Segment 4: Master Class for Drums (21:53)

For use in Lesson #8.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To go to a specific chapter, slide the elapsed time indicator in the video screen to the timing point shown for that chapter below.

Chapters:

1. Clinician introductions: Joe Lastie, Hal Smith (0:00)

2. A Look at the Drum Set (0:32)

3. Your Role (1:41)

4. Ensemble Drumming: New Orleans Brass Band Style (3:07)

5. Ensemble Drumming: Classic New Orleans Style (5:15)

6. Ensemble Drumming: New Orleans Revival Style (6:16)

7. Ensemble Drumming: Chicago Style (9:27)

8. Ensemble Drumming: San Francisco Style (11:56)

9. Playing the Washboard (13:11)

10. Soloing: New Orleans Revival Style (14:54)

11. Soloing: Chicago Style (16:51)

12. A Message From Hal (17:45)

13. A Message From Joe (18:07)

14. Clip of Baby Dodds (18:36)

15. Clip of Jo Jones (19:30)

16. Clip of Big Sid Catlett (20:25)

17. Clip of Gene Krupa (21:05)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A detailed description/transcription of this video segment follows for reference

Clinician Introductions: (left to right) Joe Lastie, Hal Smith

Joe: [plays a short solo] Hey! I’m Joe Lastie, drummer with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

Hal: [plays a short solo] Hello, I’m Hal Smith.  I’d like to talk to you about the most exciting drum style I know; that’s traditional jazz.

A Look at the Drum Set

Hal: I’m playing a traditional jazz-style drum set right here. It’s got a bass drum [hits bass drum]; two tom-toms, high and low pitch [hits each]; snare drum [plays the snare]; and I have three of my own cymbals. I have one cymbal that’s a crash cymbal [hits cymbal], and it doubles as a choke cymbal [hits cymbal, choked]. I have a second crash cymbal, slightly larger [hits cymbal], and it doubles as a choke cymbal [hits cymbal, choked], and also as a ride cymbal [plays ding-a-ding on cymbal]. To my right I have a Chinese cymbal, with rivets, for color. It’s a crash cymbal [hits cymbal]; it’s also a ride cymbal [plays ding-a-ding]. And I have a woodblock [plays woodblock], and a cowbell [hits cowbell]. And a hi-hat [plays hi-hat]. Put them all together, this is the basic traditional jazz drum kit.

Your Role

Hal: The drummer is the heartbeat of a traditional jazz band, and if you’re not swinging, the band’s not going to swing. And when I say swing, I don’t necessarily mean playing the Swing Style; I mean playing with a lift, and playing interesting patterns, and keeping the rhythm moving along. And the drummer can determine the style of a performance. You don’t want to bang on a ride cymbal all the way through a Jelly Roll Morton or a King Oliver classic piece; you’ve got to listen to what’s going on around you, and play something that’s appropriate.

Joe: Don’t overplay the band you’re playing with, or a singer, you know; you don’t want to overplay them.

Hal: And vary the pattern from chorus to chorus. Don’t play a press roll or a ride cymbal beat all the way through a tune, or five or six choruses in a row. You should mix it up, and play little turnarounds, little fills between the choruses—anything to keep it moving and keep yourself interested and keep the fellow musicians interested. When you’re playing, whether it’s a solo or with the full band, one thing you really need to make sure you do is draw the sound out of the drums. It makes a great difference if you hit the tom-tom like this [hits tom-tom], versus [hits it differently]…or a cymbal [hits cymbal two different ways]. Always draw the sound out; lift. It keeps the music moving too, it keeps it from sagging down.

Ensemble Drumming: New Orleans Brass Band Style

Joe: Basically, I’m going to show you now, what I’m going to show you—the basic beats in the brass band. New Orleans is known for their brass bands. This is some of the beats. [demonstrates press rolls] The snare drum, if you hear the snare drum, it’s got that little parade sound. [demonstrates] See, the bass drum, listen at the bass drum; that’s where you get it! [demonstrates syncopated pattern on bass drum] And when you put them together, this is what you get with the— [plays a parade beat] See, you get that little syncopation beat where— [plays parade beat with emphasis on 4] See that?

Hal: [plays parade beat]  Now did you notice how syncopated the snare drum was? And the bass drum was syncopated against that, and the cymbal was syncopated against that. That’s because usually in a brass band there’s two drummers playing all that. There’s a snare drummer, and a bass drummer playing a mallet with one hand and a cymbal mounted on the bass drum with the other. I’m just trying to combine all of that into one sound.

Ensemble Drumming: Classic New Orleans Style

Hal: What’s referred to as Classic New Orleans jazz is really timeless music. It’s just as exciting today to listen to and to play as when it was first played and recorded back in the 1920s. Bands like King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers, Louis Armstrong’s Hot Seven, Luis Russell and his Orchestra—fantastic music, and the drumming is a very important part of the pulse of that music. But it’s not a complicated thing that the drummers did back then. The New Orleans press roll was a big part of it. [plays press rolls] Some drummers played on the woodblock. [plays woodblock] There was the choke cymbal. [plays choked cymbal] Occasionally a cymbal crash. [plays snare with a cymbal crash]

Ensemble Drumming: New Orleans Revival Style

Hal: In the 1940s came the New Orleans Revival. It was a revival of the kind of music played earlier, say twenty years earlier, by wonderful musicians such as Bunk Johnson, Kid Ory, and George Lewis, in New Orleans, and it went around the world in the 1940s. One of the most important drummers in the New Orleans Revival was Warren “Baby” Dodds, and the keystone of his entire style was what’s called the “shimmy beat” on the snare drum; it goes about like this. [plays slow press rolls] And you can play it just about any tempo. [plays fast press rolls] You’ll hear that all through the New Orleans Revival, whoever is playing drums. It’s a good way to set up getting around the drum kit, too. If you start with press rolls, you can move around and play turnarounds, play on the block, play a chorus on ride cymbal, play with the stick on the bass drum…let me show you how it works. [plays time—“shimmy beat” and variations] Sets up everything from the press roll.

Joe: You know basically the way I do it, how I do it, see, it’s not so much in the wrist, it’s in the fingers, see. [plays press rolls; plays “shimmy beat” with four-beat bass drum] Now when I’m playing with Preservation Hall, I mix it up. You’re liable to see me doing: [plays a pattern] Then I do a four. [plays a pattern with busier bass drum] Then I go on my cymbals here; you don’t have to do this here all the time: [plays ding ding-a ding on ride cymbal] It’s just, you could really play a simple…like that, and be swinging. [plays 4-beat ride cymbal] I’m talking about swinging. [adds bass drum] See that? [adds snare] See that?

Hal: A little device called the turnaround; that’s a transition phrase between, usually, 4-bar or 8-bar phrases. And Paul Barbarin of New Orleans was especially adept at sticking these in. [plays two 4-bar cadences with toms on each third/fourth bar]

Ensemble Drumming: Chicago Style

Hal: One of the very exciting styles in traditional jazz is Chicago Style. It’s got a lot of elements of New Orleans music—press rolls, 4/4 on the bass drum—but there’s a lot more ride cymbal. [plays snare with ride cymbal] It’s got brushes, usually played four to the bar. [plays brushes uptempo]  A very fantastic drummer from Topeka Kansas who was associated with the Chicago Style was George Wettling. He’s on many many wonderful records by Eddie Condon, and he brought the playing of ride cymbal to a fine art; he also brought playing drum tags to a fine art. And he’s an early influence for me, I love everything he ever played. And I’ll try to play a little bit like George Wettling for you right now. [plays time, uptempo, emphasizing ride cymbal]

Joe: Now when you get to that Chicago swing: [plays hi-hat] … or [plays pattern with fast ride cymbal]. See that?

Hal: And, there’s a drum tag. This is the first time we hear the drum tag in traditional jazz. You play a tune all the way through—whoever’s going to take choruses takes their choruses—when the tune ends, you play four bars, sometimes eight bars; the band comes back and plays another four bars or eight bars. If we come up to the end of a tune, like so, I’ll tag on four bars. [plays four bars of time, four bar tag, four bars of time]

Joe:  When the band goes out, you know, after your four, they might take eight. So, sometimes they take four; get the bandleader to hold up his hand, “4” or “8”. So you have to always look for that too!

Ensemble Drumming: San Francisco Style

Hal: There was a branch of the music called the San Francisco Style, played by Lu Watters and his Yerba Buena Jazz Band and others. And a wonderful drummer named Bill Dart played in the Yerba Buena band. He emphasized the 2/4 side of the music. And I’m going to play a chorus typically in the Dart style, that utilizes a woodblock, a choke cymbal, and as you can see I’ve got a bandanna muting the tom-tom, for the old Chinese tack-head tom-tom sound. Those are the three elements of the drum set that Bill Dart used the most in the San Francisco Style. [plays 8 bars each—woodblock, muted tom, choke cymbal] Notice that was 2-beat all the way through. San Francisco jazz very seldom varies from 2-beat.

Playing the Washboard

Hal: This washboard is a serious musical instrument in traditional jazz; it’s not a prop, and it’s not a comedy act. It’s used primarily in the Classic New Orleans and San Francisco Styles. You can find one generally at a hardware store, and you look for one with metal corrugations—not glass, not wood. You can add whatever you want to—woodblock; cowbell; you can add cymbals if they don’t hit you in the chin when you’re trying to play it. There’s a number of different ways to hold it. You can hold it without a strap; have it flat on your lap; play it forward; you can play it on both sides if you have one with two playing surfaces, which this isn’t. But I find it handiest to play with a strap over my shoulder, a snare drum strap. You can play a washboard with a lot of different instruments. I prefer sewing thimbles, and to keep them from flying off my fingers, I tape them on with adhesive tape. And there’s a number of ways you can play the washboard itself. You can tap it [plays syncopated taps]; you can scrape it [plays scrapes]; you can play a “shimmy beat” or a press roll [plays “shimmy beat”], or with the other hand if you prefer [plays “shimmy beat”]; you can scrub it [plays scrubs]; and you can use the other devices in the course of your playing. [demonstrates the washboard, including woodblock and cowbell]

Soloing: New Orleans Revival Style

Hal: In a New Orleans Revival Style when you take a solo, think of all the great drummers—Baby Dodds, Zutty Singleton, Paul Barbarin, Cie Frazier—who played New Orleans jazz. If you’re going to play something like “Hindustan”, mix it all up; you’ll come out with something hopefully like this. [plays a drum solo]

Joe:  [plays a drum solo] I like that! Ha ha!

Hal: One thing you always want to keep in mind when you’re playing a solo, is keep the melody in your head. You’ll never get lost, and chances are the band won’t either, if you know where you are and you’re singing the melody to yourself or just thinking it. Much easier than counting bars or, or trying to keep track otherwise.

Soloing: Chicago Style

Hal: Here’s the same song, “Hindustan”; a drum solo played in the Chicago Style as opposed to the New Orleans Style. I’ll mix it up a little bit on this one, and add in some cymbals and some other rhythmic devices that I didn’t use on the New Orleans solo. Here’s “Hindustan”. [plays a drum solo]

A Message From Hal

Hal: One of the things I love most about playing drums in a traditional jazz band is the teamwork. When I work with the other members of the rhythm section, and we create a groove that the front line can lock into, that translates to excitement for everybody; we inspire each other, and as I said earlier, that inspires the band.

A Message From Joe

Joe:  I like to play this New Orleans jazz, because it makes me feel very good to see other people, it’s making other people happy; not just making them happy, it’s making me happy too. So I have to be happy too playing this music. And I really love playing, I would really highly recommend you to play, you know, to study New Orleans jazz, New Orleans traditional jazz, because it’s got a lot of feeling behind it.

Clip of Baby Dodds

Hal: Here’s the man who’s considered to be the “father” of traditional jazz drumming, Baby Dodds, showing all his great New Orleans techniques.

Baby Dodds plays a drum solo [dubbed soundtrack]

Clip of Jo Jones

Joe: Here’s one of the great swing and Chicago style drum men, Jo Jones. Check it out.

Jo Jones plays a solo on “Rosetta” with the Red Allen All-Stars

Clip of Big Sid Catlett

Hal: Big Sid Catlett was one of the most swinging drummers of any era. Here he is playing wonderful brushes.

Big Sid Catlett plays a solo on “Broadjump” with the John Kirby Sextet

Clip of Gene Krupa

Joe: Check out this clip from the big explosion, Chicago Style: Gene Krupa.

Gene Krupa plays a solo on “Tiger Rag” with The Chicagoans

 

Performance Clip Details

Ch. 14: Baby Dodds, “Drum Improvisation #1”, 1953 (video)/1946 (audio): Baby Dodds drums

Ch. 15: Red Allen All-Stars, “Rosetta”, 1957: Red Allen trumpet, Rex Stewart cornet, Pee Wee Russell clarinet, Coleman Hawkins tenor saxophone, Vic Dickenson trombone, Nat Pierce piano, Danny Barker guitar, Milt Hinton bass, Jo Jones drums

Ch. 16: John Kirby Sextet, “Broadjump”, 1947: Charlie Shavers trumpet, Buster Bailey clarinet, Charlie Holmes alto sax, Billy Kyle piano, John Kirby bass, Sid Catlett drums

Ch. 17: The Chicagoans, “Tiger Rag”, 1961: Jimmy McPartland cornet, Pee Wee Russell clarinet, Bud Freeman tenor saxophone, Jack Teagarden trombone, Joe Sullivan piano, Eddie Condon guitar, Bob Haggart bass, Gene Krupa drums

Music heard under the “A Message From…” chapters is performed by the Capital Focus Jazz Band youth group of Washington, DC.