J
jay norem
Guest
You see all the time here where people are saying that they need a new this or that, or a bigger kit or a another couple of cymbals or whatever, and that, of course, is cool. But I think that sometimes we forget what it is we really need to do this drumming thing.
So I'll tell you a story.
There's a jazz drummer in Atlanta. He's a good friend of mine and a great, great jazz drummer. He's not at all versatile; he only plays jazz, that's all he's ever done. Now this guy has an old Yamaha Hip-Gig kit, he got it when those first came out. It's way old and way used. It's seen better days for sure.
A couple of years ago I was putting on a weekly jazz show at a club here. It was a rock club but I got them to give me Wednesday nights to do jazz, so I got Bernard's band. They were straight-up hard-bop and it was a great show, excellent band, big stage, cool lights, good sound system, the works.
Now Bernard worked a day job as a dry-wall installer on construction sites. He was very coy about his age but I'd put him in his sixties. He grabbed work wherever he could find it, but it wasn't very much. The truth is the guy didn't have much money. And his kit was pretty ragged. I noticed one night that he'd had to duct-tape one of his cymbal stands to keep it together, so the next week I gave him one of my old cymbal stands. He was a little embarassed but he needed it, and he accepted it with much dignity.
It broke my heart to see how few people I could get into those shows, but every Wednesday he played his heart out. He plays a lot like Elvin Jones, lots of fire and all that old-school technique that swings like a demon. A couple of times he had to pawn his drums just to get a little dough, so I brought mine for him to play. It was a real treat to get to hear a master jazz drummer play my kit. Every Wednesday night I'd go up to side of the stage just to watch him play, to try to learn from watching him.
Then the club manager told me that they were going to sell the place so that was the end of that. Bernard kept putting up dry-wall, he lost his band and took what few gigs he could get, always playing on that crappy old ramshackle kit of his.
But the sound he got out of those drums! Magnificent! Those little old drums sounded majestic under his hands. His old brown cymbals sounded brilliant. He knew how to bring the sound out.
The happy ending to this story is that he got a call from someone he knew in New York, and he's moving up there this month to take over the drum chair in a band that plays all over Manhattan and the boroughs. I'm looking forward to visiting him up there.
The thing is, he made great music with a kit that most of us would be loath to play. The damn thing was close to falling apart, but he made it happen. Something, perhaps, for us all to think about when we start getting too obsessed about loads of shiny new gear.
So I'll tell you a story.
There's a jazz drummer in Atlanta. He's a good friend of mine and a great, great jazz drummer. He's not at all versatile; he only plays jazz, that's all he's ever done. Now this guy has an old Yamaha Hip-Gig kit, he got it when those first came out. It's way old and way used. It's seen better days for sure.
A couple of years ago I was putting on a weekly jazz show at a club here. It was a rock club but I got them to give me Wednesday nights to do jazz, so I got Bernard's band. They were straight-up hard-bop and it was a great show, excellent band, big stage, cool lights, good sound system, the works.
Now Bernard worked a day job as a dry-wall installer on construction sites. He was very coy about his age but I'd put him in his sixties. He grabbed work wherever he could find it, but it wasn't very much. The truth is the guy didn't have much money. And his kit was pretty ragged. I noticed one night that he'd had to duct-tape one of his cymbal stands to keep it together, so the next week I gave him one of my old cymbal stands. He was a little embarassed but he needed it, and he accepted it with much dignity.
It broke my heart to see how few people I could get into those shows, but every Wednesday he played his heart out. He plays a lot like Elvin Jones, lots of fire and all that old-school technique that swings like a demon. A couple of times he had to pawn his drums just to get a little dough, so I brought mine for him to play. It was a real treat to get to hear a master jazz drummer play my kit. Every Wednesday night I'd go up to side of the stage just to watch him play, to try to learn from watching him.
Then the club manager told me that they were going to sell the place so that was the end of that. Bernard kept putting up dry-wall, he lost his band and took what few gigs he could get, always playing on that crappy old ramshackle kit of his.
But the sound he got out of those drums! Magnificent! Those little old drums sounded majestic under his hands. His old brown cymbals sounded brilliant. He knew how to bring the sound out.
The happy ending to this story is that he got a call from someone he knew in New York, and he's moving up there this month to take over the drum chair in a band that plays all over Manhattan and the boroughs. I'm looking forward to visiting him up there.
The thing is, he made great music with a kit that most of us would be loath to play. The damn thing was close to falling apart, but he made it happen. Something, perhaps, for us all to think about when we start getting too obsessed about loads of shiny new gear.