Vinnie Colaiuta

Re: Vinnie Colauita

colaiuta is a great drummer...he gets better and better..
saw him 20 years ago at frankfurter musikmesse doing clinics for
yamaha...his drumming was great, but as a person he spoiled and was
very unfriendly to the audience...
thought he "was really on"...
remember some interviews from the 80ies, i think one in drums-&percussion,
a german drummer-magazine, where he states gadd was no influence on him...and
some other obvisouly strange stuff...

nevertheless,
bought a cd "Chris Botti - 2005 - To Love Again" , very tasteful drumming with brushes..
great cd btw
 
Re: Vinnie Colauita

his drumming was great, but as a person he spoiled and was
very unfriendly to the audience... thought he "was really on"...

Remember, he's a non-spotlight musician put into an unfamiliar and uncomfortable situation and most of us would probably come across as unfriendly and/or spoiled. I remember the Zildjian Day in Boston he was very nervous with the audience.

remember some interviews from the 80ies, i think one in drums-&percussion,
a german drummer-magazine, where he states gadd was no influence on him...and
some other obvisouly strange stuff...

Tony Williams was his biggest influence and it's quite possible that Gadd wasn't. I don't see why he'd say something like that if it wasn't true. What other strange stuff did he say?
 
Re: Vinnie Colauita

A section from his 1987 Modern Drummer interview...

RF: What kind of bad habits?

VC: My left hand is kind of funky.

RF: How so?

VC: The posture of my left hand is not so good. My sitting posture is weird now. I was going through a little changing thing before. It was a period that had to do with my changing the way I approach the drums, and it changed the way I thought about playing.

RF: Attitude?

VC: Oh yeah, it was an attitude - a concept. It made me feel a certain way, and I just wanted to approach the drums from that angle when I played, which is part of the reason I sat so low.

RF: You're speaking in the past tense.

VC: I've raised my seat height.

RF: Why?

VC: First of all, because I was starting to develop some lower-back problems. One night, I made a move while I was playing, and I was frozen still. I screamed out, and it was horrible. So I've been gradually changing it; I'm still changing it, because I want to get better leverage. My right foot feels weird, which I think is partially because it's still healing since I fractured it.


Sitting too low is not good for your knees and lower back. When you sit low and kick the bass drum or high-hat pedal, more reaction force comes over to your knees, your hip bones and your back, and it will hurt them.
If you sit higher, the reaction force will not come up to your knees and back that much.

And I guess it depends on how you play the pedal...I mean heel-up or heel-down. If you play mainly heel-up, higher seat will help you to kick the pedal more easily because you can use the weight of your legs. If you play heel-down, maybe lower seat is more comfortable in kicking the bass drum.
 
Re: Vinnie Colauita

The "Gadd was no influence on me" comment seems more than a bit off. I've heard Vinnie do the Gadd fill (you know.. 16th note triplets foot snare snare snare hightom lowtom) a ton, and him and Zappa sorta made fun of Gadd's omnipresence back in the day at the end of Frank's (arguably) most famous album, Joe's Garage.

Maybe Vinnie didn't actively listen to and study Steve, but at the least he definitely did copy some things from him in the beginning of his career.
 
Re: Vinnie Colauita

I think I know what fill you're talking about. We associate it with Gadd, but HE may have ripped it off from someone but was the first to have it heard on a hit record. Vinnie may have stolen it from someone else as well. Gadd was influencing a lot of people. Musicians rip off everybody. Look at Rush and Tom Sawyer. Every drummer I knew in 1980 was ripping off Neil Peart thinking he came up with those fills. Then you go an listen to John Bonham and hear it played 10 years earlier. Heck, he could have stolen it from someone.

I can understand why he'd say that Gadd wasn't an influence. He really wasn't listening to anything Gadd was playing. He listened to Tony Williams and Elvin Jones and Buddy. They became his influences. Tony Williams was such an influence that he's got the same yellow Gretsch set.

I think part of the problem disassociating Vinnie and Gadd is right from Vinnie's page on this site. "A producer once told Vinnie Colaiuta that if you threw Tony Williams and Steve Gadd into a blender, Vinnie would be the tasteful concoction."

I'm still thinking about the Gadd/Zappa thing. Could he be making fun of studio musicians in general (i.e. Yo Cats)? Or Vinnie wanting to be studio player (clone) LIKE Gadd? I've heard different spins on that.

The "Gadd was no influence on me" comment seems more than a bit off. I've heard Vinnie do the Gadd fill (you know.. 16th note triplets foot snare snare snare hightom lowtom) a ton, and him and Zappa sorta made fun of Gadd's omnipresence back in the day at the end of Frank's (arguably) most famous album, Joe's Garage.

Maybe Vinnie didn't actively listen to and study Steve, but at the least he definitely did copy some things from him in the beginning of his career.
 
Re: Vinnie Colauita

Oh thank you, mlehnertz! I didn't know about this Vinnie interview! So he actually had a back problem...

As for his comment on Gadd, I guess just he was young :)
He said "Steve Gadd changed my life" at the American Drummer Achievement Award and told the story about he and Steve Smith riding a bus to NY to hear Gadd playing.
Well, actually Vinnie said the same thing like "Buddy Rich changed my life" at the Buddy Rich Memorial Scholarship Concert, and Vinnie and Steve Smith also riding a bus to NY to hear Tony Williams (they went to hear Herbie's first VSOP concert in 1976).

Or maybe his unfriendliness came from his thought about those clinics. When I talked w/ Vinnie about 2 years ago he told me he didin't like a clinic with a large audience (just like Zildjian Days) because it's more like a show than a clinic. He said he wanted to do a real clinic, with a small group of serious students only. He was even thinking about doing a clinic at high school.
 
Re: Vinnie Colauita

Or maybe his unfriendliness came from his thought about those clinics. When I talked w/ Vinnie about 2 years ago he told me he didin't like a clinic with a large audience (just like Zildjian Days) because it's more like a show than a clinic. He said he wanted to do a real clinic, with a small group of serious students only. He was even thinking about doing a clinic at high school.

I can totally understand that. I've actually been discussing this exact point today with Jazzgregg, off-forum. I think in general there's only really three kinds of clinics:

1) Clinics given by people who can't speak in public, but try anyway. These usually suck, because while the drummer (or any other musician, for that matter) might have a lot to say they're really unsuccessful at saying it, and any time they spend off the kit is really just time wasted.

2) Clinics given by people who can speak in public, but different audience members are either bored (if they're any good) or completely lost (if they're not) depending on whether the clinic is being pitched at a simplistic or advanced level. These stand the best chance of being any good depending on who you are and what's being pitched, but even then you have to tolerate horrible, horrible Q&A sessions where audience members ask questions that make you want to cry tears of rage at their sheer pointlessness.

3) Clinics given by people who just shut up and play. These are fine in that they don't suffer the problems of the other two kinds of clinic, but generally speaking I'd rather hear most drummers play with a band anyway. It's not like I have trouble hearing drums, and there are very few drummers I can think of that I'd be willing to watch play unaccompanied for hours. And if somebody's just going to play to a backing track I'd rather have the band there anyway.

I can totally understand why Vinnie wouldn't enjoy the environment. He's either going to have to dumb down what he has to say to a stupendous degree (the number of people on the planet who can even figure out what the hell Vinnie is talking about when he gets going on a topic he finds interesting has to be pretty small), talk to 1% of the room about stuff that the other 99% are going to totally miss the point of or play things that he'd rather be playing in a musical situation. Why do it?
 
Re: Vinnie Colauita

I can understand why he'd say that Gadd wasn't an influence. He really wasn't listening to anything Gadd was playing...

I'm still thinking about the Gadd/Zappa thing. Could he be making fun of studio musicians in general (i.e. Yo Cats)? Or Vinnie wanting to be studio player (clone) LIKE Gadd? I've heard different spins on that.

On the first part, I know Vinnie was digging Gadd by 1978 (at the beginning of his time with Zappa), because if you watch the video clips jonescrusher posted above, you can see Vinnie is wearing a Stuff t-shirt, which was Gadd's defacto NYC club band back then. So he definitely knew of and was seriously checking out Gadd's work back then..

And as to what regard Zappa held Gadd in, who the heck knows... he makes no intonation one way or the other on Green Rosetta. My guess is that Frank had nothing against Steve musically or personally, except for the fact that he was literally all over the place at the time and thus was an easy target for any kind of jabs, good or bad.

But I haven't heard any spins on Frank's views on this topic either way, so please divulge--
 
Re: Vinnie Colauita

And the Zildjian Day in Boston this exact situation came up. He was describing something about polyrhythms and odd time and the audience was totally clueless.

I can totally understand why Vinnie wouldn't enjoy the environment. He's either going to have to dumb down what he has to say to a stupendous degree (the number of people on the planet who can even figure out what the hell Vinnie is talking about when he gets going on a topic he finds interesting has to be pretty small), talk to 1% of the room about stuff that the other 99% are going to totally miss the point of...
 
Re: Vinnie Colauita

The other idea is that Frank is busting Vinnie chops and that Vinnie is "Steve Gadd's clone flown in at triple scale no less" but can't find the beat. Also a jab at the studio guys (and audience?) in that "anybody that buys this album doesn't care if there are good musicians on it"?

It makes sense to a degree.

And as to what regard Zappa held Gadd in, who the heck knows... he makes no intonation one way or the other on Green Rosetta. My guess is that Frank had nothing against Steve musically or personally, except for the fact that he was literally all over the place at the time and thus was an easy target for any kind of jabs, good or bad.

But I haven't heard any spins on Frank's views on this topic either way, so please divulge--

But does this make Gadd an influence or is it simply someone that he went to see at a gig with Steve Smith? I'm not sure. I could go and see Virgil Donati, be impressed with his playing beyond belief, but he'll never be much of a drumming influence for me. Maybe he simply dug the band as a whole and not simply Gadd?

Everyone likes to compare Vinnie to Gadd and it often seems like Vinnie wants to distance himself from the comparison. Maybe that was the meaning in the original comment? Who knows.

On the first part, I know Vinnie was digging Gadd by 1978 (at the beginning of his time with Zappa), because if you watch the video clips jonescrusher posted above, you can see Vinnie is wearing a Stuff t-shirt, which was Gadd's defacto NYC club band back then. So he definitely knew of and was seriously checking out Gadd's work back then..
 
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Re: Vinnie Colauita

I'm a bit surprised that you guys put Weckl in the same category as Gadd and Colaiuta. In my opinion Weckly doesn't play nearly as creatively as the other two.

Look at the achievements of each. I have to say that I liked what Weckl did with the Chick Corea Electric Band years back, but outside of that there isn't much to write home about.

Gadd and Colaiuta on the other hand have recorded some of the most creative and musically tastiest drumming you can find.


Sorry Weckly fans.
He's still better than me...
 
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Re: Vinnie Colauita

I can totally understand that. I've actually been discussing this exact point today with Jazzgregg, off-forum. I think in general there's only really three kinds of clinics:

1) Clinics given by people who can't speak in public, but try anyway. These usually suck, because while the drummer (or any other musician, for that matter) might have a lot to say they're really unsuccessful at saying it, and any time they spend off the kit is really just time wasted.

2) Clinics given by people who can speak in public, but different audience members are either bored (if they're any good) or completely lost (if they're not) depending on whether the clinic is being pitched at a simplistic or advanced level. These stand the best chance of being any good depending on who you are and what's being pitched, but even then you have to tolerate horrible, horrible Q&A sessions where audience members ask questions that make you want to cry tears of rage at their sheer pointlessness.

3) Clinics given by people who just shut up and play. These are fine in that they don't suffer the problems of the other two kinds of clinic, but generally speaking I'd rather hear most drummers play with a band anyway. It's not like I have trouble hearing drums, and there are very few drummers I can think of that I'd be willing to watch play unaccompanied for hours. And if somebody's just going to play to a backing track I'd rather have the band there anyway.

I can totally understand why Vinnie wouldn't enjoy the environment. He's either going to have to dumb down what he has to say to a stupendous degree (the number of people on the planet who can even figure out what the hell Vinnie is talking about when he gets going on a topic he finds interesting has to be pretty small), talk to 1% of the room about stuff that the other 99% are going to totally miss the point of or play things that he'd rather be playing in a musical situation. Why do it?

Yeah, and probably most of the clinics today are 2), and in a sense it's a kind of publicity tour. But Vinnie doesn't need to do it and doesn't want to do it.
I guess Vinnie will be happy to do "master classes" for serious, advanced students only. Actually he told me he wanted to do it. Or just play music with a band like he did at 2000 Modern Drummer Festival...it's going to be ok.
 
Re: Vinnie Colauita

And the Zildjian Day in Boston this exact situation came up. He was describing something about polyrhythms and odd time and the audience was totally clueless.

Just the same situation happened in Tokyo, too in the late '80s (I wasn't there but I heard about it later). Vinnie demonstrated his "superimposed metric modulation" using a sequencer, very odd and sick stuff, but the audience couldn't understand at all what he was doing.
 
Re: Vinnie Colauita

you have to tolerate horrible, horrible Q&A sessions where audience members ask questions that make you want to cry tears of rage at their sheer pointlessness.

My favourite example, asked by a middle-aged, hairy hippy chick at LAMA during a Marco Minnemann clinic:

"Do you ever have any trouble mounting things?"
 
Re: Vinnie Colauita

I'd be interested to see how many "serious, advanced students" would actually understand him. At least understand him to the point of being able to apply what he was telling them to the set.

I guess Vinnie will be happy to do "master classes" for serious, advanced students only. Actually he told me he wanted to do it.
 
u know what..? I know he's one of the greatest drummers today , but i just can't like him. I guess he's not my style. weird.

Funny thing, though... you've probably heard hundreds of soundtracks and pop songs that feature his drumming and you don't even realize it.

That's the genius of Vinnie. Not his crazy polyrhythmic chops, but his ability to play ANYTHING in any situation for any artist.
 
And in one take. Now that's genius.

Funny thing, though... you've probably heard hundreds of soundtracks and pop songs that feature his drumming and you don't even realize it.

That's the genius of Vinnie. Not his crazy polyrhythmic chops, but his ability to play ANYTHING in any situation for any artist.
 
Re: Vinnie Colauita

I tried desperately to get tickets to see Herbie Hancock with Vinnie on drums in London. I failed and the show has passed. Did anyone go to this or the previous shows? I know someone mentioned that they were going but they haven't said anything since.

I must know what it was like!

I am GUTTED that I didn't go. GUTTED!
 
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