Meeting My Heroes, Part 1
When Pop and Mom first played Benny Goodman's "Sing, Sing, Sing" for me when I was nine years old, Gene Krupa became my first drumming hero. But once I discovered Buddy Rich a few years later he became my all-time biggest drumming hero. It wasn't that I thought I could ever play like Buddy (I knew you had to be born with that kind of genius), but to this day I've always admired his complete and total mastery of the instrument. Hearing and seeing Buddy Rich play when I was a kid was absolutely astonishing; he always seemed to do things on the drums that were humanly impossible. Stories of famous drummers jostling with each other for a ringside seat at Buddy's live performances are legion, as are stories of those same famous drummers being brought to tears witnessing Buddy's sheer command behind the drumset.
In the days long before YouTube made millions of great performances available 24/7 with just a couple of screen taps or mouse clicks, getting to see Buddy Rich perform on TV was a rare treat. I remember seeing Buddy and Gene Krupa perform together on The Sammy Davis Jr. show in 1966, and my folks letting me stay up once or twice to watch Buddy on The Tonight Show when it was still being broadcast from New York.
Then during the summer of 1967, along with George Carlin and Buddy Greco, Buddy Rich appeared as one of the hosts of Away We Go, the weekly summer replacement variety program for The Jackie Gleason Show. Here was BUDDY FREAKING RICH on TV every week, dancing, appearing in skits and doing comedy shtick with Carlin, Greco and that week’s guest star. Oh, and did I mention that Buddy would also play a few numbers each show with his kick-ass new big band? Needless to say I watched every single one of those shows when they were broadcast that summer.
Pop’s friend and employer, Alan, was a friend of Buddy Rich’s, and Alan knew that I was big a fan of Buddy. (I’m sure Pop had something to do with Alan’s knowing.) So Alan arranged for me to attend a taping of Away We Go. (Episodes were taped at CBS Television City in the Fairfax district in front of a live audience a few weeks before they were broadcast.) On top of that, Alan arranged that I was to be escorted (in reality, chaperoned) by his wife, Vera (a beautiful blonde former showgirl) and Buddy’s wife, Marie, who was a beautiful blonde former actress and a friend of Vera’s. It was a very grown-up escort indeed for this still somewhat dorky 15-year old, who was wearing his best suit and trying (quite unsuccessfully, I'm sure) to look all grown up. I can only imagine how incongruous it must have seemed to the rest of the audience members as this skinny kid walked to his seat with these two stunningly beautiful women, one on each arm.
As I took my seat between Vera and Marie I couldn’t believe that I was about to see my drumming hero play in person for the very first time! (I would see him play in person another ten or so times after that night.)
The only thing I really
remember about the show itself was Buddy and his band — they were
absolutely on fire! This was the first time I had ever
seen a big band play in person, and it just happened to be one of the very best
big bands in history! The big number the band played in that particular show
was their “West Side Story Medley”, a 12-minute opus that featured an extended
drum solo. (It also featured a bunch of silly dancing, since the producers clearly figured that watching a top-flight big band being led by "the greatest drummer who ever drew breath", to quote Gene Krupa talking about Buddy, wouldn't be entertaining enough for folks in Phoenix, or Olathe, Kansas. <sigh>) The band’s power, precision and commitment to the music were
tremendously exciting, and seeing Buddy play in the flesh was completely
overwhelming. When the band finished the medley my head was spinning from
trying to take in everything Buddy had done on the drums; I was absolutely
speechless. Unfortunately, before the band had begun playing I had plenty to
say…
When the stagehands were
setting up for the band's number they brought out a wheeled riser with Buddy’s
drums on it, and I noticed that Buddy was using a new Vox drumset. I had heard
through the drummer’s grapevine in school that Vox had paid Buddy a huge sum of
money to play their drums, since Buddy’s endorsement could mean millions of
dollars in sales. When I saw the Vox drumset on the riser, I blurted
out: “I see he’s using the new Vox drums. I heard they paid him $100,000 to
endorse those.” Although my attention was rapt upon the drumset as I leaned
forward trying to absorb every detail about it, I remember feeling Marie and
Vera looking at each other behind my head. (It was to be many years before I
eventually had my brain fitted with a filter.)
The band’s performance of
“West Side Story” was at the end of the taping, and when the number was
finished Marie and Vera escorted me backstage — I WAS GOING TO MEET BUDDY! When
we got to his dressing room Marie spoke with Buddy as he was toweling himself off.
Buddy looked at me and Vera introduced us. As Buddy shook my hand, Marie said
to him “Hey Buddy, you ought to listen to that kid. He knows more about your
business dealings than you do!” That
broke the ice, and for the next few minutes Buddy treated me like I was an old
friend. I forgot to ask him for an autograph (D-OH!), but instead I got something much better — a drum lesson!
Being a dumb kid drummer,
while talking with Buddy I of course asked him Dumb Kid Drummer Question #1:
“How do you play so fast?” Buddy paused, then led me over to the dressing room
wall and said “First you practice single strokes, starting slow and building up
speed.” Then he took his fists, extended the knuckles on his middle fingers and
began to play a slow single-stroke roll on the wall with only his knuckles. He
built up that roll from slow strokes all the way to a perfectly smooth buzz, using only his knuckles on the wall.
“Then you do the same thing
using two strokes with each hand,” and Buddy played a perfect 2-stroke “knuckle
roll” on the wall, again building from slow strokes all the way up to a smooth
buzz. “Then you do it with three strokes and then with four,” and Buddy played
perfect 3- and 4-stroke knuckle rolls on the wall. “Then you mix them up!” and
Buddy began to play patterns between his hands using combinations of 1, 2, 3
and 4 strokes with each hand, all at lightning-fast speed, all with perfectly
smooth and even execution, and all using only his knuckles on the wall!
When Buddy finished he was
smiling; I was flabbergasted! Not in a million years had I expected to see
something like that. It felt like I had just gotten a drum lesson from God
Himself! No one else has ever had that kind of command on the instrument (or
off it, as Buddy had just demonstrated). No one.
After that unforgettable drum lesson I would get another
lesson that was just as unforgettable. I noticed that the wheeled riser with
Buddy’s drums set up on it was nearby, so I asked Buddy if I could sit behind
his drums. He said “Go ahead, but don’t make any noise, they want to keep the
stage quiet.” (I just wanted to “try them on” so to speak, to see how it felt to be behind his drumset. I had no intention of making a sound on them.)
This turned out to be a revelation for me. As I sat on his
drum throne — he sat high, using a standard canister throne with a padded seat
that was 24” off the floor — I found that every part of his drumset was in the
absolutely most comfortable place it could be for me. (Buddy and I were the
same height.) I could play his snare drum with both elbows totally relaxed at
my sides and my forearms relaxed in front of me; I could reach his ride cymbal
(the one you spend the most time playing) just by swinging my right wrist a few
inches over to my right while still keeping my right elbow relaxed at my side.
If I moved my elbows forward only a couple of inches I could easily reach his
small tom-tom; move my elbows a few inches to the right and I could reach his
floor tom. His hi-hats were just to the left of his snare drum, only an inch or
so above the drum rim, so you could effortlessly move between them and the
snare drum.
A light bulb went on in my head: Why waste energy reaching
for things? If I wanted to play fast and smooth I needed to set up my drums so
that I could reach everything using as little energy as possible. I have
followed that principle as best as possible with every one of the six different drumsets I’ve owned. (The 11-drum, 8-cymbal + gong and chimes Vistalite drumset that I used when I was on the road between 1973 and 1977 was a special case
— when you have that many drums and other stuff there’s no way every single
item is going to be within easy reach. So I made sure that the vital elements —
snare drum, hi-hats, ride cymbal and the main two tom-toms — were close at hand.)
As Vera and I were leaving
the studio I shook Buddy’s hand again and thanked him for the lesson. He said
“I hope your dad gets better soon.” Buddy had remembered that one of us
(probably this kid with his filterless brain) had mentioned to him about Pop
recovering from a recent heart attack.
There is an aphorism that warns us to be wary of meeting our heroes, lest we be disappointed when we discover that they are merely human. I met my hero and was not disappointed: he was one of those very special humans who turned out to be in a class by himself and yet down-to-earth all at the same time.
-Hyam R. Sosnow
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