From Congo Square to Times Square: A Short History of Drums in Jazz

Art Blakey (photo by Francis Wolff, courtesy of Blue Note)

Celebrated New York City–based jazz drummer Billy Drummond recalls his first visit, with the group OTB (“Out of The Blue”), to the Mount Fuji Jazz Festival in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. It was 1988. The Festival’s elite drummers ranged in age from 69 (Art Blakey) to 26 (Ralph Peterson). In between were Roy Haynes, Tony Williams, Clifford Barbaro, Victor Lewis, Lewis Nash, Kenny Washington, Cindy Blackman—”and me,” Drummond told me, by phone.

Billy Drummond (photo by Roberto Cifarelli)

Drummond, who is working on his fourth album as leader and teaches drumming at Julliard and NYU, continued. “Everyone was killing, then Roy Haynes played, and he’s taking it out. He walked to the front of the stage and played an entire solo on the hi-hat. The people went berserk. We’re going nuts. Afterwards, Haynes comes off the stage and says to us, ‘Take that you young m***** ******s!’ We fell out, because he just served us, man. Remarkable.”

Cindy Blackman (photo by Hal Miller).

Art Blakey. Roy Haynes. Tony Williams—three of the greatest jazz drummers ever. Blackman, Nash, Peterson (footnote 1), Washington, Drummond: Five of the best young jazz drummers of the era.

Paul Wells (photo by John Rogers).

I interviewed Drummond—who played on the Stereophile album Rendezvous—for this article, seeking his commentary on the best drummers in the history of jazz: what made them special, what to listen for in their music. I also talked to Paul Wells, the drummer for Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks, who play mainly jazz from the ’20s and ’30s. Wells’s repertoire is much wider than that, though: He has also worked with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Wynton Marsalis, and Elvis Costello, among others. You can hear him on the soundtracks of The Irishman, Boardwalk Empire, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. He’s a Professor of Jazz Drums at the Juilliard School and an audiophile.

John Riley (photo by Kengo)

I also talked to John Riley, the drummer who replaced the legendary Mel Lewis in the Village Vanguard Orchestra (formerly the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra) after the latter passed in 1990. Riley has recorded dozens of albums and written a book, The Art of Bop Drumming. He is a Professor of Music at Manhattan School of Music and at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania.

Much of the commentary that follows is from Drummond, Wells, and Riley. Uncredited commentary is from me.

Baby Dodds (photo by William Gottlieb).

A concise jazz history
Jazz drumming can be traced to the drum circles of Congo Square, in New Orleans, which birthed the “hot jazz” styles of the 1910s and ’20s, later called “trad jazz” or “Dixieland.” The most prominent jazz groups of the era include Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers, Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Sevens, and Johnny Dodds’s Black Bottom Stompers. The New Orleans drummers in these bands—”Baby” Dodds, Zutty Singleton, etc.—laid the foundation for contemporary jazz drumming.

Even before Dixieland launched jazz as an art form—before the first “jass” recording—James Lent recorded a drum solo, “The Ragtime Drummer,” in 1912, a swinging workout of brash rudimental rolls, playful temple blocks, and zippy brass, climaxing in a forceful snare drum solo. The first jazz drum solo preceded jazz.

Dixieland’s popularity led to the swing craze of the late ’30s and ’40s, when the music was at its most popular, when drummers Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich and bandleaders including Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw—not to mention Duke Ellington and Count Basie—became international celebrities.

After World War II, bebop—a movement led by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie—brought the music “out of the dance hall and into the concert hall,” as Riley put it. No longer required to merely keep time, bebop liberated drummers to become active and engaged musicians, emancipating the drum set to color and drive the arrangements and lift and inspire the frontline soloists.

Groove returned in the hard bop of the ’50s and ’60s, which expanded further to embrace rock rhythms in early ’70s fusion. Jazz reached its zenith (some say its nadir) in free jazz under the aegis of Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, latter-period John Coltrane, and others, the movement’s drummers reflecting the music’s openness, energy, and rejection of conventional forms.

The Drummers: 1920s–1950s
“All of these drummers had a certain energy in the way they hit the drums and how they played accents—a certain pop and tightness combined with a way of phrasing eighth notes,” Wells told me. “It’s a consistent sound, the feeling and energy of Black American music, and it’s present throughout the history of this music.”

1920s–’30s
Warren “Baby” Dodds had a long career and played with King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, and Sidney Bechet. It’s hard to hear the drums on some historic recordings, but Dodds’s drums are clear enough on Footnotes to Jazz, Vol. 1: Talking and Drum Solos. Dodds was well known for his “shimmy beat,” which he described in his autobiography: “One night a French soldier came in. When he heard the music, he couldn’t dance to it, but he just started to shake all over. That’s the way it affected me. I saw him do it, and I did it, too.”—Wells

Zutty Singleton played a lot of press rolls, a lot of colors. He might play snare drum time for the first chorus, then accents on the tom-toms and little cymbal hits. Zutty’s on Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five recordings, including “West End Blues,” where he plays “pop” cymbals, a precursor to the hi-hat.—Wells

Paul Barbarin: Drumming style was changing, early jazz melding into swing; timekeeping moved from the snare drum to the hi-hat. Barbarin did both, depending on the era. In the ’30s, Barbarin played with the Louis Armstrong Orchestra on a ton of great recordings. “Cuban Pete,” with Armstrong, has Barbarin playing in a swing style, playing time on the hi-hats.—Wells

Chick Webb was the first drumming star. Webb led his Harlem big band in 1931 and made a transition from an earlier style to a more modern swing style. He was an explosive, energetic soloist and a really great time player. “Harlem Congo” is one of his great tracks.—Wells

1940s
Gene Krupa was a swing-era superstar, perhaps most famous for Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing.” On Goodman’s “Sometimes I’m Happy,” Krupa plays brushes in traditional style, moves to the cymbal for the trumpet solo, press-rolls on the snare drum, then keeps time on the hi-hat during the brass shout.—Wells

“Papa” Jo Jones‘s style of playing time on the hi-hat was revolutionary. It felt great, especially with bassist Walter Page in Count Basie’s band. He was one of the first drummers to play time on the ride cymbal.—Wells

“Big” Sid Catlett was an amazing timekeeper, a great soloist, and a brilliant technician with amazing drum sound. Satchmo at Symphony Hall has a couple of long drum solos that let you hear the tonality of Sid’s drums. Sid is also great on Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie’s Live at Town Hall.—Wells

Buddy Rich was an amazing soloist, with technique that remains unmatched. He’s on the Ella and Louis record and in that amazing video with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Celebrity (& Buddy Rich). [Live 1950]. Buddy’s Swingin’ New Big Band and Big Swing Face albums from the ’60s show his modern style.—Wells

Other important drummers of the swing era: Cozy Cole, Sonny Greer, Dave Tough, George Wettling, and Shadow Wilson.

Kenny Clarke

1950s and ’60s landmark drummers
Kenny Clarke was an extraordinarily innovative pioneer of bebop styles and one of the most in-demand drummers for record and jazz dates until ’56, when he moved to Paris and never came back. He was practically the house drummer for Savoy Records.—Wells

Louie Bellson

Louie Bellson pioneered double bass drums. He made many records as a sideman, particularly on Verve and Pablo. Bellson was in Ellington’s band in the early ’50s, which is significant because it was unusual for a white drummer to join a major Black band during that period.—Wells

Max Roach (photo by William Gottlieb)

Max Roach developed a jazz language between the individual drums, an accompaniment language, and a soloing language still used today. An entire vocabulary of patterns, ideas, and melodic figures came out of Max’s genius. He defined the bebop drum sound using smaller tom-toms tuned very high that were clean and articulate.—Wells

Han Bennink is a deep bopper. Amazing facility on the instrument. Even now, he practices a couple of hours every day. He is of the generation of European musicians that grew up with bebop but then decided they wanted to find their own way to play improvised music. And that’s where the more adventurous side came out.—Riley

Art Blakey learned his craft from Chick Webb, for whom he worked as a valet. He began his career with Billy Eckstine’s big band, eventually leading the Jazz Messengers on many Blue Note classics. Blakey’s fiery style, marked by blazing buzz rolls, stop-time cymbal crashes, and a gritty, hard swinging-time feel, is as popular today as at any time in history.

Footnote 1: Ralph Peterson died last year at age 58.

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