Yes, that's right. Nobody can play exactly like Buddy, because they play like themselves. Why were you expecting them to sound like Buddy?

People who wouldn't even know what part of a drum to hit know who Buddy Rich was. He was that famous! He could repeatedly be a primary guest on The Tonight Show with Carson! Come on, how many drummers could be that well known and interesting enough to be a recurring primary guest on a late night show of that stature?
Buddy was so unique and interesting that he had world wide recognition like no other drummer before or since.
I doubt it, I reckon more people know about Travis Barker than they do Buddy Rich.

No drummer has ever made an impact like Buddy. That is why he is The greatest drummer who ever lived.
But that's only a very narrow viewpoint. There is more to greatness than simply being influential.

By the way, I denied that Buddy was the greatest for many years. I felt that someone had to be greater. Max Roach? Jean Krupa? Carl Palmer? John Bonham? Keith Moon? etc, etc
In the end I concluded that Buddy was king.

Fast forward 30 years and compare Buddy to some of the guys (like the ones I mentioned) around today and you'll see that he is simply one more name in a long list of amazingly talented and influential drummers. Please refer back to my Spitfire analogy.

And with that, that's all I have to contribute to this topic.
 
Here are five drummers off the top of my head who are either technically or musically equal or superior, or both. Although musicality is subjective, so I don't really care about that side of the equation given the opinions on musicality I often hear from the under-skilled:

Virgil Donati
Thomas Lang
Mike Mangini
Dave Weckl
Vinnie Colaiuta

And without Buddy Rich and others of his time and after, one could argue there would be no Dave Weckl, Thomas Lang or Vinnie Colaiuta. Especially when it's very clear that one generation is influenced by the next and so on.

On a side note, Buddy was an a-hole, but he was just as hard on himself as he was on his band. When he felt he had a bad show, he would go back and yell at himself. And you're absolutely correct that if one of his band members had an off night, he most certainly heard about it from Buddy.

I think a lot of people mistake drive and dedication for being an a-hole. One could argue they are one in the same. And you could also that being an a-hole was the entire reason why he was one of the best.

Peace, Defender
 
"I doubt it, I reckon more people know about Travis Barker than they do Buddy Rich."

Don't put much money on this one. And, then you follow up with this?

"But that's only a very narrow viewpoint."

I really do hate these discussions because there is no best, period. There is no objective means to come to a conclusion of who is best. There is who you like best and that is purely opinion.
 
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