Some very good articles in this issue and one great one: Ed Tucker’s hands on and in depth review of the first snare drums released by the new Slingerland company! An NSMD exclusive.
I’ll be playing with the Jubilation Jazz Big Band in West Memphis AR on Saturday February 8th at Delta Arts 6:00. We’ll be playing our Live 40’s Radio Show. More info at www.deltaarts.org/ This is one swingin’ band!
If you have been following me on Facebook, thanks, but I’m slowly but surely reverting to the analog world. I have logged out of Facebook and don’t plan on returning any time soon. It has become too political and uncivil for my purposes, plus the signal to noise ratio is extremely low. I will only be logging in to save pictures and other data before I delete that account as well as other FB accounts I administer, including the NSMD FB group page. If you do need to get in touch with me my email is george@notsomoderndrummer.com and my number is three three oh – 338 – 603 five.
I was pleasantly surprised to see this comment from Mike Clark about last month’s article on Jack Sperling. “I also first heard Jack on Pete Fountains New Orleans when I was 10. I was doing gigs at 10 as my Dad was a drummer so he took me to all the spots to sit in. All this to say when I heard Jack although I was 10, I heard him. Swingin' hard and such creative and different trades and solos with his signature change ups. I had all the records I could find with him playing. Years later when I was with Herbie Hancock we did a show opposite Les Brown and there was Jack. He said "Why don't you play my drums so there will be no set change" I told him how much I dug him and how much I knew about him. He seemed sincerely happy about that. He heard me play and said I was now one of his favorites and was interested in my funk approach. I kept telling him how much he influenced me. He was such a great guy and one the drums he had his own voice. He fired up that big band and swung as hard as one can swing, I was standing right next to the stage. What an artist!!! Brilliant!!!
Thanks, Mike. It’s great to hear from one of our legendary drummers. You never know what great drummers may be lurking on NSMD.
I’d also like to put my two cents in about when I first saw Mike Clark play. It was in spring of 1974 and I was a student at North Texas State U. A friend of mine and I travelled to Dallas to hear Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters at a night club. I was expecting to see Harvey Mason playing drums because he had played on the first Headhunters album, but it was Mike Clark. He was unknown to me at the time but he became very well known on the new jazz/funk/fusion scene when Herbie’s second album, Thrust, was released in 1974. I learned a lot that night watching Mike play. I didn’t get to talk to him, but I went out the next day and bought that album. I studied his playing on that album intensely and probably owe him some money for stealing his licks that I played on albums that I recorded.
