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After the year we've had, it's with no great reluctance that I take aim at Buddy Rich. (I'm "over" pulling my punches.)
Or, rather, at the publications that routinely list him among the top 50, 20, 10, or even 1 jazz drummers in the world.
Would Buddy's being kind of a dick preclude him on its own from inclusion in the greatest drummer canon? For some, maybe. For me, definitely not.
So - how good was Buddy Rich?
How great an influence did he have?
To what degree did he earn his place in every magazine or website editor's top 10?
Instead of looking at Buddy's ability (which is undeniable), or his influence (less so), let's look instead at the game theory. Buddy, by virtue of his stints on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, became the "boomer's jazz drummer". The jazz drummer Americans of a certain generation saw beamed into their living rooms with regularity, at a time when jazz was losing its influence.
Zeppelin, The Who, and even early metal bands like Black Sabbath and ACDC were on everybody's turntable...
...and punk rock was coming into vogue.
In "real jazz", late Miles and late Coltrane had given way to Tony Williams Lifetime, Weather Report, and the Chick Corea Electric Band.
So music aficionados of the 70s came to know a batch of fusion drummers, many of whom dabbled in jazz, as "jazz drummers", and they came to know Buddy - most famous representative of a style that mostly died out in the 1950s, but whose true advocates - Thad Jones, Bassie with Sonny Payne, etc - were more "under the radar". But Buddy made it onto the Tonight Show, so he infiltrated the boomer consciousness.
So what would you expect to see on a boomer's "Top 20 jazz drummers" list?
You'd expect to see exactly who's there:
The greats of the 40s-60s, like Elvin, Tony, Max, Philly Joe, Blakey, Kenny Clarke, Roy Haynes, and Papa Jo...
...the fusion drummers of the 70s and 80s, like Vinnie, Weckl, Bill Bruford, and Billy Cobham...
...very occasionally the only drummer beside Tony Williams who spanned the eras undiluted, Jack DeJohnette...
...and, topping them all, Buddy Rich.
But what if you're a new jazz enthusiast, who's seen Whiplash, and wonders which drummers he or she should be checking out, to get a representative sample of how jazz is played.
Then you'd have a problem.
Because, while these lists include some of the past greats (usually Elvin and Tony, and sometimes Max, Philly, and Roy if we're lucky), they lose the plot with anything post-1980.
And - controversial - jazz didn't stop in 1980.
As I say in the video, it's the equivalent of a "top 50 comedians of all time" list including George Carlin and Richard Pryor, but instead of Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Sam Kinison, Bill Hicks, or Dice Clay, let alone anybody contemporary like Bill Burr, Kevin Hart, Chapelle, or Sebastian Manescalco...
...they include a bunch of comedic actors like Steve Gurenburg, Jeff Goldblum, and Rick Moranis. And just like Vinnie and Weckl, it's hard to impugne any of those great talents, but they're not stand-ups.
So today's video approaches the subject fresh. Who are all the great jazz drummers who picked up in 1980, and evolved the music into what it is today?
Who should somebody with a casual interest in jazz actually check out, after checking out all the past greats, and instead of checking out buddy?
In today's video, I give you ten...well, 11...people who I believe deserve inclusion in the canon.
See what you think.
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