My Top Drummers

OK, time to clarify what I think makes a great drummer.  It's all about the skill, the rhythm, the tone and the ability to play off the other members of the band.  It's not about flash, flying sticks or flailing around looking cool.  I was not impressed with Kieran Gaffney on Britain's Got Talent.  I played Wipe Out better than he did after only drumming for a year when I was 14.  It's not a hard song to play - just fast and loud.

Here is my list of top drummers - not in any particular order.  Many are jazz drummers because rock & roll doesn't need a lot of talent to count to a beat of four over and over.  The exceptions to that statement are the studion guys who make four beats sound perfect.

Levon Helm of The Band for his ability to sing and play at the same time with songs that used a funky back-beat rhythm. Also for contributing so much to the music scene starting way before Woodstock and ending only with his death this year.  He was a cancer survivor in the later years and kept touring with his own bands.  

http://youtu.be/cdvcIqC1DJw

Peter Erskine - one of the all time greatest drum technicians, known for his jazz work with Weather Report and Steps Ahead. As a drum educator, he has trained more drummers than you can imagine.  

http://youtu.be/B2qlsrfuAO8

http://youtu.be/y8FIVkg6q5g?list=RDy8FIVkg6q5g

Elvin Jones -  another powerhouse legend, played with John Coltrane for many years.

http://youtu.be/JWQjqWiGzh8

Gerry Conway - Fairport Convention, Fotheringay, Jethro Tull and extensive studio work .  The leading drummer for the British/Celtic folk rock scene for 40 years.  

http://youtu.be/hZnys72xhuc

Tony Williams - Miles Davis, Lifetime - Tony was a drummer, band leader, orchestral composer and wrote many of the tracks that his bands recorded.  He died of a heart attack in 1997 at the age of 52.

http://youtu.be/QcKgpPvzi18

http://youtu.be/9uT-rHrgUnY

http://youtu.be/uFCJs_WvsG4

Don Henley of the Eagles for drumming and singing at the same time.  In the later years, he copped out and used a backup drummer when it was his turn to sing. Also because he is such a good business man who made Mega-Millions for the band with Glenn Frey as his business partner. Watch the documentary on Netflix 'The History Of The Eagles' to see him in the early years.

Top Craziest Drummer goes to the late Keith Moon of The Who for his wild playing and destruction of the drums during each concert.  Not a great drummer but a great showman and true maniac. Another rock start who died at 27 after a short life in the fast lane.  

http://youtu.be/MVa4q-YVjD8

http://youtu.be/WT5uAIPFft8

http://youtu.be/YROWNNdRDPI?list=RDEl6mMTvEGdw

Top Contributor to Pop Music Hits of the 60’s and 70’s is Hal Blaine.  In March 2000, Hal Blaine was one of the first five sidemen inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his work in the studio with singers from Frank Sinatra to the Beach Boys to the Mamas and Pappas. see his long discography here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Blaine#Discography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Blaine

http://youtu.be/JNMimNlG9oY

Live Music - Carrie Rodriguez & Ben Sollee

It was an wonderful evening where no instrument had more than four strings, acoustic or electric. At the intimate Stage One theater in Fairfield, CT, we enjoyed an evening with two young solo performers, Carrie Rodriguez and Ben Solee. After each performed a solo set, they played the remainder of the evening together - Carrie on fiddle and tenor guitar and Ben on electric cello.

Carrie has a couple of solo recordings available, Seven Angels On A Bicycle and She Ain't Me, which can be found on her website http://www.carrierodriguez.com/. She's got a new album coming out in March that's well worth looking for.

Ben has an album, Learning To Bend that you can find at http://www.bensollee.com/, along with a new collaboration he's done with Daniel Martin Moore.

The Beatles - Remastered Magic

It's been all over the media that the entire Beatles catalog was digitally remastered from the original analog tapes. The release of the 13 recordings last week was a global event, tied to the release of The Beatles: Rock Band. I was in line early and got the boxed set of all the albums plus a DVD of short documentaries for each album. I must admit that I avoided work most of the day to immerse myself in listening to the fresh sounds and reading the extensive liner notes for each CD. There are the original liner notes, recording notes from the engineers, George Martin notes on the studios, musicians - lots of inside information about how The Beatles made this great music. The remastering brings out instruments that were buried in the initial CD releases in 1987 - especially evident in the White album (The Beatles), Revolver, and Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. One aspect I really liked about the new releases it that they are the British releases - ignoring the old Capital Records mashups from the early years. The Beatles had a policy of not releasing any singles off an album after it was released so there were 33 songs that never made it on British albums. These are all package on the two CD package Past Masters which also is brightened up with the remastering. The majority of their songs were mixed in mono and stereo until the Abbey Road and Let It Be - I got the all stereo mix but there is also an all mono boxed set availalbe for you die hard mono junkies.

Bottom line is that The Beatles created a musical legacy that evolved rapidly over the 7 years that they recorded together. Listening the the music in the new remastering format should let everyone see - once again - how The Beatles changed music for our generation and generations to come.

Jazz Live In New York City

At the Blue Note in New York City on Saturday night, I heard some exciting new music live from the Overtone Quartet - Davel Holland (bass), Jason Moran (piano), Chris Potter (sax), and a most exciting young drummer, Eric Harland. Introduced as a 'collaborative' band but led by Holland, these guys tore down the walls of the Blue Note. A hard driving combination of styles - each bringing their own experiences in bop, open, straight ahead and ballads to the group. Each member contributed songs to the group. I was knocked out by the playing of Harland - what a talented musician. He really pushed the band with complex rythyms, answering the piano and sax statements with responses that mirrored the other instruments.

No recording yet from the group - this was their first engagement together. Here's a link to a NY Times review of their set http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/arts/music/10overtone.html?_r=1&ref=music

Airplane Music ~ My Choices

What do you listen to on your iPod when you're traveling on an airplane; flying for work or on vacation; domestic or international? I don't know about you, but I want to A. Sleep; B. Read; C. Focus on an artist; D. Space Out. I travel by air a lot, and my iPod has music to fit each situation ~ New Age to help me sleep, quiet jazz to overcome the noise of the jet engines, and always, my latest downloads to dig deep into my latest library additions.

The last couple of weeks, I've been shuttling between my home airport, Hartford, CT and Indianapolis, IN. Early morning flights are good for New Age, so I've been listening to Peter Kater's recordings of Healing Music Series - Essence and Ambrosia, along with his Elements Series, Air, Earth, Water, Fire. Great music for looking out the window at the sunrise and clouds while getting the mind geared up for the events to come in the day. Flying during the evening is the time for listening to some cool jazz or the blues.

I recently loaded all my Van Morrison albums onto my iPod ~ 17 recordings in all ~ out of 40 main albums, according to allmusic.com. The plan is to look at Morrison's career from the beginning (The Bang Sessions, Volumes 1&2, 1967) through his latest (Astral Weeks: Live At The Hollywood Bowl, 2008), interspersed with an album with the Chieftans 'Irish Heartbeat', 1988; and a very nice recording with Britain's premier blues/swing organist, Georgie Fame 'How Long Has This Been Going On?', 1996. My intention, I say 'the plan 'is', to listen to the 17 recordings while traveling and it's going to take more than a few flights. This morning I listened to 'Too Long In Exile' (1993) between Hartford and Cincinatti, then 'Poetic Champions Repose' (1988) during the layover and on into Indy. I commented recently on the Astral Weeks to Astral Weeks: Live At The Hollywood Bowl, but there is so much good music in between. How does Morrison make each album sound familiar but fresh and interesting? The more I listen, the more I'm impressed at his forty plus years output.

I've got a few trips to go, so stay tuned - I've got Billy Joe Shaver, Great Northern, and some Steven Halpern music for driving with subliminals to keep me company.

Can't Stop Listening To This One

My favorite listening last week and this week has been the new one from Christian McBride called "Kind of Brown". He's surrounded himself with a new band called Inside Straight featuring saxophonist Steve Wilson, the pianist Eric Reed, and drummer Carl Allen and vibraphonist Warren Wolf, Jr.

For the guy who plays electric bass on nine of his own albums and also tours with Sting and John McLaughlin’s Five Peace Band, he really gets laid back and acoustic on this post-bop style outing that sounds like it comes from the late 60’s or early 70's Blue Note catalog. Nice vibes from Warren Wolff Jr. in the style of Bobby Hutcherson. It's melodic, smooth and fun to listen to over and over. I love the first track, "Brother Mister", a straight ahead tune delivered in a very traditional way. Check this one out on Amazon downloads for the perfect summer big city jazz set.

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks to Astral Weeks Live At The Hollywood Bowl

Do you remember the first time you heard Van Morrison's Astral Weeks? Did you lie back in the darkness, hearing Van Morrison play jazz, with horns and flutes; vibes and strings; bluesy folk vocals with acoustic guitars and bass? It was something else - not rock, not pop - it was music that made you listen to the poetry in the lyrics, and feel the real emotion in Morrison's singing. It had a powerful effect on me and changed the rhythms running in my head and the music that I played. My friends and I were listening to bands like Cream, the Beatles, the Grass Roots, Sly And The Family Stone, starting to veer away from the mainstream music, but this album was very, very different. We didn't know what a song cycle was, but we liked it. The LP came out in 1968 - before Moondance (1970) and His Band And Street Choir (1970) made him a big star with hits like Moondance and Domino putting him on the pop charts. We knew him for Gloria (with Them) and Brown Eyed Girl, but when we first experienced Astral Weeks, it was magic and poetry and cosmic all rolled into one. The album has been a critical success and consistently been on the various Greatest Albums Of All Time lists since it came out, although it never charted a hit. One of the songs from the album, Madam George, is included in The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame's list of 500 Songs That Shaped Rock & Roll.

Could you find me / Would you kiss my eyes
And lay me down / In silence easy
To be born again (Astral Weeks, 1968)

Forty years later, in 2008, Van has recorded a live version of Astral Weeks at the Hollywood Bowl, to be born again, extending the beauty and mystery of the original by adding his decades of experience with love and life to the youthful passions that were so much the heart of 1968 recording. It's still a song cycle, but he's added new songs and re-ordered the original set to give us a new view of a classic work. I'll leave it to the technical reviewers to give you a breakdown the list of musicians and songs, with just the comment that Jay Berliner plays lead guitar with Van on the live recording, just as he did on the original. The vibes, flutes and strings still jam behind the vocals and guitar, looser than the first album, but I think that's what the four decades of living with the music have allowed Morrison to bring to the live concert. Listening to the live concert sent me back to the roots of 1968's version - kicking in some of the passion of the time, bringing back the memories of what I was listening to back then and the impact the music had and has on me. It's well worth the trip - check it out for yourself.

The original Astral Weeks was Morrison's first album for Warner Brothers Records, this latest is on his own label, Listen To The Lion. Released in February of 2009, on CD, DVD and vinyl LP, the recording has done pretty well on the Amazon charts #6 for Live Albums, #237 in Music.