Rhythm In Every Guise

"Perhaps the key to understanding his achievement is to realize that, despite the virtues of his instrumental skills, he viewed himself, perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, as a musician first and a drummer only second."

--Ted Gioia

“When I'm playing, I think along melodic lines. For instance, I can go up as the ...

Forty-five minutes prior to New Tricks' opening set, Shawn Baltazor began to tote his drum kit from a parking space down the street from Trumpets Jazz Club. Four drums were neatly stacked and secured to a rolling luggage carrier. An oversized sack contained bulky metal hardware and miscellaneous equipment. A cymbal bag with a shoulder strap ...

Bob DeVos' Organ Trio is a prime example of a band that possesses a recognizable sound yet resists facile categorization. Since 2005, along with organist Dan Kostelnik and drummer Steve Johns, the Northern New Jersey-based guitarist has played numerous live gigs and recorded two compact discs, Shifting Sands and Playing For Keeps, both released on Savant ...

In the notes to an unfinished novel, the celebrated 20th Century author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “there are no second acts in American lives." The vicissitudes of the lives of many jazz musicians, some of whom drop out of sight for years or even decades, are exceptions to Fitzgerald's often quoted dictum.

The first act of ...

It's impossible to do justice to all of the fine new music issued in 2009. So I've listed ten of the discs that had the greatest impact on me. Each one includes the name of the drummer who was essential in making the music special.

Joe Locke and David Hazeltine ...

Six years ago I started writing the “Rhythm In Every Guise" column as a reaction to an imbalance that had crept into my record reviews. In many instances I was writing lots about the drummer at the expense of everyone else on the recording. The column became a means of paying tribute to venerable drum set ...

Recently I've been listening to Breeze, drummer Eliot Zigmund's 2008 release on the SteepleChase label. In part my interest in the recording stems from catching a couple of Zigmund's sideman gigs at The Turning Point Café in Piermont, NY. On those occasions I couldn't get a handle on all of the things that felt right about ...

Throughout the ten tracks of Invisible Cities, Pete Malinverni's beautifully conceived and executed disc on the Reservoir Music imprint, Tom Melito's drumming is based on a certain amount of restraint and the capacity to meld into everything that goes on around him. Melito's unusually refined approach to the instrument is a refreshing change from the legion ...

It's impossible to do justice to all of the fine new music issued in 2008. So I've listed the eleven discs that had the greatest impact on me. Each one includes the name of the drummer who was essential in making the music special.

Pete Malinverni Invisible Cities (Reservoir Music) Tom ...

“Man, I feel like cookin' this evening,"* Frank Butler proclaimed while setting up his drums in the Contemporary Records studio on October 6, 1956. Over a half-century later, his words still have the ring of absolute truth. The session, led by bassist Curtis Counce and released in 1957 as Landslide, was an incandescent beginning to Butler's ...

In an era when serving a lengthy apprenticeship in a working band is no longer an option, young players who shun fashionable pop-influenced sounds in favor of traditional jazz styles must be very resourceful. Thirty-year-old drummer/composer/bandleader Pete Zimmer balances a desire to extend the modern straight-ahead mainstream into the twenty-first century and the ability to support ...

Housed in the rear of a nondescript building on a busy northern New Jersey thoroughfare, Showplace Studios is a no frills workspace nearly devoid of worldly distractions. The Showplace consists of an office, a small lounge, a control room, and studio. Regardless of where you are in the compact area, everything is just a few steps ...

It's impossible to do justice to all of the excellent 2007 releases, so here are ten that had the greatest impact on me. With one exception, each includes the name of a drummer who was essential in making the music special.

Grant Stewart In the Still of the Night (Sharp Nine) Drummer: ...

Three exemplary recordings from the first decade of the 21st Century, all issued on Marc Edelman's Sharp Nine imprint, are closely tied to two important New York City venues. Alto saxophonist Ian Hendrickson-Smith's Up In Smoke (2003) and Still Smokin' (2004) were recorded live at Smoke Jazz Club (formerly Augie's), an uptown bastion of Hammond B-3 ...