Teaching Elvis Presley the Rules of Scrabble, and Other Tall Stories

Somebody in my class at primary school once alleged that the actor Tony Curtis was his uncle. Such absolute whoppers are part and parcel of the over active imagination of small children and in almost every case entirely harmless at the time, albeit utterly cringe-inducing if someone with a long memory reminds you of your childhood exaggeration at a smart dinner party in middle age.

Far stranger is the incidence of this sort of behaviour in adults. More than once I have heard a noted figure in the British entertainment industry rattle off a yarn about Elvis Presley making a secret visit to London in the late 50's and that our show business friend was charged with the responsibility of showing the King the sights of Town.

There's only one word for this, well, actually it's two words, the first beginning with B and the second with S.

Similarly many moons ago there lived in Coventry a guitarist who would, at the drop of a hat, regale you until the cows came home about how he had accompanied Sinatra in Vegas on countless occasions, and how in after hours jam sessions had constantly got the upper hand of George Benson in good natured guitar battles. As his name was Ford that rapidly became corrupted by all to 'Fraud'.

Some of these storytellers become minor legends and can gather a small crowd of those in the know, eager to hear what the next outrageously implausible anecdote will be; very much in the manner of Craggy Island milkman Pat Mustard, who "taught Elvis Presley how to play karate".

That's twice in a fairly short space I've mentioned Elvis already, I wonder if he will crop up again?

In our internet savvy, social media fixated times it only takes a few clicks to ascertain whether or not these types of tall tales have any basis on fact and it is likely the case that as a result of availability of information the great tradition of yarn spinning may be in sharp decline. Apart from one area. Musicians' CVs.

Before I go any further I think it's important to stress that as of the time of writing I have never played on a hit record nor have I toured with any chart topping, stadium filling artists. If you know anything about my utter distaste for arena shows (doing to live performance what Amazon is doing to your high street but I'll come back to that when in a less light hearted frame of mind) you won't find that particularly surprising. That's not to say that I haven't played festivals to thousands of people jumping up and down in a field somewhere in Europe, I have, but in the best tradition of Airplane, "that's not important right now".

Similarly I have had the (mostly) good fortune to work with some legendary jazz artists, plus a good many personalities from the then more connected worlds of pop music and light entertainment from many decades ago. One of the reasons for not mentioning their names (especially the latter category) is that to anyone younger than about 45 they would mean little or nothing.

We used to call it 'getting a break', sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. I was lucky to come through at a time when if you could play do a decent standard, read a chart and cover a range of styles reasonably well it was relatively easy to get a regular, paying gig. To what extent one's career would advance was largely down to the axis of preparation and opportunity, or 'right place, right time' coupled with 'who you know', all a long time before the word 'networking' had established its presence in the music industry lexicon.

Frequently our work as musicians is evaluated by a series of random associations with different people, all deemed to be more important than we are. I remember being about 20 and in Jones & Crossland music store in Birmingham when the guy who ran the drum department gestured towards a stranger in a leather jacket, and said to me with an awestruck, hushed tone of voice,
"That's the drummer with the Nolan sisters".

This to me is the key point. I know all manner of great musicians who have worked away for years; always busy, freelancing, playing, recording, teaching, often doing the sort of gigs where no one actually cares who's in the band. Players of the highest quality but never having been associated with a big name artist or a succession of hit records. I feel a strong kinship with these players as were it not for my activities as a big band leader and my work in the drum industry this would be the regiment to which I would belong. A lot of these musicians are some of the busiest players anywhere, even if their names are not known other than to the industry inner circle. Many times I have seen somewhat 'confected' credits where the most tenuous connections have been stretched to near breaking point and artists names have been used slightly dishonestly. Don't do it. People know and it looks daft, in the tradition of the quote usually attributed to Mark Twain about being thought a fool. It's not just an ill-informed attempt at career advancement either. There was once a legendary session musician right at the top of the tree who used to overegg his achievements and I couldn't help wondering why. Those who really know and really have influence will evaluate your playing based upon what you can do rather than with whom you may or may not have done it.

So anyway, I get this gig teaching Elvis how to play Scrabble. Turns out the only word he could spell was 'Uhhuhhuh' and as there are only two H tiles in a standard Scrabble set we were off to a bad start. Also he didn't really grasp the idea of each letter having a points value and would look at his tiles and repeat
"Well it's a 1 for an E, 2 for a D" and so on.

For details of current musical projects my website is here or you can email me at this address

Thank You, Roy Burns (1935-2018)

It's been a bit hot lately hasn't it? As a result with spectacular predictability everybody is making comparisons to the legendary Summer of 76 and how we all baked. Interestingly no one has anything to say about the Summer of 1977, which as I recall was for the entire duration of the school holidays, overcast, dull and frequently wet. The summer of '77 was, however, far more significant for me, and the poor weather was a major contributory factor.

Having managed to get by as a drummer almost entirely on what natural talent I had been blessed with, (and it was in this same Summer that I did my first grown up gig with grown up musicians for grown up money) being largely confined to indoors prompted me to renew my acquaintance (these days more an obsession or ritual) with the practice pad.


Up to this point I had spent very little time with drum books, and such time as had been spent had consisted of dipping in and out of the pages of William F Ludwig's erroneously titled 'Modern Jazz Drumming'. Much of this consisted of rhythmic patterns that my young eyes simply could not comprehend and was not particularly heavy on rudimental or sticking-based materials, nor was it full of the kind of cool beats that would appeal to a late baby boomer such as I.

Many, many years earlier my Dad had walked in when I was messing around with the sticks and told me that if I wanted to play properly I would have to learn a 'proper' stick grip. From a cupboard he got a copy of the Gene Krupa Drum Method and opened it at this page,

told me to get on with it and went back into the other room to watch Z Cars.
I remember his utter astonishment when I went and found him about ten minutes later to show him that I had 'got it'. (I hadn't, and still haven't but you know what I mean).

Anyway so back to 1977 and the miserable Summer climate. Simultaneously at a loss for something to fill the dull summer days and feeling the pull of what would grow into a professional career before very much longer, I took a look in the cupboard from which my Dad had got the Krupa Drum Method all those years previously and I found this....

It scarcely bears repeating that if you are even slightly serious about developing any sort of genuine prowess on the instrument this book is an essential. Some students mistakenly view Stick Control as a little akin to "Eat your vegetables and then you can have some ice cream". It really isn't. Approached correctly not only will it sharpen up your hands (the benefits of the Summer of 77 have been an everlasting foundation that set me on the road to technical fluency) but the myriad ways in which it can be adapted and interpreted will help you to develop the habits of creative thinking, to look (and listen) between the lines.
Forty one years later it's looking a little the worse for wear which is not all that surprising as it is arguably the most used of all the drum books in my collection, and although there are many dozens of books in that collection there is only one that I have played from cover to cover.

It's this.

Sometime in the late 70s the drum department at Yardley's in Birmingham got hold of two or three copies of this book and by a stroke of sheer luck one of them came into my posession. I had admired Roy Burns for several years as he had been the first 'big name' American drummer I had seen in the flesh. Why was this book so important? Within its pages Roy sets out some core principles of technique in a way that none of the drum books I had seen up to that point made any congruent attempt to do. Bear in mind that this was late 1970s Birmingham with no internet and limited availability of information and resources. Also he takes the most important and often played permutations from Stick Control and presents them in different rhythmic subdivisions. This is a key point. How much time do you spend practising endless triplets or sixteenths? Too much, that's how much. Certainly an amount disproportionate to the musical necessity of playing constant note rates. Shifting between different layers of time is a far more important skill that you will use every time you sit down to make music. Otherwise it's a bit like learning to drive in an automatic car on a completely flat, straight road. The ability to articulate constantly changing sticking permutations (and don't be daunted, there are only twelve of them) over changing rhythmic patterns will set your technique free and liberate your playing. Thanks to the initial inspiration and tangible benefits, after a spell working with this material my hands would demonstrably improve, I have subsequently taken this underlying core skill and extrapolated it in my own methods.

Some years later I ran into Roy at a Summer NAMM show in New Orleans and had the opportunity to thank him. Far more recently I managed to source a spare copy of the book, you know, just in case.

If it is the case that you only know of Roy Burns on account of Aquarian drum heads then have a listen to this.......

For full details of my current music projects, instructional DVD, guest appearances, master classes or private tuition visit the website or you can contact me via email here. 

Big Band Drumming Revisited

Just in the past few days I have been on the receiving end of some very complimentary feedback from the four part series I did for Rhythm magazine in 2015 on the subject of big band drumming.

For newer friends, those who may have missed it first time, and those who would like to give it another look here are the links to all four parts, together with my solo on Bugle Call Rag from the 2017 WGD concert in Northampton.

For details of bands, guest appearances, master classes and individual tuition click here.

For more information about projects and upcoming appearances, my DVD and big band recordings, click here.

In other news following on from the DVD released in April I have a book in the works that will explore many of personal concepts and techniques in greater detail, so stay tuned.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

And finally a solo incorporating many of the concepts in part 4

Do It The Hard Way

This post is about how it was in the 80s, and follows on from the earlier post entitled 'Close, But No Rock Star'. You might want to look at that one either before or after reading this.

This instalment is about as close as I get to self pity, which is not very close at all, and its core subject matter is hard, work, tenacity and self belief.
I'm not overburdened by modesty either, but it's one thing to have all sorts of facility on the instrument, entirely another to present yourself  in a way that meets the demands of our ever-changing industry.

There's an old adage that runs along the lines of keeping something for long enough and eventually you'll find a use for it.

Many years ago I uploaded an old video of the Midlands Youth Jazz Orchestra from the early 80s. It was an appearance on the BBC's long forgotten 'Schools Prom' series which showcased young musical talent across a broad range of styles.
On the broadcast I dropped a stick in the middle of an 8 bar solo, kept going with one hand and my feet, scrabbled around on the floor to recover the remaining stick, and carried on.

The other day I thought it might be amusing to lift out the few seconds in question and share it on Instagram. The response has been quite overwhelming, especially as I thought that a lot of you had probably already seen it. In case you haven't here it is.....

Shared via Facebook it has become my second most popular social media post ever, and some of the comments have been  both very kind and amusing.

"19...Were you never sh*t?" was a particular favourite, even if the question posed is very much a matter of opinion. What seemed to surprise a lot of people is that I was playing big band drums in a style very akin to a lot of what I play now way back in the early 80s. On the back of this I've been asked a number of times where I was for all those years. Years in which my impact on the UK music scene and the drum industry was, to all intents and purposes, zero.

I stayed with MYJO for about another year after this broadcast. I had been there a long time and there was a great young drummer coming through who I felt needed the opportunity to cultivate his already considerable talents. Also, always having been a little 'old for my years' by 21 I was playing with people twice my age and probably thought (quite erroneously of course) that I had done all I could with the band. I had a berth with the All Stars big band in Birmingham, led by fellow drummer Garry Allcock (of vintage drum industry fame) and there was quite a bit of work to be had in the West Midlands at that time.

All well and good, but what would be the next step be to advance into the big bad world of the music profession. In other words, how would I take this particular skill set and use it to progress in the direction of my ambitions? The short answer; I wouldn't. The mid 80s British Jazz Boom was still some way off and didn't come to Birmingham. My approach to the instrument was totally out of step with fashion. I flatter myself with the description 'maverick' but the fact is I liked old school, straight ahead jazz and had short hair. This was not something teenagers really did back then apart from a very few of us.
.

An important thing to remember about big bands, be they youth jazz orchestras or adult, professional bands is that unlike brass and saxophones, there's only ever one drummer on the gig. There are very few exceptions to this although occasionally it has been attempted. Never once in history has it succeeded and it should never be done again. The fact that there is only one drummer makes the competition to be first call wildly different from the other sections, where simple logic makes the likelihood of getting a call to dep much more probable. I've spent a great deal of time around youth big bands, both back then as a participant and more recently as a guest artist or educator. I've seen pushy Dads literally elbowing other drummers aside so their offspring got first shot at the drum chair, and have even heard rumours of plain brown envelopes been handed over to secure a position which ability alone may possibly not have guaranteed.

Anyway, about a year prior to this TV recording I had stepped out on stage as a big band leader in my own right for the very first time. It would have been nice to think that the media of the day would have taken an interest, and perhaps had I had a better plan businesswise (as the music was without exception of a high quality) it's possible that early project could have advanced beyond a few gigs and a small amount of newspaper coverage.  Trouble was I just wanted to play jazz. In spite of having grown up listening to a broad range of music, it was exclusively the recordings of the jazz greats that had got me serious about playing.
At that point I had no interest in playing pop music. It was loathed by the musicians of my Dad's generation and the Top 20 repertoire that one was called upon to play courtesy of the latest 'Pop Plan' arrangements I considered dross. Also the virtue of playing simply had yet to dawn on me, which didn't help a great deal either.
Don't get me wrong, I had great records by Herbie Hancock, The Beatles, Deep Purple, and the Average White Band to pick out a random few, but I couldn't make the connection between what I was hearing on disc with what was required in the dance halls of the West Midlands. In my defence try googling 'best selling UK singles, 1981', and my antipathy may become easier to appreciate. But just like the woefully out of fashion marine pearl drum set, I needed to broaden my range as a player, and get myself a couple of somewhat younger drummers to idolise. Thank heaven, therefore, for Steve Gadd and Vinnie Colaiuta, who would become my final formative influences.

So my precocious talent notwithstanding, then the apprenticeship really began. I had to be a holiday camp drummer, a cruise ship drummer, a panto drummer, and a theatre variety show drummer in order to advance. I also had to summon up the confidence to step out of my local scene and see if I had what was needed to operate at a higher level, in the company of strangers, of which for many years I was actually quite unsure. I had my sights set on London, but it was a circuitous journey taking in destinations such as Prestatyn, Southport, Mansfield, the Caribbean, Weston-Super-Mare, the Mediterranean, until finally coming into land in my newly purchased two bedroom flat across the road from Elstree and Borehamwood railway station in November 1992. Throughout that entire period the swinging, driving big band groove, to say nothing of drum solos whose duration would have won the respect of the late Ken Dodd, all had to be put on ice. I even took to using a more contemporary drum set configuration in big band settings. Back then using vintage drums was strictly the preserve of 'old guys' (most of whom younger than I am now). There are a variety of reasons for why in some ways the 80s was a bit of a cultural wasteland for a player like me. One of which is that at this time a big percentage of the great jazz originators were still alive and playing. Their original audience was still alive and supporting them in droves, and far fewer young people were attending jazz events than compared to now. The music was perceived by the NME reading majority as being uncool and for old people, and although not unheard of, it was quite unusual to see younger musicians in the ranks of professional big bands and mainstream jazz groups of the day. This is exemplified by the fact that Kenny Clare and Ronnie Verrall, indisputably two of the very best drummers of their time, were doing a 'job share' on the drum chair of the Syd Lawrence band. The Rat Pack made all this repertoire cool again, but that was still a way off in the future. When Andy Prior broke through with a very good, very young big band presenting music from the classic era it was rightly seized upon by older listeners and broadcasters with considerable zeal. With the benefit of hindsight this was an imporatant moment in breaking down cultural barriers between generations, and for its time can be appreciated as authentic postmodernism.

So what's the point of this latest stroll down memory lane other than to shine a light on what I was doing roughly 35 years ago? Well, it's this.
Every week for the last quarter of a century since I began teaching drums at higher education level I have been asked for career guidance of one sort or another, but it usually boils down to how one should go about 'making it'.
For the teenage me to focus entirely on an unpopular, niche market style of music made about as much sense as  a player who is in an 'originals band' whose sole intention is to 'get signed', and has no contingency plan (i.e. being a flexible, all-round, reading drummer who is employable across the board). I constantly tell young players to have the broadest possible skill set and to be 'whatever-kind-of-player-the-industry-wants-you-to-be', and above all, be tenacious and be patient.
Don't set self-limiting goals and don't put cut off points on your affirmations.
The wheel didn't really start to spin my way until I was about 45, and the ten years since have been extraordinary, more than compensating for the disappointments and lack of progress in those early days.
I keep my fingers crossed that there is still some distance to travel and more yet to achieve. You should do that too.

Big Tunes In Small Rooms

This post was originally published before the pandemic consumed our entire industry. Already we have seen evidence of widespread unscrupulous activity from individuals and organisations who really ought to know better: West End theatres cutting orchestras by fifty per cent; stately homes seeking to recruit experienced, professional artists for a luxury event without any offer of appropriate payment. These are a couple of the highest profile incidents so far, but I feel all too certain that it's the tip of a very unfortunate iceberg. If I can make one fact ineluctably clear, no one in the industry has any need to go to work without proper payment to 'blow away the cobwebs' or whatever patronising turn of phrase you care to choose. Our industry has been paralysed for over a year, it would make more sense to pay us double what we were formerly used to. Fat chance of that ever happening of course. 

I was actually reminded of the following earlier post by the sudden schism that has erupted in British football, whereby a gilded, entitled elite seeks to free itself from being dragged down by the lower orders. This is entirely motivated by greed and a desire to monopolise available supporter revenue, which is finite, after all.

It's my view that we have had a similar situation in the music industry for some time, and that was uppermost in my mind when I first penned this.

Going out and supporting live music seems to be getting increasingly expensive. Maybe it's my age, then again maybe not, and just like runaway house price inflation putting property ownership beyond the reach of all but a fortunate few, the ticket prices of certain major events have risen to quite absurd levels.

A very small amount of research quickly uncovered a good example of this. Beyoncé and Jay Z, London Stadium June 15th. Prices range from £114 to £7696. Yes, you read that correctly. For seven grand do you still have to drink out of a plastic glass and queue for twenty minutes for a wee wee?

Absolutely ludicrous. Even more so when you consider that for somewhere between £1000 and £1600 I could book a Beyoncé tribute act, quite possibly significantly less. I drive a hard bargain.  Even better value is a trip over to Amazon where I can have my pick of Beyoncé live concert DVDs from as little as 1p plus postage, (averaging about two quid) so I still get to see Beyoncé and am notionally £7693.99 in pocket. How, therefore, to spend the windfall?

One could splash out on an eight year old Mercedes E Class, a new three piece suite from DFS, some fish and chips, and still have enough left to see a Beyonce tribute show in your local theatre, but we'll get to that later.  And that's if you go on your own. One ticket. Factor in your significant other and you are staring down the thick end of sixteen large.

If you can afford it and that is how you wish to spend your money then so be it. If you are a division or two below the oligarch-buys-star-for-private-party brigade this is a perfectly good opportunity to flash that cash and make a splash. Good, fine, knock yourself out. However, take a look for a moment at the other end of the scale, or to put it another way, the worst seats in the house, priced at £114.
The ineluctable truth about money is that you can only spend it once, and if that's how you want to spend your money, once again, so be it. Big but. Across the UK there are all kinds of great, professional live shows where tickets are priced at less than £50 each.  Frequently a lot less: often good seats in good venues can be acquired for under £20. Artists and performers who are not multi millionaires are no less talented, don't forget. The key difference is that they need your support just a little bit more.  Anyway, back to Beyoncé.....

The venue for Beyoncé's show is a sports stadium. That's right, a sports stadium. Sports stadia are really, really good at the thing for which they were designed, i.e. hosting sporting events. You know the deal; twenty two players covering the length and breadth of the hallowed turf, so irrespective of where you sit, at some point the action will come close to you. Beyoncé however will not be changing ends at half time nor is she likely to be taking a free kick on the edge of the penalty area.  Imagine if you will a premiership football match being played on the stage of the Hammersmith Apollo and the absurdity is complete. Performances have taken place in amphitheatres since the early civilisations, but it was slightly more recently, August 15th 1965 to be precise, when the cult of playing to the biggest crowd in the biggest space really took hold. That was, of course, The Beatles' famous appearance at Shea Stadium and whilst it is well documented that the Fabs couldn't hear a damned thing, it is with hindsight an opportunity missed that the seldomly reticent J W Lennon didn't make more of his apparent displeasure at having to play under such adverse conditions. A year later the Beatles were finished as a live act, and having to play massive outdoor venues was quite possibly the biggest contributory factor behind their retreat to London NW8 for the remainder of their life as a band.
Before you say anything I haven't overlooked the obvious. PA systems have become wildly more powerful in similar proportion to the NASA computer VS smartphone cliché. Music has got a lot louder too. Neither of these are good developments. Playing loud and playing outdoors spell the death of dynamics, detail and finesse. Musical instruments respond at their best in rooms where there are plenty of wooden surfaces. I'm known for carrying three pieces of hardwood floor to put under my snare drum stand, and that is why.  My personal favourite instruments are those that still produce a sound if there's a power outage.

I have no idea what the capacity is for a show like Beyoncé's is, but it's not an exaggeration to estimate it at about 75,000. After all, the Beatles drew roughly 55,000 at Shea.
That's 75 one thousand seat venues sold out, or 150 five hundred seat halls. Higher mathematics this isn't but you get my point; one big gig equals perhaps a hundred small ones. In the style of Amazon and Google are the big players starving out lower profile artists and small, independent promoters? 75,000 people all in one place, a great many of whom have blown their disposable, gig-attending cash on one single event, who could have gone elsewhere. Elsewhere four or five times even. As smaller venues fall by the wayside this option will undoubtedly diminish. Having done a fair bit of concert promoting myself, one of the most important first steps is to try to establish that your chosen date is not going to put you up against events that potentially attract the same audience that you are targeting. Choice, and the ability to make it are critical to our cultural well-being.

I've been to very few arena shows, the NEC, Birmingham, the Point Depot, Dublin and twice to the O2. I once did something called 'deep background' on Ron Howard's movie, 'Rush'. This involved dressing up as a mechanic and being a speck on the horizon in the scenes set at the Italian and Japanese grand prix. Both of which were actually Blackbush aerodrome. When you do 'deep background' you are scarcely a dot on the horizon, just part of a huge crowd needed to make up the numbers. Arena gigs make me feel the same way, not really part of anything and ultimately futile. But, you say, "I was there!". So were 74,999 other people, which makes it a bit akin to saying "I've got a Ford Fiesta". (Nothing wrong with owning a Fiesta. Other cars are available), and if you are not careful all you'll have to show for it are some mobile phone pictures and mounting credit card debt. Think about that for a moment, the correlation between pop star's designer wardrobe and your threatening letter from MasterCard.

Incidentally, in 2017, the year for which most recent stats are available, 59,380 new Fiestas were registered, so that actually makes a new one more exclusive than a Beyoncé ticket. (Source, SMMT).

I've read much on the subject of abundance, and do believe that there is an infinite supply of money, but as we see so often that supply gets concentrated in certain areas while others struggle to survive. I'm no economist but even I can figure out that a night out costing £200 a head is the same as five nights out at £40 a head. You might want to consider going to lower priced events more frequently. If this happened enough there would be a small but nonetheless noticeable adjustment in the entertainment industry economy. The fact that a one-nighter in a provincial theatre is paying people like me the same or even less than twenty five years ago is all tied up in this.

I should point out just for the record that I have no issues with Beyoncé and admire much of her work, but in researching this piece my quest for super expensive concert tickets in the near future close to where I live, her shows were way out in front on all web searches and I am fully expecting to have my data harvested any time soon. It could be said that any one of us as performers, if given the chance to get away with charging those kinds of admission prices might well be inclined to do so. Hay and sunshine, etc, etc.

My personal dislike for vast venues is a matter of record, and was reinforced again the other day by spending an evening at Ronnie Scott's, arguably the best jazz venue on this or any other planet. I am by no means a regular there, and visits tend to be when I'm on stage rather than in the audience so it was interesting to be on the other side of the fence, so to speak, for the first time in a long time. The seats we had were by no means the best in the house but I could hear every detail of what was being played in near perfect clarity and I could see the artists more than adequately. As in my previous outing on this subject no video screens were necessary to confirm that the headliner was the person I had paid to see and not an imposter. Happily the artist in question has such an individual sound and style that the chances of him 'being tributed' by anyone else are as slim as they are pointless. It wasn't a great seat but it was good enough, and reminded me of sitting in the gods in Birmingham Town Hall watching the Oscar Peterson trio in 1978. Back in the pre-internet days we had to go and stand in a queue at the venue a few months in advance in order to guarantee the best seats. However the Peterson concert had been on sale for months when it was announced that Louie Bellson was on drums. Last minute tickets were hastily acquired, and even up at the back of the auditorium we could clearly see and hear Louie bring the house down. Many who were there thought he stole the show, but he was much too nice a man to do that!

One of my regular gigs that gives me the greatest pleasure involves travelling the length and breadth of the UK playing big band music in small to medium sized theatres and concert halls. The band plays almost acoustically and I can hear what everyone is playing without recourse to monitoring, much less the ghastly fashion for something called 'in ears'. Turn it down and listen to what the other players are doing. Match their dynamics.

Anyway, on a recent visit to Epsom playhouse I was looking through their forthcoming events and they were almost without exception stand up comedy or tribute shows.

Historically I was of the opinion that tribute shows exemplified a shared laziness on the part of performers and audiences, and I spent much of my 30s and early 40s recording and performing big band music that wasn't based upon any other band's repertoire. So there I sat, polishing my halo and wallowing in my integrity as other big bands got more work on account of selling shows based on the tribute formula, be it Miller, Ellington, Basie, assorted Packs of frequently random Rats, or whoever deemed most likely to perform at the box office. 12 years ago I made a pragmatic decision, and let's face it, if you are a drummer or follow the UK drum scene, 12 years ago you almost certainly had never heard of me. Taking on a 'tribute' formula' (a fun challenge in itself) doubled the audience for our band overnight.

Owning up to changes to a long held viewpoint is liberating, and I have come to see the benefits in tribute acts. There are a lot of really talented performers out there who through no fault of their own are unable to forge careers as 'themselves'. The reasons for this are many and probably best left for another day. One of the things that convinced me to follow this path was that it gave audiences a unique opportunity to hear certain repertoire played live in the original context. Identical musical arrangements programmed in a similar sequence to the original artist rather than one or two selections included in a 'best of' big band show.
In some ways the tribute show is a modern day equivalent of the Top of the Pops LPs that were so popular in the 70s. These were hits of the day covered by session musicians. It was cheaper than buying all the singles and sometimes the cover versions were remarkably accurate.



Also good to know is that medium sized theatres still play host to original artists of the 70s and 80s who don't have the pulling power to fill a vast arena. Many of my younger colleagues are happily regularly employed by Mr Sayer, Mr Kershaw, Ms Wilde and the like. Long may it continue. Also popular bands of the era with only one or two original members provide gigs for musicians and can still pull a crowd. A generation ago we were 'backing' the stars of the 50s and 60s.  The one-hit-wonders would sing their one hit (at the end of their spot) and the rest of their time on stage would be filled with covers of other (better-known, more successful) artists' material. A tribute show in other words. Also don't forget that the single biggest advantage of the smaller venue is that during the interval you could leave the auditorium and have a drink in a real pub from a real glass (even if it is Wetherspoons) and don't even get me started about the transport issues. A great venue should be no more than five minutes from the tube or a cab, or for the socialists among you, the bus stop.


In conclusion a note of optimism, in that a few months ago MTV announced the resurrection of their highly successful 'Unplugged' format, and I can't help thinking how happy I would be if we all got back to the days of the Royal Albert Hall being as big as it gets.

PS: Just to pick up the football parallel for one final moment; it's perfectly possible for a journeyman League Two player to earn £150,000 a year. I know plenty of world class musicians who manage to get by on about fifteen per cent of that amount.

Any professional enquiries regarding live appearances, master classes, session work, tuition or anything else please contact me via my website, www.petecater.org

The Right Kind Of Busy

"Keeping busy?"
"Plenty of work?"

Whenever pro musicians meet the conversation will very often thus commence. It's a long-standing tradition that we tend to measure our success as professionals by the amount of work we are doing. But in these changing times it can be a coarse and increasingly inaccurate scale.

A gig is a gig, or is it?
When there are bills that need to be paid the short answer is undoubtedly yes, but the older I get the more I begin to think about what it is I truly value after fifty plus years playing.

Now and then I look back at some of my diaries, particularly from the mid 90s, and wonder how I found the time. Between two regular touring concert packages I had better than 150 dates per year, as well  all manner of freelance gigs, a little studio work, and had started teaching at the long gone Musicians' Institute in London. Added to which this was the time when I took it upon myself to set up a jazz big band as something to do in my spare time. Spare time I really did not have. Nobody talked about work/life balance back then, and I can vividly remember getting home in the small hours and having to sort out laundry for the next day. Happily my upstairs neighbours never once complained about the 5am spin dryer racket. Every minute of the day seemed to be accounted for sometimes.


Earlier this year I had the perfect week; three great gigs with people I admire, where the music is of a kind that keeps my reasons for being inspired to learn to play very close to the surface. In addition I had a day of private pupils and a day teaching college. Also significant is that within this 'perfect' week I had a decent amount of time to work on things I value; existing projects, new projects, catching up with friends and associates, and of course the glue that holds all of this together, the art of playing music.

Having time and opportunity to develop is so important. The only exception to that is if you are constantly busy with playing that pushes you to the limit and enables you to perform at the top of your game. For an illustration of this look no further than the classified listings in old copies of Downbeat magazine from the late 50s and early 60s. At that time America's most distinguished jazz players could be found in 'location' jobs where they would play two or more shows per night for two, three, four or more weeks at a stretch. The players who weren't on the road were mostly enjoying a boom in regular, high quality studio work, playing jazz after hours and in some instances even opening their own clubs. Not just in the USA but here in the UK this was truly a golden era of plentiful opportunity when good players could work regularly and in so doing maintain the highest standards. Any wonder that the music they made was so good?

So all is this started me thinking about how much is enough, and is it possible to become too busy to improve?

Recently I was sounded out about a block of work that would have kept me busy for about six weeks. As always it's highly gratifying to be thought of and to be asked to do stuff, and without doubt the thought of the money was tempting enough to consider the possibility of clearing the diary for the period in question. Equally significant though, was the strong possibility that the requirements of the music were such that I might have come away from the run of work with all kinds of 'damage' to put right. I was reminded of a week in 1998 when I spent Monday to Saturday playing with Kid Creole and the Coconuts and on the Sunday played the launch concert for my debut big band album 'Playing With Fire'. All good without a doubt but my jazz/big band chops had taken  hit after days of playing in a different bag. With hindsight I would schedule things differently now.


We've all wished away that half hour between 11:30 and midnight in the function suite of some hotel or another more than once, and as professionals it's not realistically possible only to play the things that give us the greatest pleasure, but there are limits. This was brought home once and for all by a gig I did in Cardiff just over twenty years ago. It was a dep gig with a well-known band, but on arrival I found that the repertoire was a long way removed from what I would have expected from this aggregation. It wasn't fun to play, it didn't swing, everybody else had done a thorough rehearsal (and another gig) the previous day, and I had to jump in with both feet and wing it. Honestly I couldn't wait for the gig to end and it occurred to me that I went home liking music less than when I left the house, and from that day forward I made it policy to ensure that this didn't happen again. I don't call it perfectly all of the time but my average is probably somewhere in the high nineties percent, but being less busy than I was in my 30s has created time to play consistently better.

These days I have three 'regular' gigs, plus my own projects and all the education activity. Added to which there's freelance playing and the (very) occasional bit of acting. Also for about a decade now I've had the great good fortune to carve out a niche on the UK drum scene, and industry events therein are amongst some of the most satisfying things I now do. Importantly this leaves enough time to work on playing and leave room to accept new opportunities. A newly established fortnightly residency in Brighton with the emphasis on New Orleans and early swing gives me a welcome opportunity to flex some different muscles, and I feel fortunate to be in a place where I have the luxury of being able to do the things I like best. That said, if someone rings this afternoon and offers me a gig that involves 11 hour flights through numerous time zones plus all the attendant hanging about, you can be certain that I'll be looking for my passport. As long as the  music is right of course.

Also don't ever underestimate the benefits of downtime. Had it not been for an unexpected slack period for about two months in the spring of 1997 I doubt I would have found the time to pull together the necessary resources to make the debut big band album mentioned earlier in this piece, and I'm often mindful of the truth that something I started as a spare time pursuit continues be rewarding and has become the thing for which I am probably best known. So remember that if you have an empty page in your diary.

We Just Didn't Click

Hardly anybody could honestly say they saw it coming.

Its near overnight explosion in the early 80s came close to wiping out a generation. It seemed as though everyone was affected. It hit home for me when a close friend became depressed and was drinking heavily, and I knew that my number would be up soon.

Yes, those were the days when every professional player, sooner or later, would have to square up to the inevitability of playing to a click. It really was adapt or die and so much proverbial water has passed under the metaphorical bridge that no working player under the age of about 40 can probably remember that there was once another time, if you'll pardon the rather obvious pun.

As a young pro player in the late 1980s it was only a matter of time, and when the time came, the time (my time) was a bit shaky to say the least. It's one thing to spend hours practising with a metronome on a rubber pad, but a whole different thing to lay down assured, steady, confident time and take charge of a group of musicians while that electronically generated pulse is beeping in your ear. Eager to escape the comfort zone of the West Midlands where I had overstayed (clean bed linen and a hot dinner at your parents' place as well as plenty of playing opportunities of one sort or another made life just a little too 'easy' at times) I knew this was a skill I needed to  master. A trip to the legendary Musical Exchanges in Birmingham and the drum machine was mine.

A quick read of the instruction manual (yes, I know!) and I got some basic programming skills together, not just clicks but rhythmic patterns, percussion loops and so on. I constantly recommend that my students don't just practice with a plain, quarter note (crotchet) pulse as there isn't much music out there that only goes 'beep, beep, beep, beep', and if there is I have no interest in playing it. Also, rhythmic 'shapes' are what you are going to be keeping time with for a lot of the time so why not keep the context of your practice as close to music as you possibly can? Another recommendation to my students is to spend no more than fifty percent of your practice time using a click, as this may impend the development of your 'inner clock', from which comes the authority to grab hold of music and lay down the groove so everyone knows who's in charge.

Time invested over a few months refined my ability and confidence as a time keeper to levels not previously attained. At that time I had an ongoing gig depping for a fellow drummer who had to take some time off due to ill health.  Almost all the music was played to backing tracks and the other musicians complimented me on how solid everything was and how I had a knack of creating a feeling of 'space' in the groove which made them feel extremely comfortable. All good then, and I was able to add 'click ability' to my CV (when I still had such a thing) and over the next few years as I prepared towards the inevitable relocation to London it was a skill that would stand me in good stead time and time again.

The first regular gig I secured in London was at the old Empire Rooms in Tottenham Court Road.  As a drummer I liked the fact that this was the same stage on which Buddy Rich performed his first UK drum clinic in 1967, but other than that the gig was totally without any merit at all, apart from money, which was my only reason for being there. An altercation with a thoroughly odious manager called Gerry precipitated my notice as I objected to his request for an hour of unpaid overtime for a party of VIPs but that's another story (with a happy ending as it turns out). The nadir of an evening's work was a truly shocking cockney themed floorshow. All to very iffy backing tracks (I think the cassette tapes had been left in direct sunlight or too near the gas fire at some point).

At the end of that year my newly honed 'backing track chops' came into very good use once again. Way back when Strictly Come Dancing was just Come Dancing the MD at that time was a gentleman named Andy Ross. Prior to moving to London I had become friends with trumpeter Don Morgan who undoubtedly did more for me than any other single individual after I had taken the plunge and got my 081 phone number and a mortgage. Don used to fix Andy Ross's musicians and he immediately put me at the top of the dep list should Terry Jenkins be busy elsewhere. Opportunity arose with a new year's eve gig at the Dorchester Hotel. Andy was fielding a full big band plus two singers, but all the backing vocals were pre-recorded, so I had the headphones and the click and with confidence high after a successful first year in London I tore it up. I rather liked that  instead of cutting the band down Andy chose to dispense with backing vocalists. He was one of those bandleaders who was always unequivocally 'for' the musicians in a way that not all that many of them are. I always enjoyed working with him and had the chance to on many further occasions alongside some of the cream of London's session musicians.
It was another outing with Andy Ross that provides an interesting pivot point between playing with the click and one's own inner clock.
On two occasions we went to Sun City in South Africa to do a broadcast for SABC entitled 'Rhumba In The Jungle' (honestly). A core of us (rhythm section and section leaders) would go out and the rest of the musicians would be recruited locally. We would then spend several days rehearsing prior to the recording on the Saturday night.
My recollection is that none of the music was clicked, everything was played live. One afternoon we were rehearsing and Andy called a samba, and referring to his metronome (essential where dance contests are concerned) kicked the band off at (as memory serves) about 98 bpm.
Over the first 16 bars or so he seemed to have one eye on me and one eye on the metronome. We continued for about a minute and he shouted across to me
"You are ****ing metronomic!!" such was my consistency. Nice though that is I couldn't have achieved that without the right players alongside me, not only in the rhythm section but elsewhere in the band.

People are very much mistaken when they presume that it solely the drummer's role to keep the tempo in place. If you have a bass player who can't stop speeding up (and I have compromised myself professionally by being booked on gigs with one or two) no matter how hard you try it can be a real challenge to keep things steady if the bass player isn't listening to you.
Once or twice I've been in the studio where brass and woodwind sections have been called upon to record to a click while the rhythm section lays out. I've heard some very rapid and marked departures from the tempo which almost certainly wouldn't be an issue if you asked a single player to lay down a part in isolation. I think what happens is that everybody starts listening to everybody else's interpretation of the time and that's where the trouble can start. Players with busier, moving parts will obviously influence the time more than those playing long notes, and this can vary from bar to bar according to the arrangement. This is a great example of time as a collective responsibility.

As the second decade of the 21st century heads towards a close the click is ubiquitous. In the context of film soundtracks, television production and live concert tours where absolute consistency from performance to performance is required then the click is the go-to solution. Not to mention in the context of the modern recording industry where contributing players are frequently not on the same continent (no jokes about time zones please) never mind in the same room.
This reminds me of another notable occasion. Many of you will remember Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews duetting on 'Baby It's Cold Outside' in the late 90s. This was recorded with a swinging big band made up of outstanding UK players. At the time they released it as a CD single. Additional tracks were an instrumental version with the vocals taken off and a 'late night jazz club' remix on which Tom and Cerys's original vocals were superimposed onto a jazz trio of which I was a proud member for the duration of the session.
So they played back the isolated vocal track to us and we duly played along. Somebody (definitely not a drummer) had added a 'live click' which did 'wander' a little bit. It also sounded like someone hitting a fridge door with a medium sized spanner. With hindsight it would have been far better if we had played along to the original band track, but we 'walked the wire' down the middle of the click and the end result sounds OK.

 

 

 

That aside though, I do sometimes wonder if we have become a little unnecessarily fixated with metronomic perfect time. Back in 2000 at Abbey Rd recording my second (and best) big band album Upswing, on arriving at the studio one of the musicians asked me,
 "Are we doing this to a click?"
The look on my face doubtless gave the wordless answer to my sideman's enquiry.
A great many giants of classical music, Arnold Schoenberg and Franz Liszt to name but two, despised the metronome and believe that to play a piece at a constant, unwavering tempo can compromise the emotion of the interpretation.

My personal point of view is that if there is no technical necessity for the music to be played with a click then the organic time and feel of the people who are breathing life in to the music must always take precedence otherwise it can get a bit like obsessive compulsive disorder set to music. Unlike the ghastly autotune the click is not there to compensate for a lack of talent, moreover to corral the talent within boundaries as a technical expedient. Everybody knows the two most famous 'accelerators' in popular music where the tempo runs away dramatically, (in case you don't they are 'September' by Earth, Wind and Fire and 'Chameleon' by Herbie Hancock) but does this marked increase in tempo in any way detract from the greatness of these recordings? Of course not. (For good measure check out 'Slick' from the album Samba Blim by Tamba 4 for another example of why this just doesn't matter sometimes). Another favourite is 'Walking Shoes' off Art Pepper Plus 11. The track starts off at a solid 169 bpm but as soon as the ensemble figures come in at the end of the first A section the tempo settles back, and throughout the track there is a marked contrast between the band passages and Pepper with the rhythm section only. Would it be better with a click? Yet again a big fat no.
Also try 'Jessica's Day' by the Count Basie orchestra and hear a big band hold beautifully steady at 112 bpm (111.5 if I'm being pedantic) for almost the entire first minute of the track. Recorded as live, no click, no overdubs, no digital editing.

So in conclusion a question. What makes good music better and does technology sometimes take more than it adds? Does the intervention of technology as a problem solver only serve to detract?

The Two Hundred Dollar Drum Fill

Remember the world before the days of Instagram? How did we manage without everybody's photos and videos to keep us entertained?
Personally I find Instagram invaluable, and I use it as my window on the international drum industry, as a result of which every morning I am entertained by all the news of the latest product innovations and releases, hipsters grooving on vintage kits in Midwestern cities, and all kinds of playing uploads. I'm constantly fascinated by what new players have to offer, as well as more established faces who are savvy enough to maintain a strong social media presence; something that is now pretty much a prerequisite part of the game. Irrespective of whether it's new blood or old hands, playing uploads can be  categorised into two subheadings; education and entertainment, although to say that the lines are frequently blurred would be an understatement.

The 'Instagram Drummer' is possibly the next evolutionary step on from the 'Youtube Drummer', one or two of whom have become internationally acclaimed without ever having had to play Mustang Sally. Lucky people.

Or are they?
Is this brave new world of drum sound bites yet another manifestation of disposable culture, or will it bring forth anything of genuinely lasting quality? Nobody knows. It's too early to say. Check back in three to five years time.

Amongst the daily diet of blastbeats and linear gospel chops one particular contributor made a lasting impression a few weeks ago. I think he had three snares, maybe six toms, all kinds of cymbals plus the usual array of popular 'effects' add ons; so probably somewhere in the region of 16 to 20 sound sources.

His playing showed clear evidence of talent and application, clearly much precious practice time had been invested. However, having all kinds of facility and making something happen musically do not by any means go hand in hand.

Then he proceeded to demonstrate a fill he had come up with. The fill was of two beats duration and consisted entirely of constant 16th note triplets and our internet sensation hit each sound source once and once only before moving on to the next one. Before you ask, it wasn't a hoax, although unwittingly almost was. If you haven't seen Jens Hannemann check this out. I actually have a friend whose playing comes dangerously close to this at times........

His next fill had identical duration and rhythmic structure and the only difference was that this time he hit everything just one time, but in a different sequence. Helpfully in the comments he included the sticking, it read something like this R,L,R,L,R,L,R,L,K (it's a bass drum) R,L,R,L,R,L,K.

I couldn't help wondering that if he were to extrapolate this system and play, for instance, a two bar fill in sixteenth note subdivision he would need to expand to a 32 piece drum set, and that as the fills become longer he will need to invest in ever increasing numbers of add-ons,  so each time our man needs to play a longer fill he'll be off to the drum shop for another bit of gear, hence the title of this post.

Don't get me wrong; everything has its place, but is this more in the territory of 'Guinness Book Of Records' rather than making music?
And just to emphasise my point here is the late, great Cozy Powell in the company of legendary British entertainer Roy Castle doing something similar a few decades ago...

I've been playing a very basic set of drums for 53 years now and haven't yet worn out the creative possibilities.
Here is someone else playing four pieces, a pair of hi hats and a couple of cymbals, recorded two weeks after I was born as it happens.