Jazz Articles

Barrett Deems Big Band: Groovin' Hard

by Jack Bowers
January 1, 1999

When all is said and done, Barrett Deems departed the same way he came in — Groovin’ Hard. The 84–year–old dynamo, who succumbed last September to pneumonia, made one last trip to the recording studio in January ’98 to prove that neither he nor his robust big band was combating the infirmities usually associated with advancing age. Prove it they do, as the band smokes effortlessly throughout while Deems, once labeled “the world’s fastest drummer,” shows he’d scarcely decelerated a ...