Musically, time is a compact with his elders in line of succession from Baby Dodds through Kenny Clarke, Max Roach and Philly Joe Jones, a procession of melodic ideas and rhythmic exhortations in the fourth dimension. But mostly, time is about swing. Swing. In capital letters. SWING, a driving, linear flow of rhythmic commentary and nuanced percussive color that dances through bar lines and imparts an irresistible rhythmic inflection to even the most mundane of melodies and harmonies. SWING, an expression of joy that is pure Americana.

When it comes to swing, Pete Sims is one of the all-time greats, a drummer whose incandescent beat and fiery rhythmic rejoinders pushed the envelope of collective interplay to the limit on many of the most cherished Blue Note releases of the late '50s and early '60s. His daring impressionistic solo on the 1959 recording of "Minor Apprehension" (from Jackie McLean's New Soil) anticipates the rhythmic innovations of Tony Williams by a good five years, and is often cited by drummers and critics as a seminal event in the evolution of phrasing on the instrument, paving the way for the intuitive rhythmic inflections and free form colorations of the '60s.

In 1965, with his first date as a leader for Blue Note (Basra, recorded under his then-stage name of Pete LaRoca), Sims' skills as a composer and arranger came to the fore in a powerful program of hard driving swing, dancing blues, touching ballads, and visionary forays into the exotic rhythmic terrain of the third world. When Blue Note re-issued Basra in 1995 as part of its limited-edition Connoisseur series, the response from jazz fans was so strong, they had to press a second run of CDS to meet the demand, paving the way for the return of Pete "LaRoca" Sims to the Blue Note Label with the 1997 release of SWINGTIME.

When asked to expound on his musical credo, Sims explains, "Like Duke Ellington said, 'doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-WAH'. Swing is fundamental. The walking bass is one of the greatest musical innovations of the 20th century. Let's swing--that's what it's all about. That's why I call the band SWINGTIME--it's a call to action. Many other forms of music have appropriated harmonic and melodic elements from jazz, without honoring chank-a-dang. My thrust is the converse in that I like to find nice musical packages, musical gems as it were, and swing them."

The drummer paid real dues for his commitment to swing beginning in the late 60's, when the rock and roll tsunami came to dominate the scene and forced musicians such as Sims to seek a livelihood outside the music business. From 1978 through 1982, Sims began appearing with SWINGTIME in N.Y.C. at Sweet Basil, Palssons, and Lush Life, emerging like a seventeen-year cicada, on his own terms, playing his venerable gold-sparkle Slingerland set with an emotional edge that's all too rare.

Sims first attracted notice as a teenager in the 1950's, bringing such a remarkable level of fire and wit to his craft that he soon became the rhythmic consort of choice for many of the most innovative figures in all of jazz, sharing the bandstand with the likes of Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Jackie Mclean, Joe Henderson, Bill Evans, Lennie Tristano, Slide Hampton, Scott LaFaro, Stan Getz--the list goes on and on.

The roots of Sim's style and his devotion to swing can be traced to his childhood in Harlem. Born on April 7, 1938, Sims grew up in an environment where jazz was central. "My uncle, Kenneth Bright, would have Fats Waller come by and play the piano when he threw a party. And he ran a rehearsal studio over the famous Lafayette Theater where Diz and Hot Lips Page, and (I Believe) Bird, among others who I can't name, used to rehearse. So I, being the owner's nephew, had the run of the joint, and would sit in on their rehearsals. Kenneth also collaborated with Alan Lomax on the original Circle Records recordings of Jelly Roll Morton that are known today as the Library of Congress recordings. And, Billie Holiday lived on our block," he said proudly.

Among the most memorable moments of his boyhood is his uncle taking him to see the legendary New Orleans drummer, Baby Dodds. "I had been chewing up his collection of 78s and I guess he got the drift: 'Gee, the kid seems to be interested.' "So he took me to see Baby Dodds, and I believe James P. Johnson on the piano. It was a half hour radio program on Saturday afternoons that used a Fats Waller song for its theme. I'll still remember his call to, 'Put out the lights and call the Law.' They broadcast from Carnegie Recital Hall, and with my uncle's cachet, he was able to get me in there. We were the entire studio audience.

"Also, my stepfather, Forrest "Corn" Morgan, was a trumpet player, sort of on the cusp between swing-Dixieland and bebop. He used to take me on gigs with a bunch of guys of his generation, who all played beautifully. I played bongos when the tune was Latin or a calypso. The drummer on those gigs, Abdul Salaam, was a former violinist, who consequently brought a remarkable sense of melody to the drums. I learned a lot just sitting next to him."

In junior high school, Sims, like many youngsters of the day, was exposed to the European tradition of symphonic music and percussion. He went on to study at The High School of Music & Art and in the City College Orchestra, where he gained significant experience on the kettle drums. "I'm still a kettle drummer, if you really check me out," he explains. "It's the way you deal with punctuating what's going on up front. There may be a bit less in the way of punctuation than there would be with many jazz drummers, and very often it will involve nonstandard licks in response to the music of the moment."

Sims developed his style in countless jam sessions and on Latin gigs, and the distinguishing characteristics of his mature style mark him as something of a cliche basher, in that he inverted many standard drum punctuations, putting snare figures on the bass drum, and using the snare to shade bass-drum accents. Then there are his hypnotic cymbal beat, irregular high-hat accents, and his avoidance of repeated patterns--a flowing style of swing that leaves him free to respond to the moment.

"Actually," Sims reflects, "There was a time when I hardly played the bass drum. One night in Birdland, Miles came up to me and said, 'Why'd you bring the bass drum if you ain't gonna play it?' He totally cracked me up, and I said, 'Wait a minute, there might be one time tonight when I need it to go boom.'" (Interestingly, Miles later recommended Pete to Coltrane for his initial quartet--a lucky turn due to Elvin then being unavailable.)

"As far as being a cliche basher, well, before I got control of my touch, I was more of a basher--period. I got my first big gig with Sonny Rollins because I broke Max Roach's drumheads," he chuckles. "Max was playing some place out in Brooklyn and he left his drums set up for the Monday night jam session. He had some really thin heads on the set, and I think I went through about three of them--I was truly embarrassed and called Max to apologize. He said 'Don't worry about it, and, oh, incidentally, Sonny Rollins is looking for a drummer.' That's how the Vanguard gig came about." [Documented on the legendary Blue Note recordings, A Night At The Village Vanguard, Volumes 1 & 2.]

Now, some forty years later, trends have come and gone, but Pete Sims endures. The verities of his dynamic interplay with the current edition of SWINGTIME (Jimmy Owens, trumpet, flugelhorn; Ricky Ford, tenor saxophone; Dave Liebman or Lance Bryant, soprano saxophone; George Cables piano; Santi Debriano, bass), are as fresh and resonant in 1997 as they were with Sonny Rollins in 1957.

"When it comes to jazz, everything has to swing or we're doing ourselves a disservice," Sims asserts. "That's a major goal of SWINGTIME--to seek out all the different ways you can play chank-a-dang. Take the cover tune we did, "The Candy Man." It's a literal rendition of the piano chart, orchestrated for six pieces. I didn't add anything except the accompanying background, other than that it's the sheet music--and, we swung it! And as you can hear, both Jimmy Owens and Ricky Ford play the hell out of it. I'm always looking for such material--something unexpected, childlike, and engaging, like 'The Candy Man', and the tune I wrote for my daughter, 'Susan's Waltz'."

Elsewhere on SWINGTIME, Sims' heads-up opener, "Drum Town," with its multiple themes and driving release, draws freely upon his early research into African and South American music. "Drum Town" and the surging closer, Chick Corea's "Amanda's Song," present drum solos that are a study in texture and tonal colors, as Sims elicits more melodic variety from his tiny four piece set than most players get from an army of drums. "Body And Soul" adapts the Coltrane arrangement as a feature for tenor master Ricky Ford, while "Candu" finds Pete revisiting his joyous blues from Basra with a straight-ahead groove. Finally, there's Dave Liebman's poignant "Tomorrow's Expectations" and Sadao Watanabe's fervent "Nihon Bashi," extended forms which are the centerpiece for SWINGTIME and illustrate the inspirational nature of Sims' freewheeling accompaniment.

"I'm pleased with SWINGTIME," Sims states. "I never stopped believing in the spirit of swing or the power of collective improvisation in jazz, and given the support that Alfred Lion gave me early on, it's poetic to return to Blue Note, the label that nurtured my music from the start."