Under Rated/Under Stated Drummers

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Ed Pias

Junior Member
Hi, I'm new to the forum. I am an older drummer, and I love the entire history of jazz drumming, from Baby Dodds to Jack DeJohnette, into the avant guard guys like Blackwell Tony Oxley and Ronald Shannon Jackson. And of course, Buddy, Louie, Krupa, Gadd, Cobham , Max, Blakey, Tony, Elvin, Roy....I love 'em all. I love Jazz. My favorite younger guys are Marcus Gilmore and Kendrick Scott I think they really play great

However, I have always really loved understated drummers, in particular, Connie Kay with the MJQ, and his recordings with Paul Desmond, as well as Paul Motian with Bill Evans and his own groups later, those two in particular really do it for me....and all the Bill Evans drummers, Marty Morell, Eliot Zigmund, Larry Bunker...Bill Evans had a way of making really good but regular drummers sound amazing:) His drummers (except for Motian and DeJohnette who was already into other stuff musically) were not game changers on the instrument like Elvin or Tony or Roy Haynes or Steve Gadd, but in the Evans trio they sounded amazing.

Anyway, I am wondering if anyone else likes the understated drummers...sometimes I feel a little embarrassed for not wanting to hear all the loud fast all over everything that's happening stuff...I dig it, but still, there is a real challenge and skill in subtlety, of knowing form, having control, playing brushes etc. I have found it appreciated in the gigging world, with other musicians, and I love working and being liked and called back(LOL!) But sometimes I feel a bit alone, and I just wanted some feed back.

Thanks:)
 
aside from of course Tony , Elvin, Art , and all the guys you mentioned

I absolutely love ..... Charlie Persip, Ben Riley , Jimmy Cobb, Larry Bunker and Paul Motian

as for younger guys ....Justin Varnes , Karriem Riggins are great
 
I hope to post more when I am not using my mobile device.

First, welcome!

Love all the guys you mention. One Bill Evans drummer who Iove to this day is Joe LaBarbera. He is still killing it to this very day.

Art Taylor is another I don't think gets a whole lot of recognition.
 
Ben Riley, absolutely, and another drummer who played a lot with Monk, Frankie Dunlop very much fits in this group. And how about Dannie Richmond with Mingus? And now I also think of Al Foster, what about him?
 
Wow! Thanks for the replies so far! I don't feel so alone anymore:) Looking forward to more! How do all feel about the drummers you mentioned in terms of how they affect your playing? Do you ever take groove ideas from them, or anything of that nature? Just curious, thanks again! What a fun conversation! I hope more join it:)
 
All the ones mentioned by everyone are wonderful and I'll toss two more names... Billy Hart & Chuck Riggs.

olderdrummer said:
Wow! Thanks for the replies so far! I don't feel so alone anymore:) Looking forward to more! How do all feel about the drummers you mentioned in terms of how they affect your playing? Do you ever take groove ideas from them, or anything of that nature? Just curious, thanks again! What a fun conversation! I hope more join it:)
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Some jazz guys here for sure - there doesn't seem to be many though.

I'd like to think I'm influenced in some manner by everyone I listen to a bunch. Most of these names tossed out there so far, I've listened to a bunch.
 
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I'm glad you mentioned Billy Hart and Chuck Riggs. When I was in college I went to a restaurant that advertised a jazz quartet, it was flute, piano, Marc Johnson on bass and Billy Hart on drums. At the time I was doing what everyone else was, playing hard, fast, etc. Well, Billy Hart changed my concept forever. This group played fast be-bop, but Billy, with sticks and brushes both, played so soft, but burned so fast, so intensely and so clearly, you could hear everything he played and how it fit with everything else...it was like a spiritual moment for me, something just clicked and I was floored. I went up to him at the end and said how amazed I was and asked how he did it, and he just shrugged his shoulders and said: "You know, its hard, its just really hard to do" and walked away:) What I really got from that was that having great technique can really help you to burn at a low volume...its much harder to burn with poor technique at a low volume, in my experience. I had a similar experience with Steve Gadd at a demonstration before a concert, he played the simplest things, but they sounded soooo good...I asked him how he did that as well as he was leaving the building, and he very politely smiled and said: "I think about it a lot, I visualize it..and I try to understand the space between the notes...that's as much the groove as the notes are" and he walked off...Man, looking back, after all the lessons and long conversations with others, I was so lucky to have those two 30 second conversations as a youngster. Thank you for responding.
 
dmacc stole my answer. Art Taylor is a supremely underrated drummer. One of my favorites.

Dannie Richmond, mostly know for his work with Mingus, is another often overlooked cat.

From the current crop, I would say Mark Tiexiera is one of my favorites. He plays with Duke Robillard and a lot of other guys from the New England area.
 
Being able to burn while playing soft is an art. Requires an immense awareness of touch.

One more name... Albert "Tootie" Heath.
 
Charlie Watts. Very well known but, I think anyway, very under rated.

I have just been working on some Stones songs and if you try to change Charlie's drum parts the song falls apart. He would appear to hold the whole slightly shambolic but beautiful groove together. Understated? you bet.
 
Zach Lind from Jimmy Eat World! He doesn't play anything insanely complicated, but what he does is incredible. So tight, really plays for the music.

Paul Ramirez from The Flatliners does some really cool stuff, too. If you're into punk drummers, check him on a track called Shithawks by The Flatliners!
 
Great mentions so far. I would second them but why be redundant? I'll post a few more of my own.

Vernell Fournier. So influential, so tasteful, a brush master. And Jamal's group was so important yet often overlooked.

Shelly Manne: Really a monster player, a great technician, and could swing you into bad health. But like a lot of the west coast cats, he doesn't always get the mentions.

Sunny Murray: As one of the "avant guard" cats, he doesn't get much talk. But I really believe he was a huge and somewhat understated influence. Even playing some really adventurous music that can get over-the-top at times, Sunny could always add a nice contrast of controlled exploration to the mix.
 
8Mile said:
Great mentions so far. I would second them but why be redundant? I'll post a few more of my own.

Vernell Fournier. So influential, so tasteful, a brush master. And Jamal's group was so important yet often overlooked.

Shelly Manne: Really a monster player, a great technician, and could swing you into bad health. But like a lot of the west coast cats, he doesn't always get the mentions.

Sunny Murray: As one of the "avant guard" cats, he doesn't get much talk. But I really believe he was a huge and somewhat understated influence. Even playing some really adventurous music that can get over-the-top at times, Sunny could always add a nice contrast of controlled exploration to the mix.
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great call on Vernel

areal drummers drummer......one of the most musical players to ever sit behind a set of drums
 
Jean-Paul Gaster of Clutch... naturally.

Not only is the whole band under rated, but JP's groove is flawless, and his technique is just smooth as butter. If Clutch ever hit mainstream success, I think we'd see JP like we see John Bonham, Keith Moon, you get the idea...
 
EarthRocker said:
Jean-Paul Gaster of Clutch... naturally.

Not only is the whole band under rated, but JP's groove is flawless, and his technique is just smooth as butter. If Clutch ever hit mainstream success, I think we'd see JP like we see John Bonham, Keith Moon, you get the idea...
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always loved JP

the drum fill that opens La Curandera always gives me goose bumps
nothing really technically amazing about it but it just builds the perfect amount of tension in the 2 seconds that it lasts .
something about those 3 triplet kicks that follow the sextuplet snare that just hits me every time .

I have seen Clutch probably 25 or so times since '93 and enjoy JPs performance every time .

last time I saw them was the Robot Hive tour at a small club out my way called Starland Ballroom..... they opened with The Incomparable Mr. Flannery and I was standing right at the front of the stage
JP comes out while the stage is still dark finishing a sandwich .....shoves the last large bit into his mouth and starts playing the opening groove to the tune .....he chewed on that wad of sandwich for probably a 3rd of the tune.

that always stuck with me

big heavy weight cat eating a sandwich and grooving like he is dragging a bag of bricks around the stage

love it
 
WhoIsTony? said:
always loved JP

the drum fill that opens La Curandera always gives me goose bumps
nothing really technically amazing about it but it just builds the perfect amount of tension in the 2 seconds that it lasts .
something about those 3 triplet kicks that follow the sextuplet snare that just hits me every time .

I have seen Clutch probably 25 or so times since '93 and enjoy JPs performance every time .

last time I saw them was the Robot Hive tour at a small club out my way called Starland Ballroom..... they opened with The Incomparable Mr. Flannery and I was standing right at the front of the stage
JP comes out while the stage is still dark finishing a sandwich .....shoves the last large bit into his mouth and starts playing the opening groove to the tune .....he chewed on that wad of sandwich for probably a 3rd of the tune.

that always stuck with me

big heavy weight cat eating a sandwich and grooving like he is dragging a bag of bricks around the stage

love it
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I've taken lessons with him via Bandhappy. A very humble and respectable human being. They play in my area quite often, either Knoxville or Chattanooga. I get out to see them when I can. A real class act.
 
Connie Kay is my all time number 1 favorite jazz drummer! So naturally this thread demands my attention. Let me share a few more great drummers you might not have heard of starting with John Poole. John was Anita O'Day's drummer and road manager for 32 years. He is considered one of the best, a true master of brush techniqe. I saw him with Anita and Buddy Rich in the mid-1960s on consecutive nights. O'Day and Poole traveled with and performed with the Buddy Rich Big Band during that time. Poole was the better of the two with brushes, an opinion that even Buddy conceded. Not as well known is that in 1940, John won the US Rudimental Drum Chapionship at age 14. In the early 1950s he toured with Charlie Parker and Dizzy. This guy can be heard on many of Anita O'Day recordings and you will not believe that this guy is not famous. Another underrated drummer is Denzil Best, who was the first and in my opinion best of George Shearing's drummers in the early to mid - 1950s. Denzil was also a very accomplished brush man. George Wettling was the CBS house drummer in NYC from the 1930s thru at least the early 1950s. He played with a lot of people in and around 52nd Street, and on a number of Keystone and Commodore Recordings during that era. He was a guy who had fun and it comes through loud and clear on all of his recordings. Another guy to single out is one who played in a Latin idiom from the 1970s on to the present is Airto Moreira. Airto is a consumate percussionist, not normally associated with the kit, but wow can he play. Great technique, complex rhythmic patterns, always restrained. He understands his role in support of the musicians he is playing with like no other. Finally I would like to single out Herlin Riley, as being my favorite of a long list of outstanding drummers coming out of New Orleans. I like his work with Wynton Marsalis in particular. If a NO drummer can be considered to be understated, this is the guy. Taste, feel, groove, just a great, great player.
 
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