 Welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm joined by Dom Famularo drumming's global ambassador and that title was given to him by Ron Spagnardi the founder of modern drummer, which I just found out and that is beyond cool. So Dom welcome to the show. Thanks Bart. Thanks so much. You know, it's kind of interesting when I hear that title I remember Ron Spagnardi and back in 1977 when the magazine first came out I knew Ron because he was a fantastic drummer in the in the New Jersey area I live here on Long Island and in the New York area and we get together at certain yigs together and we talk about the idea that he had as far as putting a magazine together and then it's his career when of the magazine career and my career went on doing different events and performances globally. As we met up several years later on he kind of said he's you know Dom you really are traveling the world spreading the gospel of drums. You really are like an ambassador. You now have become drumming's global ambassador and I got a kick out of that and in one of the interviews that kind of stuck and people started calling me that and I'm humbled by it. I really am. I mean it's it's really true and now I feel like most people they digitally get to know people via social media and personally I feel like I've watched a lot of your videos you're just you're really spreading the the love of drums not even like obviously you're teaching things and all that great stuff but it's really just the just the passion it just oozes out of you for drums so I think that's we all owe you a huge thank you for getting the next generation excited about drumming. Thanks Bart you know I think what's amazing about it is that when someone follows their passion and you got to really understand what that means. It doesn't matter whether your passion is knitting or fishing when you have a passion that you are so driven by and then you see people that are older than you that have that passion and that's really kind of where the guiding point came from. I met many senior statesmen in the drumming field all these great great legendary names and I met them at a young age and when I saw them having great fun and living their passion I just said that that that's what I want to do that this it really was it was driven so it was really all these great fantastic drummers that we stand on their shoulders that really have guided us along the way. That's so true and I just love how it's it's not something where it's just for kids or something like that you know what I mean like we're all I mean just being an adult it's like you meet guys who were 90 years old who I mean Roy Haynes just turned 95 recently and it's you never grow out of it and he's the biggest kid of all of us. Jim Chapman used to say to me the object is to act childlike and not childish. Very true and Roy Haynes when I hear him play and when I speak to him he is still childlike with the passion of performing and playing drums and it's just really incredibly inspiring. So jumping off of Roy Haynes who is an absolute legend in the in the drum world we're talking about some legends today so these guys and as you put as we talked before they're the technique legends so we're talking about Billy Gladstone, George L. Stone and Sanford Moeller and I just I really love how you said these guys taught the legends who we all love they're the reason we have the greats. They really did and what's amazing about it Bart is that these gentlemen first of all three of them Gladstone Billy Gladstone George L. Stone and Sanford Moeller were born in the 1880s so they came from knowledge of drummers before them which really were like civil war drummers and and rudimental you know drum core kind of players. Yeah so they had this incredible facility that they were learning and they were inspired to play drums and learn their techniques and and and just how these guys learned it but Gladstone played in New York City at Radio City and he was an avid performer and also doing some teaching George L. Stone and Billy of course lived in New York City George L. Stone from the Boston area was working out all the vaudeville theaters and doing a lot of theater work and teaching so he had his skill as a performer and as an educator and Sanford Moeller was a drummer that was playing with John Philip Seuss's Orchestra Wow which was which was huge that band was like you know powerful and he was not only the you know in the snare drum line he was the top snare drummer and Philip Seuss when he heard Moeller play many many years ago he said to him I want you in my band because you know how to play loud and I need volume with my full marching orchestra so he said listen I want you to be in my band so he paid him a salary to be in the band and he said and any of the drummers that joined my band have to go through your teaching school Wow so he set Moeller up to teach aside from being in the band so these guys had opportunities in the early 1900s as they you know heighten their skills that this was the beginning of the drum set era exactly I was gonna say it's it's just one of those a lot of times that happens where it's like the perfect storm of like the timing is there the drum set is being invented everything is changing absolutely and interesting too is remember all the immigrants that were coming from around the world to New York City this was where the energy was happening in New York so as they were all migrating here and you know as these immigrants from around the world when jazz started this music of freedom yeah these fantastic educators were the ones that guided this young talent for them to give us the legendary music that we guided our lives from so we have to always go back to the educator and how they're able to open up doors for this young generation that's pretty what these three guys did absolutely well why don't we take them one by one here Billy Gladstone is someone I've seen a lot in in various episodes he's popped up as just being a obviously a performer but he worked with various different drum companies correct am I was he with Gretch or am I mistaken yes he was it was with Gretch for the early days everybody was kind of with Gretch you know that was really the momentum of what it was but Billy Gladstone also was a brilliant engineer and he began to manufacture his own snare drums yes so he wanted he came up with an idea a patent that is still under the Gladstone name of a snare drum where the lugs on the snare drum were manipulated where you can tune the bottom head from the top lug so the top lug had like had like a little a little um a drum key and then a bolt so you had a drum key that when it went to the top part of the actual drum lug when you turned it it tightened the bottom head when you turned the key around it slipped past that first top part and went to the bolt and tightened the top head when you turn the key around the key had three parts of it it went and connected to both of them and you can tighten both heads at the same time this was a patent in the early 1920s this guy was way ahead of the curve yeah he kind of reminds me of George Way a little bit obviously he was before that time but it was it's just these inventive guys so that's absolutely and George Way was highly inspired by Billy Gladstone these these guys were all from that era of real creative thinking at that early part of the 1900s remember in the 1900s you had Einstein you had you know all these fantastic you had Tesla you had you know all these fantastic you had Edison all these great minds were coming out creatively joining in the world and they were all kind of based on the the East Coast in America it was just pretty intense to see all these ideas that came out of his pretty magical yeah really now so he was a performer as you said that didn't he play at Radio City Music Hall is that right he did it was radio music hall and several of the theaters that were there you know Carnegie Hall in all those early days and there was another percussionist that was that was performing who played mallets Gladstone played snare drum and the mallet player was Shelley man's father oh wow so Shelley man the great drummer literally as a kid was hanging out with Billy Gladstone and learned Gladstone's techniques to such a high level which was mostly finger technique okay and a high level of sensitivity and and I came to hear about these names it was kind of funny I'll tell you this story I was 18 years old and because of where I live on Long Island I was close enough to New York City where it was just a quick 15-minute train ride or a car drive to go into New York City so in the late 60s early 70s I went into New York all the time and heard all the greatest drummers of the world everybody was here in New York you know buddy you know buddy Rich Louis Belston Art Blakey Max Roach you know Philly Joe Jones Papa Joe Jones it just everybody was an elven everybody was here performing so every night was a different drummer and I went to a concert at a club where Max Roach was playing they had his own band that he put together and it was like a Tuesday night and I kind of walk in there it's 1971 I'm 18 years old and I walk in and I hear Max play and he played four sets that just absolutely blew me away the intensity the passion and here was the man that already had some gray in on his face and on his beard his hair and you know when you're 18 years old and you see somebody with a little gray in their hair you think the guy's got like one foot in the grave you know yeah like this guy's not gonna even make it through the evening yeah I looked at Max Roach and he blew me away with his ease of facility his relaxed approach his creativity at every set that he played on the four sets every solo was completely different so I said at the end of the performance everyone had left the club and I sat there a little bit stunned and in shock I said boy here I am working on this instrument I'm studying with a great teacher Al Miller on Long Island I'm trying to get this my act together this guy blew me away so I walk up to the stage and I said excuse me Mr. Roach can I shake your hand and ask you a couple questions and he leans down it goes absolutely shakes my hand he says are you a drummer I said yesterday because you take any lessons I said yes or with Al Miller and Max said oh I know Al Miller from Long Island you tell him I said hello I have his books that I'm that I look through wow already I felt like well this guy immediately just welcomed me immediately and he goes I said can I ask your question how how do you have that kind of freedom that you can just sit down play what you feel and just express yourself like any language it just you feel you your brain takes it in and you express it with no challenges or barriers at all how the heck do you get to that stage and it looks at me and says come up on the stage with me so I hop up on the stage and he leans over to me and he puts out three fingers on his left hand and I remember how he did he showed his pinky his ring finger and his middle finger and he puts it in front of me and says three names and he points to his pinky and says Billy Gladstone goes to the next finger and says George Lawrence stone and goes to the next finger and says Sanford molar so those movements are going to give you this freedom boy so I looked I said my gosh I said these are three teachers and I had kind of known molar because Jim Chapin I had heard as a kid lived on Long Island he was a student of molar but I really didn't understand the mullet technique yeah I knew George Lawrence stone because of his book stick control which is which is just a classic in his book accents and rebounds although I hadn't been through the books but I knew of the books and then Gladstone I had heard his name in the New York area from different people that had known of him so I kind of heard the names but I said I said wow I said Mr. Lawrence I want to study with these guys if these are the guys he said they taught everybody they taught me Papa Joe Jones Philly Joe Jones Art Blakey buddy rich all these guys learned from those guys I said my gosh I got to learn from these guys and max leaves over to me and says too late they're dead oh boy yeah but their books live on that's the truth that you know absolutely so so when he said that I was kind of shocked I said oh man so my next question is what really impressed max that developed our friendship I said Mr. Roach if they're gone who were their best students and that's when he said I like you good question let me pack up my drums and we'll talk some more so now I'm on the stage helping max watch pack up his drums I mean in that itself is a whole nother story but yeah in that point you know it led me to Shelley Mann was the best student of Billy Gladstone Joe Morello was the best student of George Lawrence Stone and Jim Chapin was the best student of Sanford Augustus Mola the good list that's where I went so he said to me said start with Morello get the stone technique down first because once you have the stone technique which is this free stroke and rebound and once you understand that and that strengthens your wrists then understand molar that'll help you understand molar better once you get the molar technique down and understand that then study with Shelley Mann and get the gladstone technique down so that was the that was the direction he gave me stone first molar next then gladstone so I said great in my you know my integrity I said okay so I ended up literally in the next week meeting Morello backstage at a Buddy Rich concert man so here I am I'm 18 years old and it turns out that my teacher Al Miller was a was it just he was here I'm long as a brilliant man he's gone now for 20 years and he has some books out that are just fantastic books that are still great great books and he had pictures of Buddy Rich in a studio so one day he said to me he goes he goes dummy just listen I got a buddy friend of mine coming over tomorrow why don't you come over for dinner and we're gonna have dinner with this buddy friend of mine I said wow I said mr. no thanks so much he said yeah come on by so as I'm I'm getting ready the next day I come by and as I'm driving to his house I pass a club it was called it was called your poor Peters it was a wonderful jazz club that was literally two blocks from Al's house so when I'm passing it I see in the marquee it says tonight the Buddy Rich big band so I said oh man how cool is it Buddy Rich Big Ben is playing tonight I'm gonna go have dinner with Al so I go to the club and I buy three tickets front row center one for me one for my teacher Al and one for his buddy friend I put my tickets in my pocket I am pumped up so now I go to this dinner at Al's house so I knock on the door and Al answered the door and I said Al have I got a surprise for you he says well that's fantastic come on in I've got a surprise for you too I walk in the house I turn to his living room and there is Buddy Rich oh man now you understand now at this point 1971 Buddy Rich was just he was always on the Johnny Carson show which was every night he was performing with his band everywhere this guy was at the peak of his game playing with Sinatra Sammy Davis this guy was in Vegas this guy was everywhere and now he's in my drum teacher's house in Suburbia Long Island so I so Al says Buddy I want to meet my student Dom Familar and Dom this is this is Buddy Rich so I lean over to shake Buddy's hand as I'm shaking this hand I turned to Al Miller and I said Al you said I was going to meet a buddy friend of yours this is not a buddy that's me buddy as a big freaking difference like I said well we left Buddy love that and and then Al cooked some steaks and we had Caesar salad and some wine and we sat down talking and I just you know remember what my mom said you have two ears in one mouth listen twice as much as you speak very true how was he was he I mean he was down to earth he was funny and he was a vaudevillian yep a vaudevillian is a person that as an entertainer you know Buddy was on stage at the age of two he was the breadwinner in the family so Buddy was already a song and dance man he danced he sang he played drums he told jokes he was a juggler this guy this guy did everything and he grew up with that skill so he was just the nicest guy loving and welcoming he was nothing near of some of the stories that have been you know the rumors that have been passed down and on who he was was he intense absolutely yeah was he driven to be the best performer he can be every night absolutely did he drive his band to be the best they can be absolutely because he wanted to give the best performance to every audience because he figured if this was my last performance I need to make this the best that was his personal constitution yeah that's heavy so now we're eating and then it's about you know seven o'clock seven thirty and Buddy says he looks at his watch and he goes okay guys we got to go to the gig let's go come on we'll leave it a couple minutes we'll take my car so I'm remembering the gig you guys play it tonight I forgot about the tickets that I bought three tickets front row center so we come outside and Buddy goes come on we'll take my car and he's had a red Corvette Stingray and he turns to me and he says Dom you happen to backseat now if you know a red Corvette Stingray Bart there is no freaking backseat it's where you put your attache case you know yeah so I climb in behind these seats I get in the car I'll get to the passenger seat Buddy starts driving and he drove very quickly we're driving and as he's driving I said I said Buddy I had no idea I was meeting you I bought three tickets to go here the band tonight so Buddy turns to me he says well how stupid is that you're gonna sit backstage with Al give me the tickets wow so I pass the tickets up to the front of the car Buddy grabs these three tickets we pull up into the front of poor Peters there's a lineup of people buying tickets Buddy gets out of the car with my three tickets walks to the last three people in line gives them my tickets and says I'll see your front row center he turns around gets back in the car the people are in shock he gets back in the car we drive around to the back of the club we go in the back door Buddy then grabs two folding chairs put some backstage behind the curtain Al and I sit down and Buddy says I'll catch you guys after the show I'll drive you home and walks away so I'm in I'm in I'm beyond shock it's beyond surreal I'm in like what the freak is going on here so I turn to Al who's sitting next to me I said Al how the hell do you know this guy so Al turns to me and says we spent two years together in World War II he said I was a martial arts instructor and Buddy was a martial arts instructor so they paired us together in World War II in the Marines and they just happened to be both from New York and both drummers so he said so we bonded a friendship by being in the Marines together that's how it started so every concert that Buddy would come into the East Coast he would call his friend Al and Al because I became one of Al's top students Al would always call me up and take me along the way so I was backstage at a Buddy concert all the time now why this is important is because backstage at a Buddy concert you meet all the best drummers and that's where I met Morello so I'm sitting down in a chair and with Al at a concert I'm not even sure I think it was a club called Jupiters in Franklin Square Long Island and Buddy called us up and we're sitting backstage and there's another chair next to me and in comes walking Joe Morello with his dog Matthew Joe was legally blind so he had the seeing eye dog he comes in with this dog Matthew and he says to my right Al Miller my teacher is to my left and Buddy saw us and waved and it was just so great on how respectful he was to to Al and Morello too and me I was this young 18 year old kid I was nothing but he was absolutely respectful to me and he's kind of saw me as you know a student in the next generation yeah so he goes on and he performed that night and he played a a drum solo that was so incredible in the first set on his snare drum he played like about a 50 minute solo on just his snare drum and 2000 people in the audience he was able to bring 2000 people to their feet in the middle of his solo just playing a snare drum now listen today now you have double bass and you got cymbals you're crashing you can get a crowd riled up because we're doing all this this guy had a snare drum he didn't use the other parts of his drum he just used the snare drum in the solo brought the people to their feet brought the band back in came back with the band and the place went absolutely crazy he says I'll see you second set and he walks off so I now I'm holding my head in my hands at this time so he just played this incredible solo on the snare drum and I turned and I said guys to Al Miller and Morello what the hell did this guy just do on that snare drum so my teacher Al Miller said I have no idea what this guy just did Morello crosses his arms and turns to me and says he played a series of low strokes half strokes and full strokes using glad stone stone and molar movement playing pullouts and control strokes so I start laughing so Morello says to me why are you laughing I said well mr Morello what you said just sounded so academic it was just kind of funny he said well that's what he did so Bart I said okay wait a second tell me that again so when he explained it again and mentioned the glad stone stone and molar movements then I knew I was on to something so my teacher Al Miller said listen you've been with me now for several years maybe it's time now to take some lesson with Joe so I get Joe's number of the store he was teaching at that was a Sunday night Monday morning I call the store Tuesday I'm in a lesson with Morello in New Jersey and I said mr Morello I said I just want to learn all the stuff that you told me that buddy did it's what I just want to understand what the hell that is so that began the journey of now Joe then started me with George Lawrence Stone's free stroke this 100% rebound stroke that when you throw the stick down you allow the stick to rebend into your hand so you're not really controlling the stick you're only guiding the stick Gotcha and that's that's his technique right is the free stroke that's that's the stone technique George Lawrence Stone's technique the free stroke where you throw the stick down and let it bounce back see many of the dramas before stone will hold the stick tight in the hand they would throw the stick down and they would pull it up and they would control in the stick and they were hurting their hands they were getting pain they were not able to play for a long period of time so stone kind of realized that if I allow rebound to be a part of me the physics of movement and and it goes back to again the minds of Isaac Newton's third law for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction yeah if I throw it down and allow myself to relax and let the stick bounce up I'm using the least amount of energy for the maximum amount of results pause for a sec let me ask you though real quick backing up was buddy a student of these techniques or because Joe Morello could just call it out and say this is what he was doing or was buddy like we all kind of know was from another planet and just sort of pulled all these different techniques just by his nature of being a great drummer or did he actually study these barred great question great question and I asked buddy this and I got the answer because buddy was was highly skilled with finger his finger boot which is Gladstone this wrist rebound and molar so buddy told me when he was a young child in his early days of Wardville he was the opening act of George M. Cohen now have you ever heard that name George M. Cohen I don't think so do the research and anybody anybody hearing my voice do the research on who George M. Cohen was George M. Cohen was a song and dance band back in the in the early 1900s and he was the guy that that wrote many songs and he was the one that really started Broadway the whole concept of Broadway in New York of having the theater district was George M. Cohen when you go to Times Square right at the beginning of the Broadway theater district is a huge statue of George M. Cohen who they called Mr. Broadway wow he wrote songs he wrote songs like um her name was Mary Mary this was a huge back in the early 1900s he also wrote during World War one the the marching song that that fired up the troops over here over there and the gangs all coming that was all George M. Cohen he got the Congressional Medal of Honor from Franklin Delano Roosevelt this guy helped with World War one firing up the soldiers with his songs this guy was deep he was a song and dance band so he had several Broadway shows going on with these theater districts Buddy Rich was the opening act for George M. Cohen now as the opening act Buddy would go out play the drums tap dance sing a song he was the opening act and George M. Cohen toured all throughout the U.S. doing these shows George M. Cohen used whenever he was traveling the best musicians in his band he would carry around his first trumpet player his first violinist his arranger his piano player and his drummer the drummers that George M. Cohen used were either Billy Gladstone George Lauren Stone or Samford Moeller these are the guys that that were playing behind George M. Cohen so Buddy is sitting in the pit watching these three these three great drummers perform at different times and if they traveled in a train to go from New York to Chicago Buddy was next to them sitting with them not formally taking lessons yeah sure learning the Gladstone stone and molar movements Buddy told me he says I got them from those guys so if you can imagine when I talked to Papa Joe Jones and took a couple of lessons with Papa Joe Jones he would tell me at certain times he goes over here now here's where you want to accent so you use molar this particular pattern you're going to play from your wrist so use stone now here this is more sensitive and a little quicker passage go to french grip position and use your fingers use Gladstone so that they would that was the terminology that they use normally what they didn't do they didn't notate this stuff in books to carry it on for the next generation well yeah that's a good point I mean it seems like it's it's still very popular to use these techniques but like you said it's it seems like back then it was like your everyday language I mean you're just this is how you explain what you're doing when you're talking to other drummers which I guess doesn't happen quite as much as it did the molar technique you hear about a lot but well it totally it totally was that everyone knew these techniques they talked about them and it was never logged down in books or or to the technology that we have today so here I am now I'm I'm you know years have gone by it's the it's the middle 80s and I'm traveling now I'm endorsed with companies traveling around the world doing these different drum clinics and performances around the world so I had studied with Morello and Chapin now I'm utilized in these techniques and I also studied with Shelley Mann after Morello when I had learned the technique to a certain point he said now you're ready for Jim Chapin so he sent me to Chapin to now go from the stone technique to molar so in the process was as I was traveling around around the world I'm talking about in my clinics free stroke molar and gladstone and I'm traveling to all these other countries people are looking at me like I got three freaking eyeballs what the hell is molar what what are you talking about so because of where I lived on Long Island we knew about this stuff outside of the Long Island New York area no one knew about this stuff nevertheless me traveling to different countries oh sure so now I what I would do is when I came back from my travels in the early 90s when I came back on my the success of my career in traveling and playing and being involved with endorsing all these companies it's just fantastic what I would do is when I come back I would invite Jim Chapin and Morello to dinner and once a month when I came back I'd pick up Jim Chapin in his house drive over to Morello find a nice restaurant and we'd have dinner I'd buy these guys dinner over the hundred or the hundred and fifty dollars that I would spend for dinner for all three of us it was one of the best investments I've ever made in my life because the stories and the anecdotes and the history was incredible and one day we're at dinner and we're sitting down and I said to Morello I said I said Joe you wrote two great books master studies one of master studies two fantastic books that are so deep but you never mentioned the free stroke in there but yet when I worked with you for almost eight years all we did was the free stroke and I said to Jim Chapin said Jim you wrote your book advanced techniques for the mono drummer one of the top you still the number one drum set book in the world and you said that because of learning the molar technique that that's what helped you to write your independence book in jazz why didn't you ever talk about molar in the book and I said to Joe why did you ever talk about the free stroke in the book and they both turned to me at the same time and said oh everyone knows this stuff yeah no I think not and that's exactly what I said I said oh I think not I said because I'm traveling the world and no one knows about it so they both kind of sat back in their seats and kind of got a little somber and I said well then this stuff needs to be notated I said yeah guys you guys got to write this stuff down and put this into it and they both said to me wrong we're in our late 70s we're done writing books it's now your turn in your generation to do this here you write the book you know the stuff so you write it so that's when I wrote my book it's your move this book is 26 years old I wrote the book get your move simply because it was about explaining the free stroke and molar and I say in that book I'm not showing you techniques that Dom Familara created I'm just trying to be the messenger to pass on what I learned from Jim Chapin who got from molar that I learned from Morello who got from stone so that was the beginning part of the first book that was notated to be able to have the information put into the you know at least the lexicon of the educational material for drummers to make sure they don't disappear forever that's all it was and then from that when I ended up showing the stuff to Jojo Maier that he then put together the DVD the secret weapons of a modern drummer which he explained the techniques in now DVD and video format so we further have the stuff now explained and done and I've done you know hundreds of different you know stuff on YouTube and videos that I've done to explain it so I think we have enough of this information that is out there but people have to really realize you gotta go to the sources that really have the validity of the techniques you know when I when I when I studied with Chapin I'll never forget that one of the first lessons that I came in with Chapin he said I'm gonna tell you a story that molar told me and I want you to tell the story to every student that you show this technique to we didn't touch a stick or a pad or anything I said okay so he sits me down and he tells me the story he said when molar was young when he was like 13 14 years old this is now in like you know 18 1894 where do you go to take lessons drum lessons in 1894 there were no schools there were no private he said so where do you go you go to the old soldiers homes where all the retired drummers from the Civil War are there that played all their life playing drums and you're going to take lessons from them so that's where molar went he learned from Civil War drummers he lived in Albany and in Albany is where one of the first soldiers the old soldiers homes was built in the capital of New York after the Civil War so molar who happened to be from Albany was able to find one of these old soldiers homes and goes there and studies from a couple of drummers at these homes learning these techniques and molar said to Chapin which is what Chapin wanted the story to be carried on is that when molar came in with a drum he sat down he sat in front of his drum and then a door would open up down the hallway and an elderly man in his late 80s and early 90s would walk down the hall and as he was walking down the hall towards molar he was leaning on the rail and leaning on furniture when he was walking kind of dragging his feet this man walked up sat next to molar grabbed a pair of sticks and then on the drum started to play incredibly well hmm so molar said an old man walked out to give me a lesson a young man gave me a lesson and then when the lesson was over an old man walked back to his room oh that's cool wow what molar realizes these old guys who could barely walk were playing this big stroke this big arched whip stroke and playing powerful and fast and they were freaking old so so molar molar would like as a kid would look at it say these guys they're walking to me i'm afraid these guys are gonna die on me in this lesson nevertheless play drums and then when they played they blew molar away so that's kind of what got molar into this holy macro something's going on here so molar didn't invent the stroke he just understood as a kid the correlation between that arm and whip motion and the speed and power that you can have so chapein in 1938 takes lessons from molar and chapein's story was as he told me is that chapein in 1938 went to the metropole which was a famous jazz club in new york that all these these bands played and he goes there with his girlfriend at 18 years old and he hears gene krupa play with his band chapein had never played drums but he was an indian that a very very high IQ very very smart guy well read and he walks in and he hears krupa's band play and he's blown away by krupa playing absolutely blown away after the show's over krupa comes down to talk to the people now imagine gene krupa this incredible movie star you know good-looking handsome 1938 he's at the peak of his game in several movies the guy it's incredible comes down to talk to the people how great is that such a nice guy yeah totally so he meets jim chapein and jim says to krupa he says mr krupa you inspire me this is what i want to do for the rest of my life i want you to be my teacher now the guts that it took for chapein to say to the greatest drummer on the planet listen you're the best i want you to be my teacher really was i thought comical in this way and gene very polite said boy thank you for that compliment he said i'm so busy performing i'm not teaching but i'm gonna give you the number of my teacher sanford augustus molar oh my god that's unbelievable he writes down molars name and writes down his number on a napkin gives it to chapein and chapein just great he was your teacher is good enough for me the next day chapein calls up molar and starts lessons for about two and a half years with molar going two or three times a week molar was in queen's long island teaching jim the mother had lived in the queen's area of where it was so he was close enough to molar molar now you know is is semi-retired from from playing with john philip susan he's got all these top students and all the great drummers in new york are studying with molar as they are also with billy gladstone so after molar the guys that go to and then molar would say listen when you went to a lesson with molar do you know the free stroke if you didn't know the free stroke molar would say i want you to go to stone learn the free stroke and i'll see you in a year because molar realized if you understood the free stroke it was easier to show the molar movement so that was part of the process so chapein went to stone got some lessons from stone goes into molar takes a lesson with molar and learns molars technique to become the best of the best of teaching this technique molar passes passes away in the in the mid 60s and at one point jean crouper wanted to relearn back in the in the late 50s jean crouper wanted to learn and go back to school again so he contacts molar and says mr molar i want to come back i'm based in new york again i want to come back and i want to study your technique i want to get back into learning again and meanwhile crouper had already been a famous celebrity gene had performed with his band in over a hundred movies if anyone goes and just types jean crouper movies you can't believe how many times he performed in movies incredible incredible so he contacts molar and molar says boy that's fantastic gene that you want to continue learning that's such a good part he said but i'm not teaching anymore i recommend all of my students to jim chapein if you want to learn my technique call jim so now crouper calls up chapein so chapein said jim's telling me this story i said jim you gotta be kidding what happened when he called he said oh when he called up and said it was jean crouper i hung up on him yeah yeah right hang up i said whatever you hung up on him i just hung up i thought it was a joke i said what happened he said he called me back and when he called me back he said don't hang up i got your number from sanford molar i want lessons and then for that for a couple year period jim brought back gene to understand this techniques and jim taught jean this technique that went full circle god they're all so connected i feel like right now i need in front of me like a giant board that has pictures that has arrows that i i got it for you when you go to my when you go to my website go to my website and on my website you can download the image of what i call the drum teacher lineage say domfamilari.com it's free go there and look for the drum teacher lineage it's on the download download the document because i did that document on the top it's got gladstone stone and molar it's got the books that they were known for the year that they were born and they died and then under that their students see under gladstone was ted reed who wrote the book syncopation was shelly man because shelly studied with him the most out of anybody was henry adler and also was also was arnie lang arnie lang is still alive and kicking it to this day i'm sure he's in his late eighties and he's probably the last living student of billy gladstone and i had the chance of sitting down with all of those guys understand gladstone so after i studied with chebu which was here in long island he said okay you're ready for shelly man so i said great at that time shelly man had moved to california he was doing the movie scores out there and tv shows and playing with his with his bands out there so i packed up a band a keyboard player and a bass player from new york i said guys i bet we go play in california they said boy great idea so in 1976 i purchased a van and we drove to california 3000 miles so i could take lessons with shelly man wow man you had a quite the journey there and and i want to i want to pause and say i did not know that was on your website that's hysterical that you actually have that and i did i did that bart because i realized that i said that i had to start logging this down because now i when i teach someone i've got many students that come to me i've got over 2500 students that travel with me from over 30 countries and i'm blessed and honored to be able to share this information with all of them yeah and when they come by here i had to give them a part of this lineage because i want them to understand that every one of my students is a part of a bigger a bigger scene you're a part now of a lineage that when i show them the stone stuff and we go through stick control and accents and rebounds it's just so deep and i've had the chance to work with the family if you can get you know a new version of stick control and accents and rebounds my name is in in those books because i helped the grandchildren you know george lorenstone died in the mid 60s his uh his five children died before the year 2000 and now i'm working with his grandchildren in all of his material and they are wonderful people and we have reissued stick control where we've added quotes the inside cover of these of stick control and we re engraved the book so it looks cleaner we changed nothing and and the family put a wonderful quote in there of a thank you to me with with my website in the in the in the book and then we also redid accents and rebounds which was stone second book and then i asked john riley um danie gotlieb and steve forster three um other drummers that were studying with morrell at the time i was there to write comments in the beginning of accents and rebounds so when you get the new version of accents and rebounds you'll see the the the explanation of how the book was to be played remember none of this stuff was explained in the books so when i finally had a chance to work at the family i said listen i want to explain what i know was your grandfather's way of teaching in the book so we don't lose this so we did that with accents and rebounds and it was just fantastic to have the book out now and the books are selling even more than they've ever sold before because the young generation now has the clarity of the information to go through this stuff yeah that's known i mean so i'm working i have a seven month old baby but i'm working in my way slowly through stick control right now which i never did i took lessons when i was younger and then i just took time off and just played in bands a lot and then gotten to audio engineering and now i'm going back with a pad and working through stick control and i've heard from multiple people that stick control is one thing when you're alone and it's a completely different thing when you have someone to tell you how to use it properly and also you can just take stick control put it on your feet put it you know split it up you can do so many different things with page one so it's unbelievable absolutely boy and here's here's what i tell people and first of all with your engineering and your drumming background you need and i'll give you his information you need to contact david frangione and interview him because not only is he a fantastic drummer he's also taking lessons with me and he's working we're working on exactly this gladstone stoner molar approach and his his playing is just fantastic but he also is an incredible audio engineer of what he does so he's got the balance of what you're doing in both his figures and with stick control absolutely if you go through it starts on page five if you go through the book playing the free stroke which is this rebound stroke playing the free stroke on every number and if you played each number one minute each page becomes a 24 minute exercise and you go from number one to number two playing this rebound free stroke and as you play this rebound free stroke what's amazing about it is you start to feel the relaxation that happens in your hands which is what stone wanted which is how i went through the book with morello and how we taught many of his students years ago and then from that from stick control then when you go into action to rebounds and you learn about how to play accents and pull out some control strokes and up up strokes and down strokes within that motion that also not only helps you're fluidly on the drum set but as i did back in the mid 70s after i went through stick control with my with my teacher morello i said joe how did with this book worked with our feet and joe said well you've never done that but try it out so i went through the book one page a week one minute each exercise with my hands and then did the exact same routine with my feet to great result i'm sure i mean of course it's going to make you stronger and better and and translate absolutely you know i i just played a uh about six months ago it was posted i played a track eye of the tiger that's on drumeo youtube channel yeah loved it and what i got a kick out of it it's it's only been out now for about six or seven months but it already has like a you know almost two million views and and on there here i am at 66 years young playing and all the young comments about this guy's feet are incredible double bass this guy should be playing metal when i hear all that stuff i get a kick out of it and that all came from the free stroke applied to my feet using stone's book stick control and accents and rebounds that's so funny from a guy born in the late 1800s it's just it's unbelievable and on on top of the next level i gotta tell you about this here so this i've been working with the stone family many years ago when i was when i was younger in the late 60s i saw some articles in a magazine it was called the international musician magazine and it was it was a magazine it was kind of like it was it was like a newspaper and it came out like every week and it had in there a feature of george lauren stone writing articles about drumming in this in this magazine and he wrote in there from 1946 to 1963 he died a few years after so i remember all of those different articles i had no idea where they were so in my contact with the family which are just the stone family they are just such wonderful people i had mentioned i said listen guys there were some articles that stone you know your grandfather wrote can you track down these articles i think they'd be great to read so the family went several years we tracked down every article and they put a book together that is just released now on alpha publications called technique of percussion columns by george lauren stone for the international music musician magazine from 1946 to 1963 it's about two inches thick the book and it's all the the articles that george lauren stone wrote this is huge and in there stone talks about glad stone he talks about moler he talks about chaplain and morello and on all these different lessons that he taught he talked about all of his students gene krupa and buddy rich this book is historically so important to read and i tell everyone go get technique of percussion on alpha publications and read the historical insight because going through this book it validates everything that i teach what a prolific guy i mean yeah and that actually leads me to that so we talked about billy gladstone's background obviously radio city music hall inventor snare drum we talked about sanford moler learning from civil war drummers growing a technique from there what about george lauren stone as a man a little bit more you said he was in boston what else what what got him you know going when you get the new version of stick control which is which has the quotes in the inside cover i asked the family to put together a page of history and there's a page of history in the new version of stick control that explains us these guys like stone grew up in a drum manufacturing atmosphere where they were not only making drums but they were playing drums and teaching drums yeah and that's kind of like also the influence that gladstone had gladstone kind of was influenced by that and when george lauren stone would make marching drums gladstone wanted to make more contemporary snare drums so he came up with his drums and billy and billy gladstone only made about 40 or 50 snare drums and these snare drums probably sell for 40 to 50 thousand dollars each i'm sure i mean that's it's it's as rare as it gets and and the george lauren stone snare drums the same thing they are just wonderfully hand-constructed made so george stone learns from his father and then again at that time in the late 1800 early 1900s is when boardville when the theater district opened up so in the theater district there were all these acts that were performing they needed musicians so george lauren stone could read very well he could play not only snare drum but he could play timpani and and and mallets so he became the top performer in boston that played all the theaters and he became the top teacher and he was the top drum manufacturer of rudimental drums so he became like he was like this stuff and he married had children and ran his business and and and so and then his book came out in 1935 so he was working on these techniques back in the 1920s until he perfected it and if you look at the old copies of stick control the fact that the book came out in 1935 and looked as great as it looked that book was was done by an engraver what they used was a piece of metal and like a chisel and hammer they chiseled into this metal the each page for the book and then that's how they they ended up printing the book they put this this metal you know you know sheet and they and they ran it around and they made book copies of it well after about four or five years the metal wore down and the negatives were no good so the expense to do the book again was very difficult so what they did after that from the 1940s on they would just take a photograph of each page and print the book from the photograph so the challenge with the book is the book started becoming blurry and imagine doing that for like 50 years yeah you know so what happened was so now it comes into the so every time I get the book and I always say go to if you have an old you know stick control book go to page 32 and on the bottom of the page it was one of the worst pages you see the blurry you see like 30 second notes where there's three lines you can't tell that there were three lines you can't the rest are all blurry you can't really you can kind of figure out what it is but it's kind of hard to see so every time I'd look at this book I would look at it say my gosh this book just looks ratty it needs to be re-engraved well the family contacts me at some point they had heard that I was in the publishing business they had heard that I was also a drummer and a top teacher and then I was a student of Morello and I was a student of Chapin a student of Shelley Mann and they knew that was the connection from their grandfather so they contacted me and said we'd like you to help us out bringing this book into the 21st century so they said to me what would you change in stick control and I said boy first of all I am incredibly honored and humbled that you would even consider me to ask my advice but I would change nothing the only thing I would do is re-engrave the book and then I said it would be nice if we can put a note of history in there a page of history about your grandfather and your great grandfather and I'd like to get quotes of famous drummers on the inside and back cover so we could have the influence of stick control with all these drummers and they said gee we'll do that so we found a good engraver and then they said well gee Dom we don't know any drummers to ask them to ask for quotes of the book he said don't worry about it yeah I know them all I got it that's awesome pretty amazing yeah man I mean it's so cool and like I I can just I can tell how honored you are to be a part of this lineage of this just again this more or less just a family tree of teachers going down the line and I don't even know why I didn't even put it together that the whole George B stone and son like the Boston drums like the snare drums and everything it was a family business and those drums if anybody goes on the internet and research is the even just some of the pictures of the drums they are beautifully handmade drums that sounded fantastic that still sound good really incredible yeah and there's something special about like drums made in Boston I've talked about this with I think Rob Cook about how they had they were just different and that was the heritage of what we have in there and also the the Cooperman family which is which was in Boston then moved to Vermont were making the Cooperman drums that were kind of like the next generation of the George Lawrence stone snare drums when when stone stopped making the drums and Cooperman kind of took over and Cooperman was the one that made the snare drums from Moeller so Moeller's drums were all Cooperman drums so any pictures you see of Moeller you see him playing the Cooperman drums and and when when Samford Moeller died the Cooperman family contacted Jim Chapin and sent him one of Moeller's drums and said we wanted you to have this here in honor of continuing in the Samford Moeller way of how they play it and it was just so beautiful and and then when Jim Chapin passed away knowing that I was one of his top students the Cooperman company called me up and said Dom since Jim has passed away since you are carrying the torch we want to send you a Moeller drum and I have a Moeller drum that they sent me that's in my studio that I have that I teach on and it really is deep to have it and it was it was a drum that Moeller had designed and played and it's just really pretty valuable that the lineage is not only in in just the knowledge that we learned but in the products that were able to get a hold of those three guys I feel like we have a good idea of them and now let me throw a kind of a curveball at you and I wanted to I've always heard his name and like in the in the world of teachers but Roy C. Knapp I don't know much about him do you know how was he involved with all this I know he was kind of known as the Dean of American Percussion Teachers yeah Roy Knapp was from Chicago and he was a drum corps a drum corps player and he was a student of Samford Moeller also oh wow and he also knew George Lawrence Stone very well they were they were peers together and whenever George Lawrence Stone would go to Chicago to perform with some of the some of the act that he was performing with they would get together and share ideas because they were more into the rudimental end and but Roy Knapp also knew Billy Gladstone when Gladstone would travel they would get together so imagine these guys listen Buddy Rich got together with Louis Belston and Elvin Jones and Max Roach and they'd get together and they'd hang out and Morello and they'd share ideas these guys drummers have a very very rare you know a DNA that we are willing to share ideas absolutely you know I mean guitar players don't do this bass players drummers you know they'll just share anything with you and that's what they were like so Roy Knapp was a phenomenal influencer in the Chicago area of what was happening and and taught many many students that went on to play drum set you know Barrett Deans a very Barrett Deans was a very very famous drum set player that was also in several movies in a very very fast player he was a student of Roy Knapp so this Roy Knapp had his own lineage so if you were if you were to put together the bigger lineage you've got molar you know Gladstone and Stone kind of teaching Roy Knapp and then Roy Knapp was the next generation that from the Chicago area created his own lineage yeah okay and there's some actual recordings on the internet of Roy Knapp playing and just the precision and the accuracy that he played with was really deep and really exciting gosh man that's unbelievable it's so it's and as we wrap up I just I feel like it's it's different now than you just you might get on not everyone does this but you see where like maybe you go to Sam Ash and you say I want to take a lessons and you get the teacher they give you I mean these guys are like does it it seems like you have to already be a drummer to get in with these guys at that point you're like I'm going to take it like Freddie Gruber or something like I'm going to take it to the next level like I'm Dave Weckel and I want to get better is that or did they did they teach guys who were you know this is my first day learning the drums I'm a you know a 12 year old would you go to like George Lawrence Stone and learn well it's funny you mentioned that because Vic Firth who was a dear friend of mine for a well over 40 years was a student of George Lawrence Stone at the age of 13 oh wow so yes these guys if somebody was interested in learning drums he took them in so look what happened you know he teaches you know Vic Firth at a young age and and Vic Firth turns into Vic Firth he's Vic Firth yeah so he goes on from there but I mean these guys were just absolutely phenomenal players and and you know all this information what I'm doing is I'm working with Dave Frangione the new publisher of modern drummer as I had said and they have recently announced they want me to be worldwide education director for modern drummer great and part of what this is is I want people to I want this information to stop being put into modern drummer but also into an educational program where each magazine has educational history and information and stuff to practice from this great lineage and and I tell everyone to go and subscribe to modern drummer and go to their website subscribe to modern drummer because now with the Dave Frangione at the helm there's going to be a whole new level of 21st century modern drummer information that's going to go out and pull from the past and lay the ground work for the future of the 21st century so it's very very exciting so subscribe and get involved yeah that's extremely exciting I like many people grew up on modern drummer and love it and just by the name you think it's all new stuff but I just there's so many articles of just great things like I remember learning about the painted drum heads all these cool little things from reading modern drummer so I'm a huge fan congratulations to you on that that's awesome and I think that's a great segue as we finish up here why don't you tell people what else you got going on where they can find you the sessions panel all that good stuff oh this is great the sessions panel on YouTube I asked everyone to go there and subscribe it is I've got over 200 interviews and I've got a phenomenal not-for-profit organization that is investing into trying to capture the stories of all these great musicians not only drummers but bass players guitar players and piano players I've had the chance of sitting down to interview people like Steve Gad, Vinnie Caluta, Dave Weckel, Stuart Copeland, Steve Jordan, I mean just you know I was able to interview some drummers that are no longer withers Jabba Starks and Clyde Stubblefield the two great drummers from James Brown I sat with them in a room together we the interview was fantastic it was emotional and within a few months after the interview they both passed away Hal Blaine I interviewed Hal Blaine what a great interview with Hal Blaine this is the man that played all the soundtrack of the 1960s and 70s and he played on thousands of recordings he just passed away a year ago and and just to hear his interview when I sat down with him I said Jesus I said Hal I'm from Long Island when I started listening to music of the 60s and 70s growing up I had like my top 10 favorite songs and drummers that I would listen to that I would study little that I realized that you were nine out of those ten drummers they're all him yeah probably uncredited obviously like The Beach Boys and all these stuff I mean and that's a whole that's a whole episode right there The Beach Boys Elvis Sinatra I mean just incredible like Carpenter's all that fantastic music so these interviews are important because we're capturing their story especially before hopefully catching up before they pass away I had a chance to sit down with Roy Burns the the great great drummer who played with Benny Goodman for many years I had the chance to interviewing Ed Shonisey we lost Ed also so some of these guys that we've lost and and in Dugu Chancellor who played with Billy Billy Jean with Michael Jackson we lost him a couple years ago so these interviews have been very very important to capture their stories then I've sat down with not only great drummers but bass players Leland Sklar Billy Sheehan you know Darrell Jones who plays with the Rolling Stones I've sat down with some phenomenal players Nathan East great bass player guitar players Steve Vai what a great interview that was piano players Chick Korea I sat down with Chick Korea you gotta go hear that interview just to hear how great it was and the questions I'm asking are not what it was like when you're playing with so-and-so I'm not I'm not that doesn't that doesn't impress me what I want to know is how'd you start what books did you learn out of what teachers did you have how'd you practice you know what motivates you who are you listening to then who are you listening to now what inspires you when you hear these people speak about that it is deep passion at its best so that's going on with what it is I'm still teaching out of my out of my studio at my home and that's going on fantastic and I've been teaching using the internet for many many years so this is going on to global students around the world that I have so I'm still traveling and it's I'm still at the thick of it I feel great physically I'm 66 years young and I have no plans of retiring I don't use the R word for retire I use the R word for reinvent they say uh you're not retiring you're rewiring you know it's exactly right and I've got a publisher company called wisdom media that I that I put together with a phenomenal partner Joe Bergamini who plays all the Broadway shows and he's got several bands that he plays with and we've got books out HudsonMusic.com has the digital books Alfred has the physical books we've got more material coming out there's more stuff happening at my desk pumping out stuff because I want the next generation to really understand historically what is there for them and that's where I feel my responsibility is to do as much as I can for the next generation to be a part of this great lineage you're no slouch that's for sure you're you're always busy absolutely man I am just blown away by I just can't believe this just the the like you can just follow the lineage of all these great drummers and I think it continues today and um I hopefully try to think that uh in some way that what we're doing right now is passing on those stories to another generation and to people who have like I didn't know any of this so um absolutely and what you're doing is great because this allows my voice to be heard and hopefully in in many many years when I'm long gone that when someone hears my voice as I'm speaking right now they can sense the fact that the information is still alive yeah I might not be but the information is still alive seek out the knowledge and be a part of a journey of playing art and playing music I say art is about expression music happens to be my language but drumming that's my voice yeah and that's really what it's all about beautifully said well Dom I really appreciate you being on the show I will put all of your information where people can find you and I'll link to that chart that you were talking about in the show notes as well so people can check that out and uh keep up with you and all that stuff and and you can find Dom on Instagram at global number two Dom um lots of cool stuff there as well in addition to the sessions panel and everything there so Dom thank you for being on the show this has just been an absolute pleasure talking to you Bart thanks so much and thanks so much that you seek your responsibility to make this happen and touch base there are so many more stories we can do so we'll have to look for a part two at some point in the future fantastic love that awesome thanks Dom thanks so much if you like this podcast find me on social media at drum history and please share rate and leave a review and let me know topics that you would like to learn about the future until next time keep on learning this is a Gwynn Sound podcast