 | |
| Background information | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Bernard Rich |
| Also known as | Traps the Drum Wonder (as a boy) and "B" (as an adult) |
| Born | September 30, 1917 |
| Origin | Brooklyn, New York, USA |
| Died | April 2, 1987 (aged 69) |
| Genres | Jazz, big band, swing, bebop |
| Occupations | Musician, songwriter, bandleader, actor |
| Instruments | Drums, percussion |
| Years active | 1919–1987 |
| Associated acts | Joe Marsala Bunny Berigan Artie Shaw Tommy Dorsey Benny Carter Harry James Les Brown Charlie Ventura Jazz at the Philharmonic Nat King Cole Ella Fitzgerald Gene Krupa and Louis Armstrong |
| Website | http://www.buddyrich.com/ |
Early life
Rich was born in Brooklyn, New York, to vaudevillians Robert and Bess Rich.[2] His talent for rhythm was first noted by his father, who saw that Buddy could keep a steady beat with spoons at the age of one. He began playing drums in vaudeville when he was 18 months old, billed as "Traps the Drum Wonder." At the peak of Rich's childhood career, he was reportedly the second-highest paid child entertainer in the world (after Jackie Coogan).[3] At 11 he was performing as a bandleader. He received no formal drum instruction, and went so far as to claim that instruction would only degrade his musical talent. He also never admitted to practicing, claiming to play the drums only during performances and was not known to read music. He expressed great admiration for, and was influenced by, the playing of Chick Webb, Gene Krupa, Dave Tough, and Jo Jones, among others.
Jazz career
Rich first played jazz with a major group in 1937 with Joe Marsala and guitarist Jack Lemaire. He then played with Bunny Berigan (1938) and Artie Shaw (1939), and even instructed a 14-year-old Mel Brooks in drumming for a short period when playing for Shaw.[4] At 21, Rich participated in his first major recording with the Vic Schoen Orchestra (the band that backed the Andrews Sisters).[5] In 1938, he was also hired to play in Tommy Dorsey's orchestra where he met and performed with Frank Sinatra. In 1942, Rich left the Dorsey band to join the United States Marine Corps. He rejoined the Dorsey group after leaving the Marines two years later. In 1946, Rich formed his own band with financial support from Sinatra, and continued to lead different groups on and off until the early fifties.[6][7]
In addition to Tommy Dorsey (1939–1942, 1945, 1954–1955), Rich also played with Benny Carter (1942), Harry James (1953-1956–1962, 1964, 1965), Les Brown, Charlie Ventura, and Jazz at the Philharmonic, as well as leading his own band and performing with all-star groups. In the early fifties Rich played with Dorsey and also began to perform with trumpeter Harry James, an association which lasted until 1966. In 1966, Rich left James in order to develop a new big band. For most of the period from 1966 until his death, he led successful big bands in an era when the popularity of big bands had waned from their 1930s and 40s peak. In this later period, Rich continued to play clubs but he had stated in multiple interviews that the great majority of his big band's performances were at high schools, colleges and universities, with club performances done to a much lesser degree. Rich also served as the session drummer for many recordings, where his playing was often much more understated than in his own big-band performances. Especially notable were Rich's sessions for the late-career comeback recordings of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, on which he worked with pianist Oscar Peterson and his famous trio featuring bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis.
Drumming technique and well known performances
Rich's technique has been one of the most standardized and coveted in drumming. His dexterity, musicality of playing style, speed and smooth execution are considered "holy grails" of drum technique and have been considered next to impossible to duplicate. While Rich typically held his sticks using traditional grip, he was also a skilled "match grip" player, and was one of few drummers to master the one-handed roll on both hands. Some of his more spectacular moves are crossover riffs, where he would criss-cross his arms from one drum to another, sometimes over the arm, and even under the arm at great speed.
He often used contrasting techniques to keep long drum solos from getting mundane. Aside from his energetic explosive displays, he would go into quieter passages. One passage he would use in most solos starts with a simple single-stroke roll on the snare picking up speed and power, then slowly moving his sticks closer to the rim as he gets quieter and then eventually playing on just the rim itself while still maintaining speed. Then he would reverse the effect and slowly move towards the center of the snare while increasing power.
Rich also demonstrated incredible skill at brush technique. On one album, 1955's The Lionel Hampton Art Tatum Buddy Rich Trio, Rich plays brushes almost exclusively throughout.
Another technique that few drummers have been able to perfect is the stick-trick where he does a fast roll just by slapping his two sticks together in a circular motion. When performing a single-stroke roll, Rich could be clocked at up to 20 strokes per second,[8] a feat now only being approached decades later by Mike Mangini, Jojo Mayer, Matt Smith, Connor Allan and others.
In 1942, Rich and drum teacher Henry Adler co-authored the instructional book Buddy Rich's Modern Interpretation of Snare Drum Rudiments, regarded as one of the more popular snare-drum rudiment books.
One of Adler's former students introduced Adler to Rich. "The kid told me Buddy played better than [Gene] Krupa. Buddy was only in his teens at the time and his friend was my first pupil. Buddy played and I watched his hands. Well, he knocked me right out. He did everything I wanted to do, and he did it with such ease. When I met his folks, I asked them who his teacher was. 'He never studied,' they told me. That made me feel very good. I realized that it was something physical, not only mental, that you had to have."
In a 1985 interview, Adler clarified the extent of his teacher-student relationship to Rich and their collaboration on the instructional book:
"I had nothing to do with [the rumor that I taught Buddy how to play]. That was a result of Tommy Dorsey's introduction to the Buddy Rich book," Adler said. "I used to go around denying it, knowing that Buddy was a natural player. Sure, he studied with me, but he didn't come to me to learn how to hold the drumsticks. I set out to teach Buddy to read. He'd take six lessons, go on the road for six weeks and come back. He didn't have time to practice.
"Tommy Dorsey wanted Buddy to write a book and he told him to get in touch with me. I did the book and Tommy wrote the foreword. Technically, I was Buddy's teacher, but I came along after he had already acquired his technique.
When asked about Rich's ability to read music, Bobby Shew, lead trumpeter in Rich's mid-60s big band replied,
- "No. He’d always have a drummer there during rehearsals to read and play the parts initially on new arrangements... He’d only have to listen to a chart once and he’d have it memorized. We'd run through it and he'd know exactly how it went, how many measures it ran and what he'd have to do to drive it... The guy had the most natural instincts."[9]
Carter Beauford, drummer for the Dave Matthews Band, was first introduced to drumming when his father, who couldn't find a baby-sitter, took Carter to a Buddy Rich show. Beauford learned his ambidextrous drumming style by watching recordings of Buddy Rich on television and mirroring his technique, thereby learning to keep time with both hands somewhat accidentally.
Reportedly, prior to heart surgery, when asked by a nurse if he was allergic to anything; he replied, "Yes, Country and Western music!"
The West Side Story Medley
Perhaps his most popular later performance was a big band arrangement of a medley derived from the Leonard Bernstein classic West Side Story, first released on the 1966 album Buddy Rich's Swingin' New Big Band
The West Side Story medley is a complex and difficult-to-perform big-band arrangement which highlights Rich's remarkable ability to blend the rhythm of his drumming into his band's playing of the musical chart. Penned by Bill Reddie, Rich received the West Side Story arrangement of Leonard Bernstein's melodies from the famed musical in the mid-1960s and found it to be very challenging even for him. It consists of many rapid-fire time changes and signatures and took almost a month of constant rehearsals to perfect. It since became a staple in all his performances, clocking in at various lengths from seven to fifteen minutes. Bernstein himself had nothing but praise for it. In 2002, a DVD was released called The Lost West Side Story Tapes that captured a 1985 performance of this along with other numbers.[10] These tapes had been previously thought to have been lost in a fire. Rich's ability to create spontaneous drum solos that matched and melded with the musical intricacies and intensity of big band scores was chief among his musical brilliance.
Channel One Suite
After the West Side Story Medley, Rich's most famous performance was the Channel One Suite by Bill Reddie. Like the West Side Story Medley, the Channel One Suite generally was a quite long performance ranging from about 12 minutes to about 26 minutes and usually contained 2 or 3 drum solos. Although 26 minute performances of the Channel One Suite were not incredibly common, they were not unheard of. A recording of one of his live performances was released in 2006 which contained a 26 minute Channel One Suite.[11]
TV appearances
In the 1950s, Rich was a frequent guest on The Steve Allen Show and other television variety shows.[12] Beginning in 1962, Rich was also a frequent guest on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show and The Merv Griffin Show, among others, and appeared with his Big Band on British television, on Michael Parkinson's talk show Parkinson and on the Terry Wogan Show (the last on October 29, 1986, only a few months prior to his death).[13] One of his most widely seen television performances was in a 1978 episode [14] of The Muppet Show, where he engaged Muppet drummer "Animal" (played by Ronnie Verrell) in a drum battle. Rich also made a guest appearance on the TV show Here's Lucy.
In an episode of Michael Parkinson's British talk show, Parkinson kidded Rich about his Donny Osmond kick, by claiming that Rich was the president of The Osmonds' fan club.
Instruments
Personality
Although Rich was usually helpful and friendly, he had a short temper. While he threatened many times to fire members of his band, he seldom did so, and for the most part he lauded his band members during television and print interviews. Dusty Springfield allegedly slapped Rich after several days of "putting up with Rich's insults and show-biz sabotage."[16][17]In the Beastie Boys song "Sabotage", the lyrics "I'm Buddy Rich when I fly off the handle," referred to Rich's temper. Buddy Rich held a black belt in karate, as mentioned in a CNN television interview with Larry King, c. 1985.
Band member and lifelong friend David Lucas says that "Rich had a soft heart underneath it all. His favorite song was "It's Not Easy Being Green".
The tapes
Rich's temper, mercurial attitude and imposing personality are documented in secret recordings that pianist Lee Musiker made during some of his tantrums on tour buses and backstage in the early 1980s.[18] These recordings, long circulated in bootleg form, have done much to fuel the reputation of Rich's personality. The tapes were popular with comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, who used three quotes from them more or less verbatim on Seinfeld:[19]- "If I have to tell you again, we're gonna take it outside and I'm gonna show you what it's like!" ("The Opposite")
- "This guy - this is not my kind of guy." ("The Understudy")
- "Then let's see how he does, up there, without all the assistance!" ("The Butter Shave")
Death and legacy
Buddy Rich remained active performing until the end of his life. On April 2, 1987, Rich died of heart failure following surgery for a malignant brain tumor. He is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. He was 69.Since Rich's death, a number of memorial concerts have been held. In 1994, the Rich tribute album Burning for Buddy: A Tribute to the Music of Buddy Rich was released. Produced by Rush drummer/lyricist Neil Peart, the album features performances of Rich staples by a number of rock and jazz drummers such as Kenny Aronoff, Dave Weckl, Steve Gadd, Max Roach, Steve Smith, Matt Sorum and Peart himself, accompanied by the Buddy Rich Big Band. A second volume was issued in 1997.
In Italy, Rich's version of Winning the West was from 1973 to 1976 the musical theme of a weekly TV sports magazine broadcast, La domenica sportiva.
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