Ira Gitler talks About Drums with Tony Williams, Art Blakey,Cozy Cole, & Mel Lewis,AUDIO!;Part 3 +Bonus!

(Paying Subscribers, enjoy your bonus at the bottom!)

This is part 3 (of 4) of a long discussion between four brilliant musicians led by the late jazz critic and historian Ira Gitler. You can read about the occasion and the setting, get a copy of the published article that resulted from it, as well as hear the first 20 minutes, in Part 1. The second 20-minute portion, and more background info, is in part 2. All four parts have photos as well.

(And for paying subscribers, there is a gallery of seven additional unpublished photos at the very bottom of this post!)

Art Blakey tends to dominate the proceedings, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Blakey has a lot of interesting things to say. Gitler’s son Fitz was a child when he met Blakey:

Art was always very sweet to me, even with that booming yet gravelly voice. He was very warm and had a huge laugh and smile, alternating with intense quiet and focus. And he just projected strength--those arms were like steel bridge cables. There was something special about being on the road. I was there with the Messengers in Beppu, Japan, in August of 1982, in Umbria as well as Sardinia in July of 83, and then Umbria again in July of 85. One 'famous' story was when they travelled to Cagliari, Sardinia in the summer of 83. My parents and I were finishing a late dinner in the hotel's dining room, when Blakey arrived. He was asked if he could order quickly, as the kitchen was about to close. Art replied, "I don't care--whatever you've got back there, stop it from breathing, put it on a plate and bring it out here!"

I also remember my dad saying that he and Art talked about working on a book together at some point—a biography of sorts—but had trouble getting a publisher lined up. That could have been quite a book. They had known each other going all the way back to being in the studio together on Prestige dates starting in 1950. Dad said, "Blakey had All the stories."

Here are two photos of Blakey with a young Fitz. The top photo is from Beppu, Japan, August 1982. Tenor saxophonist Billy Pierce is in the foreground; the person smoking behind Fitz is unidentified. The bottom photo from the Umbria festival in Perugia, Italy, July 1985:

Nice!

OK, now here is the third segment of the interview. They start with more discussion of big band drumming, then they comment on pieces in meters other than 4/4, such as “Take Five,” and the relevance of Indian and African percussion (for an edited transcript, see p.37, the last page, of the published version that you downloaded in Part 1). Next they talk about training on drums as well as on other instruments (p.18 of the published article).

NOTE: There is a gap at 18:30, from turning over the tape when this was transferred from reel-to-reel. Keep listening! It’s not over until you get to 21:06. Enjoy it!:

Next time we will pick up at this spot and listen until the end of the discussion.

All the best,
Lewis