One of the main differences in styles as jazz has changed through it's history is the rhythmic quality of the music and how it has been reflected by the drummer. In fact, the different drum styles throughout the history of jazz alone can create the distinctive feeling of the different schools. A quick study can be very enlightening to the jazz aficionado and can enhance one's appreciation of the many forms through which jazz has traveled.

Before we begin, I would like to talk a little about the role of the drums in the jazz ensemble. Contrary to what many people believe, the drums do not delineate the beat for the band. That responsibility rests squarely with the bass player (or tuba player as is the case in earlier forms of jazz.) The drummer's job is to provide percussive accompaniment and rhythmic counterpoint to the various elements of the music, the pulse just being one of those elements.

The early jazz set as played by New Orleans players in the Twenties consisted of a bass drum, a snare drum, various blocks mounted on the bass drum and at least one suspended cymbal called a choke cymbal. The playing was used to mostly to give even more timbral complexity to the polyphonic nature of the music. It consisted of highly syncopated patterns played on the snare and the blocks that would change throughout the song contrasting rhythmically to the soloist. Often though, the drummer would lay out entirely for long periods giving way for passages of other combinations of instruments.

The choke cymbal, which was played by quickly dampening it after it was hit, is perhaps the most distinctive sound in the drum set of early years. It is a bright sounding cymbal that was often used in short, bursting patterns to mark changes in instrumentation, soloist and at the ending of the song. Other techniques use the bass drum and snare in tandem in a lively manner that was called doubling, as can be heard on Jelly Roll Morton's "Black Bottom Stomp" by Andrew Hilaire. Also in New Orleans style, the bass drum apparently kept a consistent beat on down beats in 4/4 time. However, due to the limitations of recording techniques it seems to be mostly impossible to hear (at least for me.)

Famous players of this style are Zutty Singleton and Baby Dobbs, both who played with Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven and with Jelly Roll Morton's various bands.

In Chicago the style of drumming was quite similar. However the drummers in this derivative style were fond of keeping a constant straight 4/4 beat on the snare, sometimes with the use of brushes in addition to the techniques mentioned above. This time playing with small accents on the upbeats would become increasingly popular with the formation of the big bands.

The emergence of jazz in New York in the mid-Twenties also bought new developments in the use of drums. Duke Ellington's drummer Sonny Greer used a wide variety of auxiliary percussion and his accompaniment was consistent thorough out the song. His rhythms were more complex than the New Orleans players and his timbral effects much more varied adding much to Ellington's "jungle music" sound, as heard on the 1928 recording "Black Beauty." Also in New York Vic Burton with Red Nichols played in a similar style and also utilized the tympany as on "Delirium" from 1927.

Early big band drumming sounded very similar to the older New Orleans and Chicago style, however as the musical counterpoint in the new harmonized style grew less complex so did the drumming. The brash choke cymbal was slowly replaced in favor of the newly invented hi-hat, which consists of two cymbals on a stand that are made to hit each other by use of a peddle. By the early Thirties the choke cymbal was no longer heard in jazz bands. Kaiser Marshall, Fletcher Henderson's drummer in the early Thirties reflects the newer style with a smooth 4/4 on the hi-hat or the snare and less use of complex accompaniment.

In the swing years, the role of the drummer was now to augment the passage of time and to give the swinging momentum to the music that is so central to it's style. The idea was to play the drums with a subtle dynamic variation that created the sense of constant drive. The swing drummers perfected the classic jazz drum pattern of playing every down beat with an accent on the upbeat of beat two and beat four. However it must be noted that this pattern was "swung" in that the eighth notes were played with longer duration right after the down beat than those just before it in the manner of a jazz soloists. This drum pattern was used consistently throughout a swing performance and became a staple of jazz drumming for years and is still in great use today.

The pattern was usually played on the hi-hat with the cymbals closed on beats two and four (though Gene Krupa was in favor having his hats open on two and four as on Benny Goodman's version of "King Porter Stomp") and in later years on the ride cymbal. It was also played effectively with brushes on the snare as perfected by Papa Jo Jones as heard in Lionel Hampton's version of "I'm in the Mood For Swinging". The pattern would be augmented with hits on the snare, tom-toms or bass drum often on the back beat (beats two and four) to bring heightened dynamics to certain sections of the song. Syncopated playing in this time is used solely at the end of phrases to accent the downbeat of the new phrase or in conjunction with a written figure in the horn sections, never in contrast to it.

Other drummers of note in the swing period including the two mentioned above are Cozy Cole, Chick Webb, Sid Catlett and Buddy Rich.

In the early forties, the bebop experiment was being conducted at the Minton's Playhouse jam sessions which included Minton's house drummer, Kenny Clarke. Clarke was influenced by the approach of recent swing drummers of melodic playing behind soloists, especially that of Papa Jo Jones and Cozy Cole. Although Clarke basically played the same pattern as the swing drummers, he began to incorporate off beat hits on the bass drum, snare and cymbals. In fact this irregular accenting style is what his nickname "klook-mop" refers to. However this complex style excluded auxiliary percussion which with the turn to bebop became obsolete. By now the makeup of the drum set was what we think of today as the basic kit, bass drum, snare, tom-toms, hi-hat, ride and crash cymbals.

The off beat accents of the bebop drummers helped to create the excitement and spontaneity in a bebop performance. It also augmented the lively and seemingly erratic melodic concept of the soloist. The bebop drummers also created a more linear and melodic approach to drumming where the separate drums are stuck in succession rather than together, thereby using the various tones of the drums as one instrument in making a melodic statement. There is also the exclusive use of the ride cymbal to carry the pulse as opposed to the snare, hi-hat or bass, as seen in the work of Max Roach. This gave greater flexibility for quick dynamic changes in the pulse and freed the other limbs to be used in a more improvisational and creative manner for fills. Other bebop drummer of note include Art Blakey.