Does anyone know who Chris studied with? Im really interested to know more about his background..
From the MD issue I have
MD: Who were your influences in terms of developing your technique?
Chris: My first teacher was albums. I started playing with albums when I got my first drumset at the age of five or six. I did that for years. Then I had a middle school teacher, Craig Green in Houston, who was really important in terms of learning technique. He was a mentor and the first person who I saw playing that made me go "Wow!" every day.
I studied with Craig at one school for a year, and when he transferred across town because of the magnet school program, I transferred to that next school just so I could keep studying with him. He was real thorough and made sure we understood the importance of rudiments, sight-reading, four-way coordination, different time signatures, and everything like that.
Through Craig, I met Sebastian Whittaker. Sebastian is one of those guys who never really got the shine he deserves, but everybody who goes through Houston knows who he is. To this day, Sebastian is that dude where if you're on a gig and he walks in, you automatically get a little nervous to play in front of him. He's a guy who could play anything. You can take any rudiment in the book, and he will play it backwards, forward, and with all kinds of variations. He'll take any rudiment and will go from playing it real slow, where it almost sounds like he can't play, to super-fast, and he'll go from a whisper to a roar and back down to a whisper without losing any speed. And he did that using the over-size marching-corps drumsticks. He could go through different drummers and solos, especially stuff from Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, and Philly Joe. He could emulate any legendary drummer's style.