T. Bruce Wittet writes: The celebration of the life of David Binder was a modest gathering held late in August, 2024 in his home town of Ottawa, Canada. I was startled to hear of his untimely passing in his late sixties.

He had left instructions to play a James Taylor song, ‘It’s Enough to be on Your Way’. When the deceased asks to speak to the living by means of a song, you want to listen carefully , give it your full attention. Alas, while the funeral home had claimed they had a sound system available that would be adequate, this was not the case. Virtually no one got a fair listen, which is why I’m repeating a selection from the lyrics here. It expresses a cycle of life and the nature of community

The sun shines on this funeral
Just the same as on a birth
The way it shines on everything
That happens here on earth.
It rolls across the western sky
And back into the sea
And spends the day’s last rays upon this fucked-up family

So long old pal…

My perceptions date back to 1971 and answering the door at our rehearsal space. Age differences are magnified when you’re in high school. I was 19 and I opened the door and there was Dave, three years my junior, and with a good grasp on a guitar case. He was nerdy with dark glasses, almost black hair, and he seemed barely out of short pants. He explained that he was the guy who had called about the “seeking guitarist” newspaper ad. He was bursting with enthusiasm so I led him immediately downstairs.

I introduced Dave and watched him warm up. He was consistent. He was powerful. I turned to him and whispered, “far as I’m concerned you’ve got the job”.

Once he learned a song, it was for keeps. His ability to recall songs, artists, cartoon characters, any detail from any Quentin Tarantino movie or Steven King book was impressive, as was his loyalty. He stayed with a band until the bitter end. Some say he was a born front man in the rich tradition of David Byrne and Elvis Costello. All I know is that he had his fans who followed behind him, gig to gig. When he moved on after our band expired, his fans went with them.

I felt Dave was a little clumsy on stage in a good way. He was no Mick Jagger. Dave and I both lacked grace. Rather than Arthur Murray, we adhered to the Joe Cocker School of Dance. To see Dave Binder move in giant steps, his guitar in front or in tow, was one take on the human condition. It seemed so gregarious it was not quite right. James Taylor mentioned such a state of physical being in the song ‘Copperline’: “One time I saw my daddy dance; he brought it back from the war in France.”

Dave was the polar opposite of the stereotypical rock musician.. He drank no alcohol, took no drugs. I never saw Dave Binder open a beer and consume it. Not alcohol, not coffee, not tea, nor mushrooms.

Meanwhile fusion hit the jazz market and set new heights for soloists like John McLaughlin and Jan Hammer. I thought that they played as if paid by the note. Dave thought it was exciting. I thought of fusion jazz as an injustice; more for recreation than for making music.

I can’t remember when I introduced Dave Binder to legendary folk artist Ian Tamblyn but they got on well. Soon I was cutting another album with Ian, this time with Dave on guitar. The album was an anomaly. Ian had discovered U2 before they made noises in Canada and Tamblyn’s album Dance Me Outside was dedicated to the Irish band. The track ‘White Belt, White Shoes’ referred to the post-disco dress code for gangsters who hung out in the upper rooms of clubs. ‘White Belt’ showed that Ian had been bitten by the British bug that brought me to the feet of Richard Thompson. It certainly had neither folk nor radio written all over. Dave’s parts in this song harken to Larry Carlton who cut ‘Don’t Take me Alive’ with Steely Dan.

In music you play yourself. And each project he undertook, Dave gave his all. When he came into the fold with Gerry Griffin, Dave was damn near obsessed. You can hear how he takes over the tracks, or at least was the perfect foil to Gerry, who had returned from a medieval prison in Melilla, Spanish Morocco, in North Africa. The entire album was written under barbaric conditions of squalor, corruption, punishment. The ensuing album interested Jeffrey Lesser who’d been involved with Kiss and one of the Lion King albums. Jeffrey was good for Gerry because he knew when to quit

I’ve chosen ‘Melilla’ and ‘I Hate Love’ to illustrate the level at which Dave was contributing. The lofty heights made his fall more traumatic, meaning the album bombed. He never recovered fully. It wasn’t anything obvious , frankly, but to me it was as plain as the nose on his face.

When I began complaining to Dave that he ought to be more active and join me in my new home studio it bothered him. The more I swooped down and pecked at him, the more he angered. He reminded me that my memory had lapsed. “Bruce, have you forgotten that it was largely due to your encouragement that I began to seriously investigate a career in music journalism?”

Guilty as charged. For almost a decade I edited a magazine out of Montreal, glossy, English and French. One issue I was short by a couple of newsy pieces the publisher wanted: to promote a friend and potential advertiser. The first was an exposé on a sports medical facility run by musicians in the name of musicians. The other piece was a puff piece about the pharmaceutical industry: are drugs the answer? Dave nailed both articles, understood the political ramifications, and kept the magazine running another month or six. But then for want of ads, the magazine I edited (we’re talking print media) was getting eaten alive. I told Dave that he was a special writer who, if he played his cards right—and consistently—might find himself running in a one-horse race. Music journalism has always had a problem. The question looms during any interview: is the interviewer a fan, a friend, or promotional agent? With Dave, now John Kelman, it was love of music. He had the chops to explain music to other musicians and to laypersons. No one else did what Dave did. He knew the way things worked because he had slugged away in the trenches just as he’d knocked on record company doors. He knew the lexicons, the currency, of each stakeholder. When he spoke in print, he spoke with authority.

If you’ll permit a parting anecdote, it is a humble tale about two friends perched in a second story window, one of them balancing a guitar and the other playing wire brushes on a tobacco tin: Dave and I. There had been anxious minutes—a real showdown—between the orchestra conductor and our quartet. On the eve of the debut of a symphony for orchestra and rock combo, we joined the rehearsal and played parts that sounded nothing like the printed page. You’ve rewritten the composer’s music? Would you do the same if it were Beethoven or Wagner? We thought we were doing them a favour. After tense negotiation we agreed to revert to the original. Give us this evening to review our parts and your wish is granted. A fist fight had been averted. Or worse.

We didn’t get into the fact that Dave Binder was the audacious one who trampled on one party’s intellectual property to assert his. This same Dave Binder was my musical companion and what happened next was, to me, miraculous. He’d bought Jethro Tull’s album Thick as a Brick on my recommendation. Whereas I’d listened to it all week solid, he was pushed against the wall dealing with this youth orchestra visit; thus, he’d scarcely had time to fit in two listens. Two are better than none. We talked briefly on the phone about covering one of the ‘movements’ within the long piece for our band to perform. But there in the window, Dave was taking his messages from another master. He surprised me. I recognized his opening chord and the tell tale salutation: “really don’t mind if you sit this one out”. Lead vocals, too! I signaled that I’d take the next line, “my word’s but a whisper, your deafness a shout”. We played the entire Thick as a Brick, start to finish, no omissions, no major hiccups, and every single chord, or reasonable substitution, was in its proper place. The vocals were sometimes off a little but sincere as the day is long. And as the sun dipped to the west we played Thick as a Brick in its entirety. No rehearsals, two listens by Dave. I was awestruck.

We had laughs a plenty, especially when the last note sustained and vanished. We did it! I still can’t get over it. Two listens. Deux-fois! Est ce-que c’est possible?! This Binder fellow: he must have had help, help from the beyond. If I had one criticism, it’s that while both of us could hit the notes and sound like vocalists, the drum and guitar parts might be compromised, and we could maybe call on – we’d gone through this before. We knew no vocalists we could count on! No problem, we’ll do the whole thing as a duet. But we’ll get in one full rehearsal!

This is the ear-to ear-smiles, and deep wholesome laughs, and naughty ones at junctures such as, “Let me make you a present of song, as your wise man breaks wind and is gone”. Fierce shrieking ensued. Next time I’ll find that old whoopy cushion. The thought of it brings out my not so inner child. At times like this, when there is something to be said or something to be sung, who will join me? Why do things have to go this way? The answer, said Irish singer-songwriter Paul Brady, is: nobody knows.

I miss Dave. I could have tried harder to stay close friends. Honestly, I’m glad he became such an acclaimed, revered writer. But our entire friendship was born of music and with music gone, removed from the equation, what remained had lost its raison d’être. Words were spoken that ought to have been withheld, at least the ones that dated back five decades.

You are the master of the unspoken word, my grandfather, my mentor, told me. Once spoken the word is master of you.

Now I get it.

LINK: Allaboutjazz writers pay tribute to John Kelman

The post John Kelman/Dave Binder (1956-2024). A tribute first appeared on UK Jazz News.

He began experiencing lower-back ailments, the bane of the drummer. By the mid-1950s he felt it was nigh time he shared more of his wisdom and expertise with young players – Tony Williams, Steve Smith, and Vinnie Colaiuta for example – he began teaching more than he’d anticipated but he certainly lost nothing of substance in the gigging department. Meanwhile, his tenure at the Berklee School of Music was the stuff of legend.

We asked resident drum authority T Bruce Wittet to write a tribute. Bruce responded enthusiastically but cautioned, “Alan Dawson is one of a precious few on my wish list I never crossed paths with in the 31-years I spent writing for Modern Drummer (NJ) magazine. I’ve rubbed shoulders with Alan’s peers and his students, though, and probably have a perspective worth sharing. Let me at it!”

T Bruce Wittet writes: Alan Dawson touched many, many drummers. He wasn’t one of those musicians who played, in his case, gigs every jazz drummer of his day coveted, then when the gig scene was quiet, supplemented his performance fees with income from a teaching practice. It’s good business, you know, as our parents were always saying, “have something to fall back on”. Good counsel, that. Your name might be accidentally erased from leaders’ phone books, or you might have gone out of fashion. That hurts. I did eight albums with a legendary Canadian songwriter. I thought we were in it for the long run until he stopped calling.

Alan Dawson gigged because he wasn’t afraid to play the way he heard it. He was a sensitive drummer who understood the many styles that fell under “jazz”. He gigged or recorded with George Shearing, Dave Brubeck, Booker Ervin (the setting wherein I discovered him), Dexter Gordon, Lionel Hampton (to paraphrase Alan’s depiction: a three year gig that felt like fifteen), Phil Woods, Sonny Stitt, Bill Evans, Terry Gibbs. What struck me, pardon the pun, is the aggression with which he played some of the dates. He played louder than most with Bill Evans. He fired off daring fills that would challenge most drummers to play them in time—and to understand them in concept. Drummerworld has very good audio and video evidence of the excitement he worked up on the bandstand.

Dawson’s ability to teach mastery did not fall on deaf ears. We’re talking the elder statesmen of jazz and fusion music, including Harvey Mason, Dave Weckl, Joe Morello, Vinnie Colaiuta, Terri Lyne Carrington, Joe Corsello, and Steve Smith. Then there was Tony Williams, another Boston-area resident like Alan Dawson. The story goes that Tony’s drumming was already well above-average when he showed the audacity to approach Miles Davis with a request to sit in. They had words and Miles told Tony to be off to study, some say by name, with Alan Dawson. Learn his rudiments inside out,which, of course, is exactly what Dawson taught.

Tony Williams started out as a drummer showing more promise that most. Dawson gave him structure, a firm foundation, while giving his ideas wings. The result is that when Tony did join up with Miles Davis at age-17, the music that flowed from the quintet was unprecedented. Tony, reflecting Dawson’s teaching, has left the world a sound, a modus involving hyper-control of the sticks and a de-emphasis on bounce. It started with recordings such as the following, one of my favorites. Hats off to YouTube for allowing us to audition records such as one of my favourites, “Miles Smiles”, which I see as chamber music for the jazz world.

At some point in his career, Alan Dawson was troubled by lower-back issues—the drummer’s bane. Thus, he began leaning on teaching instead of schlepping. At Berklee College of Music, where Dawson taught for decades, he refined his deep understanding of the drums and how best to teach them. He could ‘read’ students and observe them, instantly diagnosing and prescribing remedies for technical problems. He alerted students to the looseness that allowed music to breathe, the tightness that made fills pop like fireworks, and he taught various ways of elongated phrasing to eliminate predictable fills every eight bars.

The Cursed Ritual

This is an Alan Dawson original. I’ve been playing drums for fifty-some years and I still can’t play “the ritual”, a series of rudiments that flow like silver over an ostinato bass drum playing a sort of samba that provided an even four-feel as a foundation. Now if you’re a hardy soul, nimble and patient, you might, after six months or so, complete part-one of the ritual. Trust me, it is the longest four minutes known to humans. It’s a spitefully long, horridly juxtaposed parade of rudiments that must be played as written. It’s a work of genius when you take a closer look at what Dawson has chosen to do with placement. And every drummer who can do it tries to look relaxed—as relaxed as someone singing in the church choir, whose lower digestive system complaint has, as it were, reached a head. I wouldn’t have lasted in Dawson’s class. I’d be done after six rudiments and plenty proud, too. But over twenty-six of them. In a row? Without stopping?

Although Dawson was stricken with leukemia and died in 1996, he left witnesses to explain and to carry his teaching. Perhaps more important, especially for those relying only on texts about “the jazz life” and on anecdotal evidence from survivors, was the library of music Alan Dawson left us and now, of course, the steady stream of material leaking out from nooks and crannies around the globe.

Knowing Songs

I never met Alan but I knew his contemporary Jim Blakely, a guru drum instructor who’d come from Edinburgh to play jazz in New York before settling in Toronto, Canada and teaching. In fact, he rented the house of a former student, Terry Clarke, for decades. He spoke of the importance of knowing songs, not in the manner of rock players, who say “I play for the song, man”. Instead we’re talking about song form, as in a blues might consist of twelve or sixteen bars, intervals of one, four, five and so on. To be able to identify forms is a valuable tool that eases the burden of sight reading. Dawson like Blakely had ways of dropping the needle on vinyl and having students identify the location.

It’s refreshing to see that new students are onto the teachings of Alan Dawson. One such is a writer who has just had his first book of snare drum exercises published in New York. Daniel Bedard is one of those who are consumed by music morning, noon, and night-time. “His ideas seem so fresh. He didn’t get the recognition I thought he deserved. For those of us who didn’t get to see him live, seeing him on Youtube is a total delight. Working through his ideas has been paying off big time for me. His ritual is such a genius way of linking all those rudiments and so musical. Alan Dawson was one of a kind.

I Owe this Man but Never Studied with Him

When I first heard Dawson with Booker Ervin, I got a glimpse of possibilities I hadn’t imagined. For example, there was this fill he’d tend to do wherein he’d play doubles on all drums including the bass drum and change the order from say snare, toms, to bass drum to tom, bass drum, snare drum. It was, for me, a breath of fresh air. I realize that after this length of time using that figure, I may owe his estate royalties.

Similarly, Dawson’s choice of drums reflected this fresh attitude to fills and ensemble playing. He used a 20” bass drum instead of the usual 18” diameter for the extra body it afforded. Similarly, he had the Fibes company make him 15” diameter floor toms instead of the standard 14” drums that populated jazz setups. Instead of standard Zildjian cymbals made in Boston/Quincy/Norwell, Alan preferred the relatively new Mini-Cup rides and crashes. The bell on a cymbal promotes crash qualities. By decreasing the bell size, you experience less wash. Here we see the triumph of articulation even in cymbal choice.

There is so much more to Alan Dawson, such as his encouragement to students to execute figures with brushes, thereby improving their performance on sticks! It’s not just that he was a great player and teacher; Alan Dawson had figured out how the drummer goes about business — the business of how to obtain sounds while keeping rhythms hopping at various dynamic levels. We salute him.

ALAN DAWSON 14 July 1929 – 23 February 1996

The post Alan Dawson (1929-1996) first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Although he no longer walks among us, Alex Riel left us so much music it’s almost incomprehensible that one man might have been responsible. We’re looking at jazz royalty passing through the Montmartre, where Alex was house drummer, to start with. To be shy of twenty-years and to have the opportunity to play with Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, and Donald Byrd—this whipped him into shape. In addition, the exposure led to Alex Riel receiving the award of Danish Jazz Musician of the Year (1965). To celebrate, he launched his own band and cut a record. Musicians came and went, just as Alex’s home was part-stage, part-studio. His bio includes a diverse lot of prominent band leaders and accompanists: Archie Shepp, Abdullah Ibrahim (I’m old enough to have seen him as Dollar Brand), Charlie Mariano, Phil Woods Mike Stern, Mike Brecker. I’ll leave you with links where you can set the names straight.

Born in Copenhagen in 1940, Alex Riel was, we ought to stress out of fairness and in light of his recent passing, one of the most influential musicians in Europe. As a drummer he had it all: the sound, the touch, the ability to communicate and to react at the drop of a hat. He had some sort of a courtesy deal with Gretsch drums as well as with Paiste; indeed in he appears in the “little orange book” listing that company’s endorsers circa 1975. Those cymbals fit Alex’s style in that he went for a crisp tone on snare and darker, richer thing on toms. Similarly Paiste cymbals are known for their attack component and rich but not overpowering wash. If that company didn’t introduce the Flat Ride, a cymbal without a bell that promoted a quieter but more defined stick tone and an absence of wash. And Alex had the touch to play these instruments to their optimum qualities. One prominent aspect of his drumming is that it tended to cross lines that traditionally define music as incorporating melody, harmony, and rhythm. The band could be cooking and many a player might hiccup and lose his/her place but Alex was always intimately attached to the various components. One could follow his drumming closely and know exactly where they were in a song, simply because Alex nailed transitions, orchestrated with the drumset, and called out melody, even with his snare drum in the manner of Sonny Payne. He honed all these abilities and when Steve Gadd made his enormous dent in music, Alex, similarly adopted a few more toms, tuned them a little darker and perhaps with slightly less sustain. Again, he used the ‘new’ voicings to shadow melody and harmony. I just assumed that in later days he employed a double-bass drum pedal out of this grand, rolling bottom end he produced, but he may have simply worked his right foot hard and fast! The point is that he worked at his playing; he learned from new players and new trends and it kept his playing fresh and youthful, his energy pulsing.

One thing I noticed about Alex, especially the time I saw him live, was the way in which he could shift tones, timbres, and sustain to complement soloists. To say the least, Alex was one of the more restless among drummers and one who, although refraining from asserting his own agenda, certainly did his share of prodding and pushing soloists and, say, horn sections playing ensemble figures. Alex could mirror the figures on his left hand alone, all the while pushing the time on the right hand. One might think this as the lot of the bop drummer but Alex was considerably more aggressive in his nudging bands on to greatness. In doing so, his cymbals didn’t wash over everyone like a blanket. Everything was under control and when blasting, kept from bombast by his fine motor skills.

Above all, he was a man whose humour worked hand in hand with his technique to keep everything honest. It was almost humility we were seeing. Then again, you hear this stellar example of his answering the call on the video clip in which he’s working as an equal with Jimmy Heath and David Murray in ‘Tenor Madness”. One of the soloist, no names, is purring along and Alex reckons the cat ought to be on the prowl, he begins a regimen of rhythmical poking, slapping on snare, driving a little heavier on bass drum, until the soloist has become another entity, fired-up and ready for a brawl.

What I remember most is the cat’s eyes and the smile when warranted. Alex’s smile is legendary and even in situations, such as his filmed performance with Bill Evans, easily a crowning achievement of his career, he traded grins as much as fours. It’s no wonder he did the European tour with Bill Evans and Eddie Gomez. We’re approaching this milestone in a moment.

There’s so much to take home from a study of the clips available on his website, on youtube, and on his page on the great Drummerworld there’s never a dull moment. Although he wasn’t well-known in my native Canada, his considerable talents were on the crest of the wave in Europe. The one time I saw Alex live, at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, he was playing outdoors and I was approaching a covered stage and a large crowd. And I stopped in my tracks. I knew this guy! Alex Riel was playing with some group I couldn’t identify if you put a pistol to my head, but there was no question it was him on drums. The moment I saw his eyes, “cat’s eyes” as I’ve always recognized them, having lived with a Siamese for twenty-years, his demeanour was set. No question who was the boss. Those cat’s eyes seemed to see through walls and create comfortable spackes, little enclaves among friends, where they were free to solo to the limit. You could tell that the each of the six players relied on Alex. In fact their eyes were glued to him. He was the one among them who most evidenced maturity and control. He could ride an up tempo swing/bop and lead; he wasn’t so much a follower. And then when everybody was on board, he could take the energy up another level or two and the audience was totally into it, wondering where he’d take them next. This guy was not merely hanging on, you know, like the old adventure movies where the protagonist and villain are both in mortal danger as the train approaches the tunnel (how appropriate in Montreux !). Alex, however, was driving and emphatically not a passenger. And here’s the thing: when a drummer can maintain that upscaled energy level and maintain consistency of groove, forcing the dynamic levels when necessary, he/she can unleash intricate, increasingly complex phrases, and get the room rattling like soldiers crossing a bridge. Somebody’s got to lead, even if it means breaking step, or the whole thing explodes. That’s my one and only time in the presence of Alex Riel but having seen my share of drummers by that time, it was obvious he was “one of the cats”. His kettle steamed and fussed and percolated and his hand was ready to up the heat or relax it.

Canada vs Denmark: Go West Young Man; Go Somewhere !

In Canada you might fly for half an hour and not see a soul down there, whereas in Denmark there’d be little red roofs, signs of life everywhere. But population-wise we’re looking at modest numbers in both countries. Both implore tacetly its most worthy jazz players to get out for a spell and return refueled. If not the jaded attitudes grow; the curmudgeons take root.

I have interviewed, very few if any can claim to even sniff the diversity and longevity of his activities. But in all serious musicians there’s a kernel of self-doubt, a momentary lapse of confidence. Could I make it out there?

Ironically, Alex was one who got out of the local stink simply by hooking up with musicians who hailed from America yet were known worldwide. Or more bluntly, the world came to him. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the Bill Evans tenure was a tipping point, or certainly the highest point, in Alex’s career.

As is usually the case with jazz musicians, rehearsals are scant but expectations remain as high as ever. Following his modest rehearsal time with pianist Bill Evans and bassist Eddie Gomez, Alex walked onto the soundstage and played as if he were born into the gig. As it turns out, in the late sixties/early seventies, drummer Paul Motian began to show his discontent. Of course, the death of bassist Scott LaFaro didn’t help. The hardest thing for the new guy is to jump in after a brief flirtation and a little more homework.

I don’t know whether it’s anything to be celebrated that I did the last major interview with Paul Motian. There’s not a lot of percentage in that and certainly no upgrades to business class. Paul told me that following LaFaro’s death, the main reason he wanted out of the Evans trio was that he felt it was becoming a cocktail jazz outfit. That pretty much stands on its own. The pianist gets more expansive while the bassist and drummer lose steam; they don’t take chances. When I watched footage of Alex’s rehearsals for a famous broadcast with the Evans trio, I was a little startled. I’ve been in the situation: I am not worthy; I am not worthy! But Alex Riel had his charts in hand, conferred with the band, didn’t load them down with questions, listened intently to Bill Evans. One passage, maybe it’s just me, is rich because of Bill Evans’ serious look as he explains a group of pushes, two beats juxtaposed against four if I remember correctly. I looked at Alex’s face and he was ready to signal the way those pushes ought to go but was a gentleman and let the leader explain. They launched into the tune and not only did Alex Riel sync with Gomez/Evans but he caught those pushes. And he starts amazingly busy out of the gate. I think the strategy served him well, given he was playing brushes and thus wasn’t going to step on anybody’s toes. Alex pulled off some difficult Roy Haynes style snare drum vs hi-hat closed with foot skirmishes. Good luck, pal! But he pulled it off and while Evans wasn’t jumping up and down, he wasn’t going to do that anyway! I think Alex taught him something: this Dane was down with it and was going to do his thing and reconcile it with the Evans thing. Things relaxed and there was a noticeable calm. Cranking up the broadcast mini-rehearsal and performance for Danish TV, it was remarkably brave, and ultimately musical, to see and hear Alex Riel joining as an equal, not an accompanist.

It’s difficult to overemphasize the importance of the Evans trio and of this gig for Alex Riel. He cut it like a knife cuts butter. I remember joining Marty Morell on his homestead (he moved to a farm and among other things, including mallets and kit) raised some healthy looking chickens. I think. I couldn’t tell but they surrounded my car, I remember saying, as if food always arrived in a VW 1976. I found Marty to be the closest to Alex and, indeed, their tastes were similar—in drums, in cymbal sounds, and in the use of brushes to tone down the level but retain the attack. Like Alex, Marty’s thing had been refined to work at pianissimo and nobody, least of all Evans, is going to complain when a drummer can trot out all his licks at pp as well as ff. It’s not as if Evans was beset by bad drummers when Motian left. Alex Riel takes his place as one of the better choices among a fine group of drummers. Alex demonstrated that thing that the best drummers of this world hold in the crucible. It’s a message: Do your thing at whisper volumes and let it travel the dynamic continuum consistently to an explosion, and there you have it. The world is your oyster.

He kept up his affable spirit and agile limbs until very near the end, surprising many colleagues who had no idea he was ill. There is something lost and, as they say about energy, it transfers on. What Alex Riel has achieved has not fallen on deaf ears and his style is alive already in those who’ve witnessed him at work and at play.

The post Alex Riel (1940-2024) – A tribute first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Jon Christensen was a friend for many years until his death in 2020. In later years we put together an agreement, wherein next time he came over he’d use my cymbals and drums. Similarly, if I got booked near Oslo, I was welcome to come over and pick out a kit and cymbals, including that cymbal. This was, at least to me, a prestigious, exciting arrangement that collapsed with Jon’s death in 2020. Jon’s ride cymbal was an icon in the drum world – either that or a graven image. Either way drummers sought it, paid great sticker prices, believing they’d found the Holy Grail. A lot of these beliefs were encouraged, in 1975, by the publishing of the “Little Orange Book” of drummers’ cymbal set-ups, the importance of which cannot be over-emphasized. I interviewed Charlie Watts and he spoke of touring the Paiste cymbal factory in Switzerland, and picking out a set of cymbals, which were gratis if you agreed to let Paiste use your name. That was the deal for many of the drummers listed. Jon’s cymbal was said to be a Paiste Formula 602 Dark Ride, which made considerable sense. It was heavier than other Paiste cymbals of the day and weighed in above most A Zildjians. So this was how Jon obtained his crystalline tone!

As it turned out, no, this was not the Holy Grail of ride cymbals. It went home with Jon with some others. The only one he used on albums, however, was the China cymbal. I think that’s it on the Eberhard Weber tracks. But his ride, again, was fifties/sixties Turkish-made K Zildjian. If the diameter had been more modest than 22”, I could see it as a Wagnerian suspended cymbal, or, of course, more martial marching hand cymbal. It’s a hard call and my call is that his, and mine, were mistakes. You know the kind that the maker laughs, “Oh, oh”. They didn’t tap them and listen. Everything was shape, taper, weight. And our cymbals fall into the “extreme” category. The reason I say “mistake” is that it’s fine to find an ornery hand cymbal pairing but, seriously, only some one heavy into steroids would be able to hold them, relaxed, and wait sixty-four measures for one explosion.

Now my high school followed the hand cymbal lead common in the late sixties and purchased two A Zildjian marching/band crashes. We could carry them easily at 16”. What a difference 6” makes! Indeed, ours were eminently manageable and for the finale of South Pacific, I’d take three steps out of the pit for dramatic effect and smack the two together and while the piatti tones sustained I’d undulate each grip so that the cymbals would produced a wow, wow, wow effect. Problem is, one of them came off the grommet. I never saw the cymbal travel six rows, from the pit into the audience, but thank God that the cymbal embedded in dry wall (it bounced off the metal seats and headed to the exit). And that’s all I can say, and repeat mercilessly, about cymbal pairs that excel in poundage. And we’re back to the call Christensen got to play the one-nighter with John Geggie on bass and Steve Amirault on piano, two of the A-list jazz players, elite by anybody’s criteria. The gig was good, a little curious perhaps in that it was more of a percussive gig for Jon that night, but he enjoyed it and the gear. At the end, he helped load out, no problem, then wrote on the back of the vintage bronze, now hopelessly oxidized: our cymbal, better and better.

Jon was a jazz drummer who alluded to rock by virtue of his inclusion of a straight-eighth note pop feel in his triplet-based jazz phrasing. It’s hard to explain but it’s an important aspect of jazz, shared with rock, in that the latter made the voyage from jazz swing to rock eighths at the same time. Once it was more common, and desired, by jazz drummers, it resulted in a shift of the interpretation of jazz standards and a squared-off feel to originals. The music schools in NYC and Boston now preface their jazz charts with an admonition/annotation about how to phrase the ride beat: swung eighths. You hear his ancient Turkish cymbal on all of the tracks below with the possible exception of the Keith Jarrett. He couldn’t remember given his mood at the time – hyper sensitive. He was anxious to please. Thus, let the listener decide if the cymbal with Keith Jarrett is an A Zildjian or a Turkish K!

1. “The Sea IV” The Sea: Ketil Bjornstadt (ECM). Christensen works mostly with drums throughout, rarely going to a cymbal except for a quiet mallet roll. Note that each track is entitled “The Sea”, after the album name, and is distinguished on the jewel box only by Roman numerals. I’ve listened to Christensen’s fine touch and head tensions on “The Sea IV” on the eve of a folkloric or jazz recording session as inspiration. He doesn’t overplay. I mean, he barely plays on some of the tracks. Technically he could but his refined sense of balance and proportion held him back. Christensen is using mid-density mallets throughout to achieve the desired spread but retain a little attack. His drumheads are tensioned sufficiently tight for him to project clear intervals in pitch.

2. “Yellow Fields” Yellow Fields, Eberhard Weber (ECM). This is one of Jon Christensen’s finest tracks. A legato opening quickly yields to a light, funky theme, which is restated in major to minor form throughout the song. Christensen’s funk is a model of spontaneity that finds his snare shots and his tom fills landing where least expected, busier than Billy Higgins would have but very much in that bright spirit. Christensen’s dynamic range is vast. With phones you can catch him playing complex figures at amazingly intimate levels.

3. “Drifting Petals” Solstice, Ralph Towner (ECM) . This is one of the prettiest songs to have emerged from the vapours. The use of flute and 12-string guitar contribute a natural, acoustic spread before any reverb is added to the mix. Mariano is aptly handling the flittering petals in the wind, while Christensen is creating a sort of jazz vesper/MJQ vibe. He’s amazingly active, introducing flutters, trills, short crush rolls and he shows full knowledge of traditional drum technique, executing, for example, various flams. Such control. And it’s control of sticks; he’s not resorting to brushes as most drummers would do at pp.

4. “Golden Rain” Serenity, Bobo Stenson (ECM).This beautiful melody, which features, of course, Stenson’s piano carrying melody and harmony. I’m sure the word “lush” was coined to describe his expansive, broad chords. The upright bass takes the opening “solo” or extrapolation, perhaps describes it better. Christensen throughout exhibits the patience of a saint while showing he’s fully conversant even when a chart contains an instruction: drums tacet! (I’m guessing). His light scrapes, barely audible, and crescendos on cymbals are what this song requires.

5. “Ved Fossen” Masqualero, Tore Brunberg (ECM). This is not an easy chart with its stops, difficult punches, and sharp turns. The driver must be awake and Christensen’s eyes are wide-open. By the time he gets to the staggered ensemble figures at the end of the head, which show amazing tenacity, he’s got energy to spare and he’s just nailing it, making good use of the fast decay of the China cymbal. Again, he’s trading in that area of swung-eighths, giving a lope, even at this up-tempo.

6. “Spiral Dance” Belonging, Keith Jarrett (ECM). Recently, I listened beyond Jarrett’s frightening impressions of Jerry Lewis, which had distracted me from the natural interplay. Christensen hangs with Jarrett’s forward-moving melody, a linear bucking bronco, and catches all of the accents, never once appearing to leave the saddle. And then I believe, unless I’m all wet, that he’s alluding to Cuba’s country music, salsa. This is all very academic, I agree. Then again, Jarrett is at the helm and needs a drummer who can not only stay with the ADHD beast but steer it. It’s probably just me but I’m hearing the uptown version of the ancient rumba (African, call & response, as opposed to the Rhumba, Arthur Murray style). In New Orleans this was essential to the Second Line joyous march home from the graveyard. I’m not trying to flog it to death but I do find Christensen’s rolls nodding to a Latin march.

7. “Piscean Dance”, Solstice, Ralph Towner (ECM): The engineer left the tape rolling and captured a James Gadson-inspired light funk groove. Extremely light, which allows the drums to emit overtones that otherwise would get eaten up in the mix. It’s fluid as a late night conversation in a downtown bar, perhaps the one wherein Jon and I shared stories of our Pisces traits. And an integral part of the Piscean interplay is the ‘happy accident’, well-represented here. Each of the false starts, aborted phrases, muted bass drum strokes, and missed opportunities is instantly fashioned into a shape that was meant to be.

8. “Cymbalsangen” Youtube, Jon Christensen July 2011:Cheers to the person who posted this rare look at a defining technique unique to JC. It’s up there with a Richard Attenborough clip of an odd little character who chirps, clatters, and sings as he decorates his nest and declares ownership. The camera is blessedly stationary above Jon’s left shoulder and the percussive technique reminds of a serious – not frivolous one bit – series of glancing blows, smeared tones, surprised utterances, made by Christensen lifting his sticks north, up beyond the cymbal line, then dragging them down beyond the point of no return. To mix metaphors yet again, it reminds me of a child going for the single red popsicle up in the freezer compartment of the fridge, unselfishly extricating it alone, but somehow inadvertently bringing the entire tray down. Funny how each item generates a signature tone as it strikes grills, milk bottles and jam jars as it nears the floor, yet anything disturbed is expertly scooped up and replaced before anybody in the household notices.

9 . “Left Lane” and
10. “Touch” both from Yellow Fields, Eberhard Weber (ECM): Pardon my inclusion of these to constitute The Ten. There are a whole lot of albums that I listen to, many with Christensen, like Iro Haarla, but I still listen to this one most. These are my desert island songs and, shallow as I am, I’m stuck on “Yellow Fields” through an MP3 player. It could be worse. I could have the volume cranked to get the full effect of the Norwegian winter coming in the front door, or distracted by thematic development in “Left Lane”, where the stark ping of that cymbal is especially obvious juxtaposed with Weber’s languid bass tone. But about this business of “far worse”, well, as it turns out on this desert island I’ve found a couple of artefacts and little etchings that suggest cannibalism. Better skip the ear buds. I want to hear them coming for me and have options.

(*) T Bruce Wittet lives in Ottawa, Canada. A born writer and doodler, his interest in playing music took precedence. His previous writing for LJN includes a tribute to Charlie Watts, and a feature about Bill Stewart

The post 10 Tracks I Can’t Do Without: Jon Christensen first appeared on UK Jazz News.

I have it on good authority that the weather and the airlines will smile fondly on Larry Goldings, Bill Stewart and Peter Bernstein and will carry them to London and Dorking in a scant few weeks. The trio, comprised of organ, drums and guitar, respectively, are incontrovertibly one of the the top outfits working. They’ve been at it for thirty-five years, delivering stunning performances just about everywhere they touch down.

If you’ve seen the man as many times as I have, you’ll know that Bill Stewart easily merits mention in the same breath as Roy Haynes, who just turned 99 and must be tickled pink to see his concepts so thoroughly explored by a drummer who plays with more than a little of that trademark snap – and who shares allegiance to the credo that cleanliness is next to Godliness. Speaking of which, he’s got Tony Williams coursing through his veins, meaning he’s developed an innate ability to mobilise the entire human body in service of those flurries of notes at both pp and ff. Drummers cannot live by bounce alone, especially when a rainstorm outside leaves calf [drum] heads so sloppy-loose they’re barely capable of emitting tone, forget about bounce. 

Bill Stewart plays the drums – not vice versa. This much he’s appropriated from Tony Williams, knowing that he was making a conscious decision to push aside 70% of the drum instructional manuals that buy into petty arguments about press rolls consisting of three bounces per hand vs. four. Once you begin this level of execution you play nothing unintentionally. You will each stroke to the drumhead. Even those unintended, trailing flutters from a hard bass drum beater fall silent.

Bill Stewart has worked his capacity to swing to the point where nothing will disturb his focus. We are getting very close to Bruce Lee at this juncture – and that’ll do for now.

An Organ Trio – Really?

I have to take exception to a handful of articles describing Goldings et al. as an organ trio. It’s not an organ trio relative to my memories of the Jimmy Smith experience, to name but one of the jazzy organ trios extant. As a Canadian youth living within a couple of hours of the USA border, I got to hear the last gasp of a lot of true jazz organ trios on the circuit that began in the States and often terminated in Toronto. I got to play with a Hammond player from one of them and luckily I knew the territory from vinyl albums and plenty of book-learnin’.

To call Goldings, Stewart and Bernstein an organ trio is not quite accurate, given the established jazz and blues repertoires of the famous organ trios starting with Jimmy Smith. And let’s call off any parallels between Larry Goldings and Brother Jack McDuff. While to equate Bill Stewart even casually with drummer Joe Dukes – McDuff’s illustrious drummer – well, that ain’t right, plain and simple. Again, this determination is based on repertoire. 

Sorry: Goldings, Keltner and Bernstein?

Pardon my stepping off the beaten path for a few moments, but the following will be tremendously instructive for those seeking to understand Stewart’s gilded reputation by checking out his band, Goldings and Bernstein, settling in with drummer Jim Keltner for an unrehearsed jam at a California nightclub. The contrast between Bill Stewart’s style and Jim Keltner’s is immediately obvious and shows what flows, both stylistically and in terms of making accommodations, with a radically different drummer.

Keltner told me of his relationship with Goldings, who was becoming familiar on the session scene, especially after joining James Taylor’s lineup. “If you’re a musician you ought to listen to Larry Goldings play the Hammond. You owe it to yourself to investigate closely what he does. And if the chance arises that you can play with him, that’s icing on the cake. I love that cat. And Bill Stewart, I regret not having time to hang out with him. He’s a top-of-the-line musician. There’s not many who sit up there with him.”

Bill’s Tips on Getting Sounds on Brushes and Cymbals

I thought I had a firm grasp on this guy but there he was, for the first time, so I thought, doing what I was taught to do from the age of twelve onwards. When playing brushes old-school style, Bill was disengaging the snare wires by releasing the lever holding flush to the bottom head of the snare drum.  

“I turn the snares off most of the time,” he says. “I don’t have a rule about it, but I think that when I play brushes the snares are off most of the time. That’s the classic way, but you get a lot of great brush players like Philly Joe Jones, Roy Haynes and Elvin Jones who play brushes with snares on. I like to keep them off when playing quiet music, where they’ll rattle away in sympathy with the bass.”

When he was younger, before Zildjian came to his aid, Stewart was restlessly searching for the Holy Grail of rides. This is a common drummers’ pastime and is somewhat analogous to wine tasting. The first three wines are distinct, what with a nibble of bread and a chunk of cheese between sips. Then the senses take a hike, including the ears. 

Zildjian’s then master cymbal smith Paul Francis, who has since left the fold to form Royal Cymbals, helped Stewart cobble the ideal ride from known materials copper and tin, which turn into liquid at temperatures so extreme that your house and car keys are gone in under a second. When cool it’s a new solid: bronze. It’s a sign of Stewart’s status in the cymbal world that he is offered the rare chance to design, build, and test prototypes until he’s satisfied.

The cymbal that emerged informally gained the title of the Bill Stewart Ride, but took to the catalogue as the K Zildjian Dry Complex Ride. It lasted a few years until drummers wanting to come close to Stewart’s dry, raspy, caw-like-a-crow tone, were satisfied. Then, like other Zildjian cymbals that have fallen from favour or fashion, they were de-catalogued, while the balance unsold were cut up and recycled.

Don’t Sweat the Kit du Jour

When Stewart arrives at the Dorking and London venues, he’ll encounter drums that a backline company, a shop, or a private collector consents to share. Concerned and confused Stewart fans will wonder why Bill would advertise for Gretsch then turn around and play gigs on Yamahas or maybe Canopus or Ludwigs. They feel hurt having gone out and purchased Gretsch solely on the recommendations made in advertisements about the players who endorse said products. With his preferred Gretsch unavailable, Bill will be faced with the prospect of playing a kit in the right sizes but wrong brand . . . or not performing. This latter option has been written-out of contemporary contracts and, thus, we see him playing kits des jours on Youtube. His cymbals, however, always travel on the plane, although with modern baggage provisions he keeps their numbers down to what’s necessary.

Goldings, Stewart and Bernstein at the End of the Day

After 35 years, this band has outlasted most and they keep it interesting in that they all write (Stewart on piano), and they shuffle the deck so that everybody leads. For Stewart, fleeing Des Moines for New York was an out-and-out blessing. He discovered that those green rows that go on forever and feed corn to the nation were no fields of dreams for him. 
This is but one of the lineups in which Bill performs. His own band’s album Band Menu is available. The popular guitarist John Scofield has a trio album out as we speak consisting of jazz titles, originals, and some surprising jazz renditions of popular sixties refrains (eg, “Hey Mr Tambourine Man,” or who could forget, “Old Man, Look At My Life”).

The post Bill Stewart – One of the Great Jazz Drummers first appeared on UK Jazz News.

From the beginning of his long tenure with the Rolling Stones in 1963, Charlie got it right – to his way of thinking. And he stuck to his guns, to his way of thinking, through decades of fashion and folly, never even casting a wayward eye at the trends parading by.

The expression “cut from a different cloth” seemed tailor-made, pun intended, for Charlie Watts. He loathed casual sneakers, trainers, T-shirts, jeans, and off-the-rack suits in favour of the Saville Row offerings. When he was young, he’d get out of his home turf in Wembley with his dad on a journey to east London where his dad’s tailor worked. It’s a scene that may provide context for the Rolling Stone album cover for Between the Buttons. Charlie’s essential conservatism guided him through rough waters in his career just as the well-worn jazz 32-bar chorus steered him to destinations unknown to the GPS.

Indeed, if you visited Charlie Watts in New York City, you’d take a yellow cab to midtown and a hotel with a hidden (to the public) tower and you’d be allowed through doors unknown to civilians and buzzed up by security – if Charlie validated your visit. He’d answer the door of his room dressed in a suit that’d pass editorial approval for the cover of GQ, yet which was standard fare for him lounging, maybe pruning the roses. His hotel room was strategically placed, offering a view of 52^nd Street, the jazz mecca in previous decades. The Stones would play the Gardens and he’d have access, of a weekend, to, say, Oscar Pettiford, JC Heard, Sonny Stitt, and when they audaciously reshaped the jazz world, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. From his lofty perch, he could swoop down and catch Philly Joe with Miles, or maybe Tony Williams, whom he appreciated less but understood. He’d sooner get a table and see, in the flesh, Chico Hamilton or Jimmy Cobb, to name two drummers who influenced him in his approach to ride cymbal. In that regard, Charlie would lament not managing to catch Davie Tough, another master of the ride. The ride cymbal defines jazz and if they steal your gear on the load-in, providing they spare the ride you can cover the gig.

With the Charlie Watts Orchestra or Quintet, the leader – no surprise here – would take a back seat to the vocalist, or to the horn soloist. He was quite capable, says his close friend Jim Keltner, the American session drummer, of “skipping around on the ride, varying the phrasing, although with the Stones it’d be straight up & down eighths”.

In his jazz groups, Charlie enjoyed playing the brushes – “stirring the soup”. He loved the architecture, the materials, the fine wires fanned-out, all assembled in optimum proportions.

Interestingly, Charlie did more than carry the spirit of jazz over to the Rolling Stones. His kit components were selected for their efficacy in jazz. A longtime friend of the Zildjian Company in Norwell, near Boston, Charlie nevertheless, employed, for the longest time, a cymbal made in Italy, and in fact one that he and roadie, the late Cheuch McGee, had found in a Paris trash bin. The significance is that Charlie Watts was able to work that cymbal into the Rolling Stones. It was a cymbal without a cup and thus without extraneous overtones – perfect for jazz. Charlie surprised all those paying attention when he began using the old UFIP flat ride cymbal continuously with the Stones. Until the crack began to emerge. Zildjian fashioned a replica that did the trick.

It had it coming: a thin, quiet cymbal struck with Charlie’s signature stick with its considerable girth. Some older fellows, accustomed to sticks like knitting needles, would depict Charlie’s stick as a tree trunk.

Similarly, the extent of Charlie’s fascination with jazz lore extended to drums. The archetypical jazz drum bore the distinctive Gretsch logo on the front skin of the bass drum, easily visible in legions of photos by Claxton et al. While in his jazz orchestra and quintet, Charlie often went with basic black Gretsch drums; with the Stones, it was always bigger drums. In the early days they might be Ludwig but Gretsch took over.

When the American magazine Modern Drummer interviewed Charlie and his long time friend Jim Keltner, on the occasion of the release of The Watts-Keltner Project, a bizarre outing with each track dedicated to a heritage jazz drummer, the writer managed a provocative question: “Charlie, for a guy who, let’s face it, can afford any drumset, I was wondering why you’d go with a tatty, scuffed up old Gretsch yellowed maple kit.” Charlie feigned anger but defused the blow with a smile. The answer, he explained, was obvious: he fancied the tone.

“Charlie was such a jazz guy,” Jim Keltner says. “It’s all we ever talked about. And we’d make a point of seeing who was playing in town. That’s what bonded us: starting out in jazz”.

Charlie Watts played in pretty much the same manner with the Stones as he played on jazz gigs. He liked to pop a mid-to-high tuned snare drum with a rimshot, harkening to a rich tradition that extended from Krupa style jazz to Stax and Motown soul tracks.

The man affectionately nicknamed “Charlie Boy” originally trained in design, took his place among rock heroes Mick, Keith, and originally Brian Jones and later Ron Wood, with considerable reluctance if not outright shyness. Never, except for a relatively short portion of his life, was he inclined to hang out with peers making toasts to the gods. Instead he played time that was steady, if not metronomic, and that floated. It was an accommodating time sense that carried his colleagues in a warm embrace. One doesn’t hear a lot of rushing or dragging on any Rolling Stones album. The answer was not in the machine, or fixing it in the mix, but in his hands and his concept.

Again, atypically, Charlie did not seek to lock-in with the bass player note for note. He admits, in fact, sometimes giving short shrift to bass and following Keith Richards, much the way jazz drummers did when comping. It was a lighter approach and while firm it allowed for a less ponderous, rock and roll rhythm section.

Charlie Watts died surrounded by family and passed on quietly as he lived. And will continue to live as the drummer who listened and allowed the music to move him and not the converse.

Charlie Watts (2 June 1941 – 24 August 2021)

The post Charlie Watts (1941-2021). first appeared on UK Jazz News.