 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today we are back with our friend Paul Wells Paul welcome back to the podcast. Thank you part. It's great to be back. Thank you. Yeah, man The the series continues We've we've had a bit of a time gap here between recording because you were in you were in Europe, correct? I I was yeah, I had a well gosh I mean a few trips around the United States and then yeah a couple weeks in Europe three gigs in Germany and then a gig in the UK and Southampton and then a full week at Ronnie Scots in London and that was all with her to Stegers. So it's been busy and then straight back home and Into doing busy stuff here, too. So it's been yeah, it's been a lot And I'm trying to get my head back into the Tony Williams game right now. Exactly. So All right, Paul. So we're jumping back in here with part two If people haven't seen part one, you know, the old saying we obviously we recommend you go and check that out but if you're interested in More of this period of Tony's life, then maybe this is something you can jump in here It's interesting. You mentioned that because there are different kind of I mean there people most people love all of Tony Williams Output but but there's definitely kind of like a I guess almost it was it a demarcation There there are certain musicians tend typically more jazz-oriented players That prefer 60s Tony And even within that there are some that really prefer 63 64 when he was kind of more bebop language Oriented 65 he started to change his playing started to become more open Less kind of like, you know phrases Box like I guess the the song forms change. They stopped using things that were based a little more around The great American songbook type song form. So his playing opened up and some people like that period And then there are also people that love the early 70s the lifetime the first lifetime ban And then there are other people particularly a lot of rock drummers that kind of pick up with this period around 75 around the time that the album believe it comes out which is a massively important record a very very important fusion and Rock record I think and and this is the kind of like when you think of drummers like like Vinny Kaliuda and Dennis Chambers Steve Smith Gary husband like this is for me. This is the period of Tony that I think that they Kind of like that's where their big influence comes from it's sort of this this period big-kit Tony. Sure might say and and So so it could be totally viable for somebody to start up with this episode actually and it was kind of a coincidence that we just got You know, we were what like about 27 hours in on Part one and kind of realized like okay, this might be a good place to stop right before the big-kit era starts Yeah, so it but it actually, you know as far as those different sort of groups of people that are into specific areas Maybe this makes sense. So yeah, that's a good. I'm glad you said that because that's a good kind of like Timeline of the eras of Tony Which part one was basically his childhood, but really early 60s into about 1973 74 and we're gonna pick it up today at 1975 He actually yeah, he he So the the the stuff we ended with was this film that just recently surfaced of Tony Williams in Africa, which apparently was filmed in 1973 and I think that he actually there was a period kind of a hiatus period for him where he sort of regrouped and kind of you know took some time off and took time away from touring and maybe just kind of thought about what he wanted to do next and and Because believe it in 75 is such a completely different Statement than anything he had done and the drums change and a lot of things about his style change And yet at the same time, it's the completely logical next point when you listen to everything leading up to it It makes perfect sense. Of course, this is what he was gonna do, but yeah, it is it's a very interesting time period and He and he had been doing electric music He had been playing with electric bass players and playing with guitar players and playing louder music But he had been doing it the kit that he that you see him using in 71 72 is still kind of a jazz kit It's still a small bass drum. It's still smaller toms Just a couple symbols And this is the first period around the time believe it comes out 75 this is where you start to see some pictures of him with a bigger kit What would really be a rock kit? Everything is bigger bigger drums Bigger symbols more crash symbols, you know and bigger hi hats and bigger sticks too He started using well, I'll talk about sticks at a later point But he actually it started using bigger sticks around 71 But at this point it's like always two bees it's big sticks. He switches to the black dot heads again I'll cover that later but the first photo the earliest photo that I could find now There's a kit that you start to see in 76 and I'll get to that in a second But there are some there's a couple of photos that show what's to me sort of a prototype of This kit like kind of a pre big kit big kit and if you look at the there's a photo that I have labeled 1975 Keystone corner and this is a photo. It's by Tom Copey or copy and This was published in modern drummer magazine in 97 when Tony pass they did a big tribute issue to him And this is the only place I've ever seen this photo published I believe that's taken at the Keystone corner that that backdrop Was kind of distinctive and I'm pretty sure that's from that club now this kit is interesting because it's clearly a big bass drum and it's clearly two big toms and But you still see Two interesting things you see the multiple crash symbols You see a crash symbol in the middle between the two rack toms and that's a first That's the first time that he starts using that smaller crash symbol sort of in between the 18 on his left and the 22 ride But you also see an old what would still would have been an old style Gretch kind of like the rail mount It was based on the rail matters a double tom holder, but with the same sort of clip Mount that you'd see on a rail and I found that model number of it if anybody is interested It's the it's the 49 36 so Gretch assigned for every item that they made whether it was like a snare drum or it was like a wing nut or something or a Bongo everything in their catalog had a four-digit number and I think they all started with four You know for example like that I mentioned the snare that he used Most of the time in the 60s that the chrome over brass the five and five by 14 chrome over brass eight lug snare Famously is called the 41 60 People refer to it as like oh you got a 41 60. That's a great snare And it is a great snares one of the probably my favorite Gretch snare And I've owned one for years. It's a cool snare and they all have this like, you know 41 60 that's like a number everybody knows more obscure would be the 49 36 double tom mount But that's what you see in this picture Only less famous of a number possibly less iconic. Yes. Yes another interesting thing is that the later All of his later kits are really well known for having a six and a half by 14 snare He started using a deep snare, but in this photo You see he's still using a five and a half by 14 possibly a five by 14. It's a little hard to tell I think it's a five and a half Gretch snare wooden snare with this kit So this is sort of an interesting again kind of an in-between because he always used a five and a half We're five Previous to the big kit and this is like a big kit, but with the shallower snare I can't tell from this photo how many floor toms he has But if we look at the next photo that I have which is the back cover of the believe it album the the LP Which I have a copy of it on LP It was actually hard to find a photo that really represented this. I looked around I Found tons and tons of reproductions of the back cover But most of them were actually slightly cropped and if you zoom in on this one And you look between the two tom-toms is a cool photo from the side of the kit you can see That 4936 double tom out you can see the same sort of you know to double clips I think this is the same kit As the one in the Keystone corner photo Now some other interesting tidbits these simple stands at least the one of That for the 18 the symbol closest On his left the symbol closest to us in the photo Is a is actually an old pearl symbol stand The same type of pearl symbol stand that Neil Peart used in this in the 70s with chromie It's the same symbol stands that elvin jones used It's it seemed to be a popular symbol stand now the one that what's holding the 16 is a weird stand. It looks like the base of a Roger Swift Matic Symbol holder and this is mounted in the base drum like in the shell, but the top part is an old gretch Basically that the the top of a symbol stand that would have been like a base drum mounted symbol stand I don't know the model number off hand now unfortunately hodgepodge of like yeah, exactly It's almost inverted where the the beefier part is sliding in the thinner part Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I think he just had some random parts laying around and just kind of pieced together Like I want this this symbol holder in this position, you know, and let me figure out how to make it happen Unfortunately, there's all this cool smoke which is very cool But it's obscuring the snare drum and the hi hats and a lot of other details that we'd like to see But this is these are the only two photographs I found of this, you know sort of in-between kit that has that double Tom mount And you know, so it's sort of a you know before he really solidified what the what the big kit was going to be So what that is when we move into 76? I refer to this as the yellow monster kit because This is the kit that like really solidifies. This is Tony setup from now on. It's it's yellow Let's make note. I mean this is this is yellow This is oh, he's had yellow kits before his kit in 1970 Around the time that the band that lifetime did turn it over The gigs, you know, we looked at those in the last episode that the four-piece pop kit in yellow It's awesome. Elvin Jones had a yellow kit around the same time One of his kits from like 71 72 we discussed may have been yellow. It's a little hard to tell from the photos There is no doubt that this kit is yellow. So let's look at one of the photos 1976 live three This is a series of photos that was taken by somebody I don't know who took these but they're amazing photos and I thank you whoever you are for taking these because it's a just a Great document of this band and this is a gig. I don't know where it is It's a gig of the believe it era band Allen holds worth Tony Newton Alan Pasqua and Tony This is the kit sort of in its in its mature form. So this is a square a stop sign Arab adge Gretch kit, you know typical mid 70s Gretch Gretch famously designed around this time period they designed a new Tom mount that they called the monster Tom Holder and It's pretty much universally regarded as one of the worst Tom Holder's ever invented by any drum company I know some other like a lot of people really hate the company Heyman the British company had a very Terrible Tom Holder Tom mount as well, but I think this takes the cake because it It involves this like intricate sort of ball and socket System and one of the worst things about it is that to mount those big ball and saw basically the ball That fits into the socket that the you know that the Tom mount it mounts a Tom on In order to put that on a Tom Tom, you have to cut an enormous hole in the side of the drum It's like a like a I don't know a two or three inch hole That has to go in the drum to fit this ball that the sort of the Tom will swivel around Oh And it's kind of hopeless because if you get these drums and you you can't do anything to sort of Retrofit them to put a better Tom Holder in them because they've got this giant gaping hole in them You have no choice but to either put a Tom on a snare stand or to try to use the monster Yeah, anyway, I mean it's a lot of metal when you look at it for the outside It's just too much. It's very tubular and too much. Yeah, and yes There's a lot of metal on the on the Tom itself, too So it's sure it's not a great design The floor Tom's though still have the same diamond brackets that they used in the you know starting around 58 59 Also the spurs are the same very small disappearing spurs that you know They use since at least I think the 50 the early 50s You can see he's got on the front bass drum head He's got a piece of tape right under the Remo logo, but then on the batter head He's actually got the Pratt muffler the built-in sort of felt muffler that was adjustable that Gretch had So just to run down these sizes Because this is important. This is where you know again This is these are more or less the sizes that he stuck with for his entire rest of his career They change slightly when he switched to DW, but you will cover that in another episode The Tom's are two rack Tom's 9 by 13 and 10 by 14 and then three floor Tom's three 14 by 14 16 by 16 and 16 by 18 and yes He has of the second rack Tom is a 14 and the first floor Tom is also a 14 Which is really interesting that he's using for actually that sorry He's using three 14 inch drums. The snare drum is a 14 second rack Yeah, so he was having to buy a lot of 14 inch drum heads. Yeah, exactly the bass drum is a 14 by 24 and You know it he didn't go to it's interesting. He didn't go to a 22. He didn't go to a 26 24 was what he settled on that that's that's what I want to use I'm gonna use a 24 for the rest of my life this week's episode is brought to you by Masters of Maple Masters of Maple is excited to announce the three two three snare drum a homage to downtown Los Angeles This drum is gritty soulful and tough It features a 1.2 millimeter pure copper shell and it's outfitted with the brand new Masters of Maple stump badge The three two three snare is going to be available as a six and a half by 14 or as an eight by 14 snare drum And they're only making 12 of each model by hand You can pre-order the three two three snare now or they'll be available on December 8th 2023 only at m drums comm that's m drums comm a huge Thank you to Masters of Maple for sponsoring this episode remind me what he was using before was it a 20 or of his jazz sizes or I So we talked about this the kit from 71 72 which has two 12 inch toms a 14 inch floor I think that was an 18. It's possible. It was a 20. There's some photos where it looks like a 20 But they're also photos where it looks like an 18 There is also the kit previously in the Tony Williams in Africa Photos that looks like it could be I can't quite tell it could be a 22. It's definitely not a 20 It's bigger. I it's possible. It's a 24 I'm not sure but he talked about in interviews He he talked about this a bit and and he talked about going from an 18 to a 24 And he didn't talk about any sizes in between. He didn't know he may have forgotten but There is a modern drummer interviewer. He talked specifically about, you know, when I went from an 18 to a 24 So it may have just been that I don't there may not have been in any sort of in between period Where he's using a 20 or 22 Gotcha, and if he if he was it was not really a significant period because the music and the drumming and drum sound That made the most impact For Tony was the period were used in 18 and the period were used to 24 And if there's a brief period where he might have had a 20 at one point It's not it's not as important of the story as the 18 and the 24 That's really the Tony Williams bass drum story Also visible in this photo from 76 is the the first time you see him starting to use a six and a half by 14 Snare drum. There's a six and a half by 14 wood Gretch snare drum with double lugs. It's an extremely cool-looking drum I'll show you a photo later when we get into the 80s That's basically like the first photo that I ever saw of Tony Williams that just made me think like I've got to check this guy I'll show you that in a second though. Yeah, so this particular kit that I've been talking about with the monster Tom mount You see this same kit and in a number of photos. It does seem like he used this kit for a good three or four years because there are photos from 76 77 78 and 79 where he seems to have the exact same kit now if we look at 1977 VSOP one This is a photo of him on stage with the VSOP band which was basically Miles's 1960s Quintet a reunion of that band but with Freddie Hubbard playing trumpet instead of miles because Miles didn't want to do it He retired for about four or five years at that point and didn't want to come back and and do any playing So this black and white photo of Tony now This is you know, the previous photo is him on stage with the believe-it band which is a fusion Almost like a rock band now This is him back to playing acoustic jazz but he's still using the same kit same sizes same setup and The reason I can tell this is probably the same kid is that you can see the same strip of tape On the on the front bass drum head now It's possible this was a different kit and he just liked to do that You know, he just taped every every bass drum up the same way in the late 70s or same head Same yeah, or same head. Who knows? Yeah, I mean But I'm guessing that this was his kit and in these days people more commonly flew with their own drum sets And I think it's possible that he was flying around the world You could still do that in those days. You could check, you know, five bags And you know, or you could actually to be honest what I've understood a lot of drummers used to do is that you would show up at an airport like JFK in New York and you know in those days You could check in and have all your baggage taken literally at the curbside you pull Yeah, yeah, and and I think they called a sky cap Person who worked for the airline that would collect your bags and process everything Apparently in those days, you could give a sky tap a sky cap a Significant tip a cash tip, maybe, you know, I don't know 50 bucks. There's a lot of money then maybe a hundred bucks I don't know but you could give a sky cap a tip and they would basically take all your bags Like if you were a touring band They take all your stuff and just get it on the plane for you without charging you the airlines Excess baggage fee and that was kind of like this running sort of quasi scam that a lot of bands apparently took advantage of Apparently there were a lot of like bands, you know, obviously not famous bands like not big, you know, like, you know Like the grateful dead probably weren't doing this But some of the lesser known fusion bands jazz bands definitely were doing this and apparently like the ability to do this Would sometimes make a tour profitable the fact that they could get all of their stuff on the flight to Europe or wherever For basically, you know a $50 cash now meant that they could actually make money on the tour because if they actually had to check Everything and do it all sort of legitimately I'm not saying Tony did this. I I don't know but but you do see Tony with his own drums You know, I have other photos here of him in Japan playing what I think is the same kit and in Europe playing what I think is the same kit and You know, maybe he did that. Maybe he didn't I don't know you wonder about the the Nowadays I would think about the like weight of the plane and having an entire band's gear And you know, they kind of like oh, yeah Yeah around and things for safety. I know that very well. Yeah, and yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Whatever. Yeah Yeah, so there's a cool photo from 1978 Europe, this is others might not be Europe. It says festival behind them I actually don't know where this is, but this looks like the same kit same piece of tape all the hardware is the same You know There's a great photo from behind. This is from a live VSOP record. This is this is him in in Japan with the VSOP band playing for what looks like to be an enormous crowd Yeah Japanese jazz fans his seat is so high that it's very high and it looks unbelievably uncomfortable Yeah, it's literally just like a piece of like wood with some blue Probably uncomfortable scratchy fabric. I think it's a gretch Throne and it just it really looks like an incredibly uncomfortable throne I think it's like an old style like it's a 60s era throne It's probably not even the best one that Gretch made in the 70s, but I guess he liked it You know, he was still relatively young. I think as we get older, we need to really pay more attention to the comfort of our thrones Yeah Another thing that we can see here and also in that last photo the black and white photo Is the Gretch now? I don't have a model number for this, but there is a Gretch a very Distinctive Gretch hi-hat stand That we can see that we see Tony using here It's just a specific hi-hat stand with this very strange sort of shaped legs that kind of come out like this Oh, I see do this weird. It's it almost looks like a I Don't know almost looks like one of those um Hats that you see like the pilgrims wearing and you know like early days of like, you know Yeah People coming over to America like that. Yes shape It's it's a it's a but I think that was a popular hi-hat stand for Gretch artists He used Alvin used one and around that same time period. I can't really see it But I suspect he's likely using a floating a floating action pedal the Gretch floating action There's there's a video of him at Pasek or no as a Zildjenday in 1985 and you can see some footage that there's some shots of the of his feet you can see that he's playing a floating action I think that was the pedal that he used basically until he switched to D. W. Mm-hmm. You know very very very popular pedal in in those days And speed of the pedal it looks like it's which is interesting If I look at one of these pictures Europe one and then I go to VSOP behind one It looks like there is what looks like a Sennheiser 421 perhaps microphone on the batter side on the batter side Yeah, which I guess you would do that, but there's not on the on their previous pic picture There's not a microphone on the front. So it's like they're getting their main signal From the batter side, which yeah, you can do it would be Clickier, you know, I've yeah, I mean I've heard people talk about that I've heard people talk about that with 18 inch bass drums to the idea of mic'ing it from behind It could be just to get a little bit more isolation or it could be Yeah, I mean the front head You know for an 18 or any sort of like non ported bass drum is gonna have a lot of resonance Even if it's muffled with some tape or whatever, it's it's gonna be pretty Potentially boomy so it might be an effort to get a little bit more definition from it or possibly to isolate it from the other stuff On stage. I'm not really sure but you know, it seems yeah, clearly that's something he was experimenting with and in these photos Yeah, and before we move on real quick. I got him asked so so first thing a comment I say completely with respect his outfit is just kind of funny. It has like a yellow power ranger kind of look Yes, yeah around around this time period around the time he started playing with VSOP Until the point where he formed his own band around 85 He got deep into this jumpsuit look He it seems that he it just went full-on for for this like he just was like yes This is gonna be my look I'm gonna rock this for a good five six years and he had multiple jumpsuits. They seem to all possibly be leather Not a good idea for outdoors in Japan. I would think But if they're vinyl or plastic or something also not a great idea But hey, you know he went he rocked and I think that's great It looks good. He had a yellow one as you see in this photo, which matches the kit, which is really pretty spectacular It is cool. He also had a red one. He had a green one That you see there are a lot of videos of him Luckily the VSOP band as as poorly Documented as as Miles's Quintet in the 60s was There's only three known well for if you count the Steve Allen show in September of 64 There's very little video footage of that band for as important and influential as they were and as popular as Miles was at the time But the VSOP band is very well documented. There's a lot of great Besides records, there's a lot of really great video footage of them particularly in the early 80s So you can see a lot of footage of that band and it's all great and Tony is wearing spectacular Jumpsuits and pretty much all of them, you know, it's hard to find good stage wear I mean, I struggle with that too. And if you find something that works, you just kind of be I Know I do that. I found something that works with Curtis digers I just wear it every you know, like I mean, I have you know, I have a bunch of them But I wear pretty much the same thing. You know, if he's if you see If you see me with Curtis, I'm usually wearing a black t-shirt with a black vest on top and black jeans I do own many many many black t-shirts and I own multiple black vests. It's not the same Don't think that Same thing with Tony. He probably had a cold closet full of these jumpsuits and there's like it's like the Homer Simpson closet thing Were you open it and it's just all of the same outfit kind of you know, I mean Steve Jobs was like that I mean, that's that's definitely a thing man I mean some very productive and talented and important people just picked something that they were gonna wear and It worked and they just they just rocked it So last question before we move on and I think this is applicable to much of our conversation here So three floor toms. Holy yeah, that's a lot. I'm looking at one picture here here though. Japan one Yeah, the the the big 18 inch third floor Tom Even the second floor Tom is is frequently frequently referred to as the coffee table for a lot of people That's that I'm seeing a cup on that thing. Yes It's a coca-cola cup and I'm surprised that it's there honestly because in Tony's case This is unusual to see this because he really used all three of those floor toms. Okay He used that 18 a ton there. I mean, it's not hard to find Recordings of him any solo. He's gonna be using that 18 and and yeah, so that that is I'm actually surprised to see that that That's kind of a fluke that may have been just a one time He got a little lazy one day but actually that leads me to an interesting an interesting discovery or a Hypothesis at the top of this folder of photos. You'll see 1976 great jazz trio vanguard So there was a group another all-star group like VSOP called the great jazz trio, which was You know, it was not only led by Tony But not really Tony did the stage announcements for them when they played live But it's kind of a collaborative trio Hank Jones on piano Who's a legendary pianist and also Elvin Jones brother? Ron Carter on bass and Tony on drums and it was this all-star trio that I Really really love and there is a series of three Records they did live at the village vanguard that I really really love And it's Tony just playing perfect like 70s jazz trio drumming I really love the way he plays and I found a photograph of them That was from swing journal magazine, which was a Japanese jazz magazine That I think lasted a in it kind of into the odds and I don't know when it started, but There is often a lot of great photography in swing journal that you won't see anywhere else and I tried tracking down some old Issues of it when I went to the records jazz library in New Jersey to do research for this podcast But unfortunately, they they were so delicate. They had taken them to a secure site They actually didn't have them available for for research purposes anymore But this photo I found online and it's a photo of of the great jazz trio at the vanguard Now it doesn't appear to be that one of the nights they were recording because you don't see any microphones but that is definitely the vanguard and an interesting thing about those recordings is that if you listen very closely to what Tony plays during his solos and You kind of figure out what he's doing you actually realize he does not have his standard three floor tom set up of the time He only has one floor tom on these live at the vanguard jet a great jazz trio records and This photo you can kind of see he's got his normal You can see the monster Tom mounts He's got at least the bride crash And little crash if not the far right crash that he would normally use again I'll talk about that set up when we do the simple episode But you can kind of see you see Tony standing behind his kit and I only see one floor tom I don't see any other floor tom's usually they're kind of staggered further out going towards the the his right You know our left and I only see the one and definitely on those recordings You do not hear anything more than three toms. Is it a logistics smaller room? It is a very small room and and I know that set up there very well I I've played with the big band at the vanguard a lot I've never played a small group where the drums are set up on on stage left there But I've been you know a hundred times to see different drummers and it is a pretty tight Space but Tony did play there in a lot in the 80s with his own band and as far as I know He would always bring his full set up then but for whatever reason when he did these recordings he did this run in 76 He apparently did not use the 16 and 18 floor toms. You only hear the 13 14 14 And I can tell it's the 14 because of the pitch. It's a very very close in pitch This is an interesting thing too about these sizes there 13 14 and 14 You know, it's two of the same size and one that's just an inch smaller And he generally tuned them very very close in pitch to one another where there were almost maybe just a half step between those three toms and Actually love that in Tony's fills and especially in his solos that he had these really close intervals between those first three toms And he gets into some really interesting melodic ideas The fact that he doesn't have this huge range between those now the the bigger floor toms He did tune bigger, you know greater angles or greater intervals between them But those first three were tuned quite similar in pitch And I think it just sounds very interesting and you hear that all over this record So anyway, that's a that's a bit of an outlier in this era of him using a slightly different setup And then what we move on to again, as I said, he seemed to use this kid until around 79 he Then got a kit in 70 It's start to see photos of him in the late very late 70s into the early 80s where he seems to have a Kit Well, basically what you see that changes is what Gretch called their tech wear Series of hardware. So the sizes are all the same same as I listed before The color is still yellow, you know heads and everything are the same He gets into some different symbols. I'll do that in the other episode, but we see tech wear hardware He gets rid of finally we don't see the monster Tom mount anymore Gretch I think realized that they designed a pretty Not a great Tom mount in that era and they they changed to I think it was a company They they refer to it as CR research I think you see that mentioned with tech wear Hardware and I don't know if that was like a company that designed it for them or what that means, but It's actually really good hardware. I actually really like the tech wear era of Gretch That's also for me sentimental because that's when I became aware of Gretch as a company It was sort of in the mid 80s that I started seeing these cool Gretch ads and like the back of modern drummer magazine and yeah I just think that hardware looks good And I've had a couple of Gretch kits that I've owned that have had that hardware on it And it's actually still to this day very functional. It's well designed hardware and still works quite well Well the 80s things changed because I mean before that it was like there was the swivelmatic which Was its own whole thing that changed things and the rest is just kind of terrible But then the Japanese brands made things better than the American brands could copy it a little bit And so this just got better the Gretch tech wear Tom mounts and floor Tom mounts and things and and the spurs actually for that matter To are actually not That dissimilar from Thomas Hardware at the time if you look at like kind of late 70s Toma like kind of in that Billy Cobham era 77 78 Billy Cobham Lenny white eventually Neil Peart It's it's somewhat similar. It's it's you know, kind of a blocky Tom bracket Tom mounting system the actual holder is is actually very similar to Ludwigs that they designed in the 60s And then disappearing spurs, but very chunky disappearing spurs But I like this era for Gretch and I like this hardware quite a bit now if we look at this Gretch ad That it starts to show up in modern drum around 81 82 that photo may be from a little earlier I actually don't see any badges on this kit So I don't actually know if this is a square badge or if this is a drop G badge or what? But we can see that he's still using his 70s era snare drum You actually see the snare has 70s era Stop sign badge. It's not a drop G badge It's six and a half by 14. Yeah same six and a half by 14 It's it's eight, you know, we're 16 lugs eight double lugs We get a little later into the 80s. He starts using a 10 lug per head. So a 20 lug Six and a half but at this point he's still using the the the 70s version, which is for him was the 16 lug now an interesting thing that he does and you see this throughout the 80s is he actually mounts his toms Technically upside down You'll see the tom brackets are at the bottom of the drum On the two rack toms Gretch designed Their toms so that the muffler knobs face the drummer so the drummer could adjust them on the gig presumably even while playing with one hand, but Tony maybe just like the way they looked and they do look cool I love the way though that those letters look those two knobs on the front of the toms I think it looks really cool and Maybe Tony wanted that to face forward and maybe didn't want the badge to face forward I don't know but Effectively because there were only you know these the only way to mount the drum So that the mufflers faced out I think would have been to mount the drum basically upside down like this But it also the drums didn't have you know You can you can sort of make it out if you really zoom in on that 82 Gretch add The the tech where Tom brackets on the mounted on the toms actually said Gretch on them They were they were sort of engraved with the not engraved, but embossed is that the word with the Gretch logo? Yeah, and It doesn't matter like it could be right side up if there's no specific There's nothing that says that the drum and and actually this actually makes me think that this could be Square badge kit because the square badge the badge is actually looks the same upside down or right side up It says Gretch top and bottom and going both ways. Yeah going both ways So it didn't really matter if it was upside down or what there wasn't really a right way Now if you look at the Gretch catalog There was a Gretch catalog in 84 that came out That's called the poster catalog because it's it's basically a big poster that folds out That's got a big giant kid on one side and the other side is a bunch of kits that you could buy and all the different sizes and stuff It's a very cool poster You can see it on there's a website. I've probably referenced it before drum archive comm man There's an episode with Andy Yule who started your archive great Yeah, Andy's awesome and does it as a passion project and yep I feel like maybe we talked about this in the last episode. I apologize if we it was so long ago that we filmed it I don't remember but but yeah a lot of these old Gretch catalogs as well as you know, Toma and Sonar and all these great Like old premier catalogs is a super cool website But you can see the Gretch poster website my point in bringing that up is that Gretches own philosophy of how to mount their toms the way that all of their kits are photographed in this era Was for that Tom bracket to be at the top of the Tom not the bottom so According to Gretch Tony is mounting them upside down, but you know Tony can do whatever he wants. Yeah, obviously So all right, we're talking hardware on the kit here like looking at the 1982 Gretch ad that I love the tagline being someday you'll own a Gretch like that's so good That's you know, I mean We could say that Gretch made you know They had some missteps here and there in their history every company does but man they had some great I mean just the idea of like the great Gretch sound as a tagline. It's it's very iconic. It's brilliant And I love that someday you'll own Gretch. It's it's it's really great And that too references the fact that at this point There were a lot of drummers that owned or endorsed Other kits but actually did own a Gretch kit at home or had a Gretch kit that they recorded with I'm Neil like Neil Neil had a Gretch kit at home Jeff Procaro was famous for using a Gretch kit in the studio The Caliuta used a Gretch kit in the studio before he was a Gretch endorser And I think that that tagline kind of references that which is kind of slightly snarky, but but really quite cool inspirational too, but yeah, yeah or aspirational aspirational. Yeah all the Sperationals it's so looking at the bass drum There's like the mega giant kind of hardware on the inside. Yeah, those the spurs. Those are the spurs Yeah, that was a Gretch. Why are they so hard of the tech where well, I'll tell you why because a lot of a Lot of drummers were using single-headed drums Especially the bass drum even if they use double-headed toms a lot of drummers you'd see you with no front head on the bass drum and If you have big heavy toms on top of a kit that doesn't have so I The the head and the hoop kind of help add structure to the bass drum Sure, kind of that so the idea behind those spurs so those spurs go through They're disappearing spurs that go through they function as spurs But they reach all the way up to the top of the shell and they actually kind of lock in To this sort of plate that's at the top of the shell and they actually help support the shell and keep it round even if you had the front head off or Even if you had the front head on but you had you know, you could the The these tom systems were sort of modular That's a term. I shouldn't use because Ludwig had at the same time I had a modular modular hardware Wait, the idea being that you know people were getting into mounting three toms on a bracket and maybe two symbols off of it Too, you know that kind of thing that was becoming popular. So you needed a bass drum that could support all of that weight So that was you know, kind of the idea. I think I know Yamaha made something too that you see in Yamaha catalogs in the 80s. They made basically a pipe that kind of could expand They will go from top to bottom. Yeah, that's right I learned that in the Lars episode with Chris Rousseau where where he said I found this piece of gear And it was a tiny little kind of footnote in a catalog and it we joke that it looked like kind of like a you know A club or whatever for your car where you just stick it in the base drum and extend it right, right, right? It makes sense. It's the same. Yes for a period there that I think it was mid 80s. Yeah Yeah, you can also see it's mostly hidden but on Tony's left our right you can see He's using by this point tech wear simple stands which are kind of famous they had They had a distinctive look and to me the most distinctive thing about them was that they they had the felts at the top were basically like either white or like a very very very light gray and Charlie Watts was also a fan of those. He used those. I think basically, you know until he passed I think his symbol stands always had those now Somebody again could could clarify that for me, but you see a lot of photos not every I'm looking at some 80s photos Not every photo of Tony, but there are definitely photos where he's got These tech wear stands with the lighter Colored felts actually if you go to the next folder we get into the 80s and we get to the square badge kits There's a there's a photo. I labeled called Gretch poster Which is a another Gretch ad that was that ran in modern drummer and it's a great photo of Tony standing in front of his kit and This is actually interesting because this is a kit where he has the toms mounted the Official Gretch way you can see he has them mounted as there's this is I don't know if this is probably not the same kit It's probably another identical Yellow Gretch 80s kit square badge But he's got the toms mounted with the the brackets are at the top and the badges are facing front instead of the Instead of the the the muffler knobs you can see though on the ride symbol He's got a Gretch tech wear stand here, and he's got the the light colored felts at the top Which is that sort of distinctive look? now also in this photo this is this is a unique kit because He's got a white coated Gretch logo head, which I don't think I'd ever seen him with a white coated He always had a clear head on front So that's kind of unusual So this would be like hey We have a set set up come to this photo studio Stay in there kind of doing this position, and I imagine this was his kit But I think maybe they maybe they made that kit and you know he went to the factory to do the photo I'm not I'm not actually sure I mean this could have been taken anywhere, but you know It's it's it's a front head that he would not normally use and it's a tom Configuration the bracket being in the right place is something in the 80s at least that you don't really see I can you know If we look at these various photos like at the top here 19 You can see Tony with the you know tech wear hardware mufflers facing front Tom brackets on the bottom You know that's something you consistently see There's another one 1982 live the good photo of him Now this is interesting. I just noticed he's still got in this photo Now this was dated. I found this on I found this somewhere Stu is credited to Stuart Nicholson. This did have a date on it of 1982 and He still has that Stop sign era badge snare drum That he's using with his 80s era kit You can see he's wearing the green jumpsuit of course in this photo too. He does have every color really I mean I read I see purple. I see all the colors. Yeah, which is very cool And just to kind of like put it into perspective here a little bit I believe now that we're at 1980 Yeah, 45 he would be 35 years old at this point. Yeah in 1980. Yeah. Yeah, that that's I mean he's still Still a young guy, you know, yeah Yeah, he's not even 40 yet Let's see what photos I want to look at just as a personal photo or a personal thing to point out if we look at 1984 modern MD side. This was a He was on the cover of modern drummer in it's either June or July of 1984 and This was a I remember getting this issue Having this when it was when it was basically new when I was a kid and This photo of him from the side with that Gretch Snare drum with the with the double lugs this photo. I didn't know who Tony Williams was. I didn't know I'd never heard him, but I saw this photo and I remember like this photo was like, okay I have to find out who this guy is this guy this guy is clearly the guy. There's this it was just he's so Cool. He's just so intense photo. He's he's intense, but he's relaxed, but it's like confidence It's yeah, it's just it's like you just know that this guy like this is the guy I need to start checking out I just knew this was like a a call, you know, to it like all right I need to I need to investigate this I will be on a podcast someday. I Investigate this guy someday there will be things called podcasts and yeah So that was yeah, and we see that snare drum a funny thing to mention I'm gonna talk about sticks in the later episode, but He actually started doing this in the mid 70s, but you can actually see he's got a stick bag a leather stick bag Mounted on the snare drum That was the thing that he did now I know other drummers that have that have that do this and had done this but this was a Somewhat uniquely Tony thing he may have been the first to do this Mounting the stick bag on the snare most people now actually there was a there is a photo the one we looked at before of in Japan From behind where we were talking about the throne and the coke cup He actually in that in this photo. He has his Stick bag mounted on the first floor Tom, which is kind of the standard way that we mount our stick bags right on the floor Tom, but um, but you know, there are other photos Where he's got it mounted off the snare. So that was that was a thing sense Well, it's actually closer to what you're you know And you can reach sticks with both hands, which you can't really do quite as comfortably with the stick bag on the floor Tom, I guess your legs might get a little in the way But anyway, it makes sense and and he's got some super wide super wide snare strainer many Oh many many snares on there the wires. Yeah, that's actually yeah, that's the Gretch I guess that would be the 42 strand Gretch snare Gretch snare wires. That is a good point He didn't always use those I've seen other photos. Maybe not from this era Maybe by this era when he's using the six and a half He's always using the super wide snares. I've tried those personally. I can't get anything happening with those snares I did they just sort of buzz like crazy for me, but I have tried those but yeah, Tony was apparently a fan of them Interesting, which is pretty cool. Yeah, and yeah, yeah, that's it's there. There are photos I mean, I'd have to go back to the stuff. We already talked about the The 60s stuff, but now I kind of want to go because I know there's one or two photos where you can kind of see under the snare and Now I kind of want to see if he's got yeah. Wow, okay I I don't think we talked about this when we did the 60s, but is a photo a couple photos here of him playing his 60 the black kid in 1964 There's there's one from Paris October 1964 and you can see under the snare He's got his 41 60 snare and it looks pretty obvious that he's got the super wide 42 strand snares on that to the wires So I guess he had been using them as far back as then so sorry. I missed that but that's a great catch I'm glad that you you noticed that very cool. Yeah, if we go back to the 80s Folder here and we look at this photo that's actually a This is from something I found on drum archive the the Gretsch price list besides catalogs they have a lot of the manufacturers would would Publish a price list that just had all the model numbers and had the You know that the retail prices and these were made just for retailers and in this is a 1987 Gretsch price list and they actually had a Tony Williams official Tony Williams setup available That you can see in this photo and it lists these sizes basically just as I listed them 14 by 24 Bass drum a 9 by 13 and 10 by 14 toms rack toms 14 by 14 16 by 16 16 by 18 Floor toms and the 6 nap by 14 snare they even list the you know three simple stands hi at stand Tom Holder snare stand and Yeah, they show the configuration. They've got that picture of Tony and the prices the list prices at that time $4,080 now. I'm I'm not actually sure I assume So there's three different prices here G L and X I don't know if that meant like lacquer finishes were more than covered finishes Maybe wraps cost less or maybe that was giving suggested retail prices. There was a list price and then a suggested discount I'm not I'm not sure what those prices refer to it's a Substantial jump from the X and just again people to explain people who are like not watching this video and who are you know? Just walking the dog or whatever listening. Yeah, sorry about that price G $4,080 price and then in quotes L 3,335 X 2,880 so there is a substantial jump In price there and just because it's always fun to do The whatever inflation calculator 1987 $4,080 it says on this website That's $11,000 today in spending purchasing power So now we are talking about a lot of drums It's you know a big bass drum to rack toms three floors and a snare So in simple stands that does seem like a lot of money You know, that's like when I think of $11,000 for a kid I'm thinking like, you know Yamaha Phoenix or Craviado or something super super high-end and exclusive like that But you know those kind of prices weren't necessarily something, you know recent and and I see actually this is maybe Too much of a tangent, but you know, I see people Often on drum forums complaining about the prices of drums and cymbals these days And oh, I can't believe that so-and-so is making as such-and-such that cost this much And but if you do look at inflation calculator stuff has always been Expensive it's it's it's costly to manufacture these things. These are not You know, these are these are not just you know, run-of-the-mill You know, it's not like a Ford pickup truck or something not that there's anything, you know wrong with the Ford pickup truck But but you know, these are things that are made in extremely high numbers extremely high volumes on a production line And a Gretch kid in the 80s was basically a custom-made kid Just as a Craviado kid is now or a Yamaha Phoenix kid, you know, they're made to order and there's just a handful of people that make these things and They are really made by hand and and they're special instruments and they're not production line kind of things, you know And and they're not like it's still even in the the biggest drum and cymbal companies It's still kind of just a handful of really skilled Workers that make these things. So it I think it's I mean, it's expensive to buy this stuff But I think it's always been expensive. Yeah, exactly. But I mean $11,000 the amount of people who would be Buying that kind of a drum set at a drum shop had to be very minimal, but if you sell one Pretty good, you know bonus for for the year of the shop, but definitely Yeah, anyway, it's cool to see this though the Tony Williams set up and and with the picture and all that. Yeah so I want to look very briefly at I'm kind of speculating But I do think this is kind of the era where he started to have multiple kits in multiple locations Like he'd have a kit that he stored in new york He had a kit that he kept at home in san francisco where he lived at this point and Probably had a kid in tokyo and maybe had a couple kits floating around europe for when he'd have gigs there too Um, so I don't know how many of these kits there were But one thing I do know is that you see photos like the ones we've looked at so far where the kits have relatively normal Chrome hardware But if we look at this next folder Um, and I could oddly only find one really proper photo Of this but he had a at least one kit maybe more That had black hoops Um on all of the toms and the bass drum also had black hoops friend and back If you want to see this kit now, I've just showed you this I found this one photo Um that I think is from around 1990 But there is a ton a ton of videos on youtube of tony Um, this is why I think that this might have been a kit that he kept in europe There's video of him in europe where he's got this kit with the black hoops There's also some video from around 87 in japan Where he's got a kit with black hoops and there's also a famous video tony williams live in new york That's from around 89 I think where he's got a kit with black hoops now This might have just been one kit that he went around the world with and happened to film these videos But for whatever reason a lot of the video footage of him in this era. He's got that kit So there were at least two one with the black hoops and one without that we that we know of Um Makes sense to have kits here and there and different things. Oh, of course. Yeah the black hardware and I've noticed that in Looks like 1989. I'm looking at a picture that says chicago jazz showcase It looks like his symbol hardware between Ah, the pictures here it looks and I can't remember what we're talking about and not talking about but yeah Let's say that it appears there's we're getting into some better His middle stand is no longer that wonky kind of Yeah, we're getting into a boom boom. Yes, exactly. Yeah, so so you can still see on um, the uh, Gretch poster The one that we looked at where he has the white front bass drum head. He still got at least on Mounted on the bass drum is actually a swivemmatic An old like roger swivemmatic Mount on the bass drum and I can't really tell what's at the top of that stand But it doesn't look like a particularly modern Symbol holder, but yeah by the time we get to 1989 chicago Uh jazz showcase. He's got a pretty relatively modern boom Symbol that that I believe is mounted with a multi clamp onto his double tom mount But you can also see in this same photo. You can see those Gretch tech wear symbol stands with the light colored felts Um that I mentioned that there are also some Kind of unique looking wing nuts at the top of tops of those stands Um, yeah that that gets us basically into the 90s Oh, you know what? I will cover There's an ad He he did a a an ad as an endorser for shore microphones This is an interesting kit Because well, first of all, we've got a just a white coated front bass drum head with no Gretch logo. We don't have a Gretch Pratt muffler on the bass drum. We can actually see a bit of felt sticking out Like you actually manually added felt in the same place where the pratt muffler would have been What's really interesting about this kit is that for the first time We see that Gretch apparently made a kit where they said, okay, we want the badges facing front But we we we recognize that you like to put the brackets. You like to have the brackets at the bottom So we've got the tom brackets on the bottom But we've got the Gretch badge is facing front and apparently the the the muffler knobs if they're on at all Which you know, this is kind of the point you get into the 90s and Gretch stopped Making drums standard with the the mufflers certainly by this point. I actually have a A 1985 Vintage Gretch kit. It's the only vintage drum set that I still own Um Actually planning on selling it soon, but that's another story. It actually is a factory kit It's 12 14 20 and it doesn't have any mufflers on it Which was a bit unusual for that period still in 85 They they often were standard putting mufflers on the you know, the top and bottom mufflers on the toms and all of toni's kits Through the 80s have them, but this kit does not or it doesn't seem to it doesn't have the pratt muffler And if it does, oh, no, I'm you know what? I'm wrong. I'm looking now. I can see on the 13 Look at that. There is a muffler on the bottom head. You can see it through the oh, yeah Okay, well, I'm wrong. So it's it's it's oriented differently But the badges and the brackets and the mufflers are all in different places than they had previously been Another funny thing is that for the purposes of this photo It appears that they may have asked toni to please take his middle symbol off Because notice it's not fair action. Yeah, exactly But if you look closely at the tom bracket the tom mount you can actually see a multi clamp An empty multi clamp that's there So this is when you know by this point as you mentioned he's using a boom symbol arm That's that's on a multi clamp and um at this point You know, that's what he was using and he took it off for this photo But didn't take the multi clamp off of the tom mount So it's still sitting there empty But that's where the little the smaller symbol would have been mounted And it's clearly as you said so that his face is visible in the photo One thing also to point out is that he for whatever reason at this point is using a pearl hi-hat stand Now sometimes guys would be on the road and their hi-hat stand might break and they've got to go to A music store and maybe that's the only hi-hat stand they had that he liked Maybe they didn't have a a gretch that he liked or a gretch hi-hat stand at all So he just picked one up when he was on the road and he just kind of continued using it But um Yeah, otherwise the simple stands that we well the one that we see is is uh the gretch tech wear Yeah Yeah, so So that's a good addition there and that's interesting to see him advertising for other I mean that's drum related obviously. Yeah, yeah I remember this run of I remember this run of ads because peter urskine did one as well Where he's got his really beautiful blue maple custom kit That ran right around the same time. This is maybe around 92 or 93 and um, and and uh, You know, so peter peter and tony both signed on his short microphone endorses around that time Okay, so uh to explain a little bit real quick because we're gonna keep going and we're gonna talk about Tony's backline kits, but you may have noticed that we stopped at about 1990 Yeah, roughly Yeah, and that is because uh, we on the next so I believe part three with paul is going to be symbols sticks Hardware and then part four of this mega tony williams deep dive is going to be with scott garrison Who was tony williams drum tech? From the basically the mid 90s through the end of his life, which was 97 which so early 90s to you know End of his life. So he spent the last remaining days with him. So that'll be awesome to hear that We're gonna leave that chunk of time for garrison Which garrison is now the artist relations marketing and manufacturing kind of guru with dw drums and that's Since tony that's kind of what he's been That's how I've heard of him. So so i'm excited to have him on here. Um, yeah garrison's a Legend in the industry and has worked with so many incredible drummers And you know spent a lot of time with tony and and I mean he's just he is the guy to talk about this era So we're gonna hand it to him. Um, but I do want to cover um a number of backline kits and and Particularly in the 60s tony was often not often but sometimes seen using backline kits and I I think that's there are times where people confuse them With you know, thinking that this was one of tony's kits when in fact it was a backline kit Um, there's a period where he used backline a lot. It's between 66 and 67 So let's look at that folder of photos and there's a there's a lot here, but There's some interesting that that basically The main use of backline for tony was it the two Uh newport jazz festivals that the myos davis quintet played they played newport in 1966 and 1967 um in the summer july I think um and Both times it seems tony used backline gear So the the gentleman who founded the newport jazz festival and I believe probably also the newport folk festival Um and continued to run it until his passing very recently Was a gentleman named george ween who is a very important jazz impresario who I you know dating back at least until the mid 50s Maybe earlier ran the newport jazz festival, which is one of the the biggest, you know music festivals around and um He also was a tour promoter He would put on newport became so popular that they actually would take the newport jazz festival to europe and to other places So there's a lot of like you'll see These sort of big tours that he put on and one of them was in the fall of 67 There was a newport jazz festival in europe and the myos davis quintet was on that So there are a lot of backline kits from that tour too, but let's start with 1966 um There's a very famous photo that you see of tony a lot and I have it labeled here as 1966 newport 3 And this is a photo of tony playing Kind of a funny hodgepodge kit where we have a ludwig burgundy sparkle 8 by 12 rack tom and what looks like a 20 inch sorry an 18 inch bass drum That also has a ludwig logo on the front head. So we assume that the drum is ludwig It's got disappearing spurs that um ludwig 18s had during that time period But we have a white marine pearl floor tom that looks to me I think like a slingerland, right? That's those are slingerland. Um floor tom brackets, I think And it kind of looks like a stick saver hoop So it's kind of a hodgepodge kit. I can't really tell what the snare is, but it looks like it could be a metal snare And we see a ludwig it looks like a ludwig spur lock. Um, uh, hi hat stand um, and I remember hearing somebody Saying, oh that photo is of tony at lincoln center Recording the foreign more concert. He you know played the foreign more concert with this ludwig kit with a slingerland floor tom And i'm not sure where that person got this information from But if we look at there's a couple photos that I have also here newport 1966 newport 1 Now this is tony with you can see the miles davis quintet. Well, mine is herby. You can't really see him And it says the newport festival right behind them clearly not the 1964 foreign more concert You can see that ludwig bass drum. He's got a little towel sort of tell up on top of the bass drum Which you see in that sticking out of us. Yep the white marine pearl floor tom If you look at newport 2 The next photo you can see Um, you can't see the whole sign, but you see the same sign that says festivals Um, and you see the same kit now What's interesting here is we can see the matching burgundy sparkle floor tom The ludwig floor tom for this kit behind The the big floor tom what I bet happened Is that he or whoever played before him broke the head of the 14 inch floor tom that matched this kit and They were like, well, let's find another floor tom So somebody brought on a slingerland floor tom from somebody else's kid. Who knows I have to look at the um I should you can usually find these things actually the roster of who played newport that year It'd be interesting to see who played before and after miles because It could have been somebody like buddy rich who played a white marine pearl slingerland floor tom Wow, that'd be cool. Although in 1966 actually, I think I think buddy was still with um He was still with rogers then or possibly was with vox Yeah, it might have been the tricks on tricks on box. I think was 67, but it was like six months Yeah, so yeah, but it was but it was before so would have been rogers So that would may not have been buddies, but a lot of people played slingerland white marine pearl drums It could have been gene krupa, you know or any number of other drummers. So it's probably some It's definitely someone. I mean they're playing newport in 1966 This is actually a famous photo of miles If you look to the to the tony's left to the right of the photo You see miles is silhouette sort of walking away from the stage And I've actually seen that photo and other sources sort of just cropped just miles is um Figure there with with tony cropped out. But um, yeah, so this is the kit that's used on the 1966 Which is but which is recorded and was released on uh, there's a miles davis at newport box set That you can get that has all of his newport performances including 66 and 67 now 1967 newport one here is that's that's wane shorter and You can't see tony, but there are other photos from this from this gig And you can see that he is playing none other than don laman's gretch kit don laman was a great drummer Who played with all sorts of people probably most famously with woody herman in the in the later forties But became a really successful studio drummer and Really great drummer and apparently was on this bill And tony used his kit now if we look closely at this kit, we see a pretty big bass drum It's gretch. We see what looks to be white satin flame A very popular finish for gretch in the mid 60s And we see a Riveted symbol that looks like it's maybe a little smaller like it's a 20 Um, and it's a little hard to tell from this photo whether that's an a or a k The lathing looks like it could go either way, but To me to my pretty well-trained vintage symbol eyes that looks like an a But we're going to get to that in a minute. Well, actually, we're not going to get to that in a minute We're going to get to that in the symbol episode. So part three. Sorry. Sorry to to tease but Well, we also have a hollywood miazzi. Yeah, so so this is where we get onto this tour So I mentioned they did new port in 66 and then they did it again july of 67 Now in the fall of 67 the myles davis quintet is booked to do a practically a month-long european tour that The dates of this tour Is basically the end of october through you know sort of like Second half of october into the beginning of of november Are the confirmed dates that we have um this european tour and It's a multi band tour and they actually there was something like 10 or 12 different acts that were all traveling europe And they would sort of double up And sometimes they'd all be you know different bands would be on the same bill together so sometimes myles would be booked with um Apparently they were often on a double bill with archie shep's Group, which was a very avant-garde group um, but they also were apparently well, they were on the bill with all kinds of different people and tony It's basically confirmed that tony Was forced to use backline drums and symbols on this tour. He for whatever reason Um, he was required to not bring his own stuff Now there's a box set that I have here In my cd collection um the myles davis um Quintet my live in europe 1967 so a great thing about europe is that um a lot of jazz gigs in europe were recorded by radio stations and broadcast and because of that we have a lot of A lot of this music is You know now available to hear that's amazing And there was a lot of great research done for these liner notes that were written by um ashley con Who is a great jazz writer and he interviewed some people that were that are still with us who were on that tour And I need to take a second to find the quote Here we go Memories of the touring menagerie covered the delights and complaints of life on the road gary burton Who was a great vibraphonist? Um very very great vibraphonist gary burton crossed paths with myles's group in an airport and remembers tony williams saying that Quote due to the schedule They were using borrowed bases and drum sets and he wished they had their own equipment and quote So this is confirmation from gary burton who was on that tour that um tony specifically said that they were not able to use their own drum gear and their own Ron carter had to use Rented bases now An interesting thing about this tour is that don lemond apparently was also on this tour And don lemond was part of a group called the newport all stars Which was kind of a trad jazz slash swing um Group he's not actually listed For whatever reason He was he was part of this all-star group that was this sort of you know traditional Somewhat more traditional jazz group and for whatever reason don did bring his drums on this tour Because there are multiple photos And video of tony playing don lemond's drum set now I showed you the photo before from 67 from the newport festival in in america where you can actually see that It says don lemond on the bass drum now There's another photo that I found of sarah vaughn's trio sarah vaughn was on this tour And I don't even know who her drummer was But um, there's a photo of her it's actually a screenshot from a video of them in stockholm And you can see that her drummer is also playing the same kit don lemond's kit with the same don lemond stencil on the bass drum head Um, and you can see, uh, the it's an 8 by 12 rack tom in White satin flame it looks to be a 22 inch bass drum and then a 16 inch floor tom It's a little hard to tell from this photo But the floor tom for whatever reason was actually white marine pearl Which looks close enough to white satin flame that I guess no one was really bug But when you see it close up you realize that it's actually a different color Now I bring this up because you see this drummer playing these drums in this in this photo with sarah vaughn And that same concert in stockholm Was a concert that myles played and there are a lot there. There's a there's a video This is one of the shows that was actually videotaped Um and shown on tv in sweden apparently and the videotape still survived and you can see this on youtube And it's been part of sort of it's actually part of this Box set back before youtube. They actually put a dvd in here Nice, yeah, and you can see tony playing this exact same kit throughout this concert Um, if we look at 1967 stockholm 7 This is tony now There's never any shots where you can see the front bass drum head that blatantly says don lemond But you can see this is clearly the same kit sure sure 8 by 12 16 by 16 22 inch bass drum White satin flame bass drum and rack tom with it with a white marine pearl uh floor tom You can kind of see it in 67 stockholm 6 and kind of see the floor tom there So there's a there's a photo of don lemond in this um In in in this folder where you can see actually see don lemond playing his own kit for once And it looks if you look closely at the backdrop it actually looks like that same newport Backdrop of that folding white thing, you know, you know, you know It's like it's like don lemond's people Like tipped the sky cap and they brought his drums and every time Is playing I also have a good photo here of roi hain's playing that same drum kit here You can really see very clearly actually that it's what a white marine pearl floor tom. Yeah And look that's the same symbol I I mean you look at that that symbol and you look at the picture of don lemond playing Looks to be the same symbol and then that photo of tony at newport 66 Uh, sorry 67. I'm pretty sure that's pretty sure that's don lemond stuff again that symbol I'll I'll just this is a little reveal. We're gonna do a whole symbol episode But let's just do this right now. Take a look at 1967 stockholm 5 You see a nice close-up of that symbol for this is a screenshot from that video Um of the miles quintet in stockholm 1967 tony playing don lemond's drums and that I mean, I'm I'm not gonna say I'm a vintage symbol expert There are people that know a lot more about this stuff than me, but I'm pretty good at identifying symbols I have vintage a's. I have vintage k's. I would put my life on that being an a zildjian It's not a k that the lazing the bell shape especially that just screams a zildjian to me the flatness of the top of the bell It's just it's very distinctive. So you will get to that properly in the symbol episode But um, there's some other backline kits. I want to show you that he played on this European tour When they were in Italy, he played a hollywood kit, which is a an italian brand um, and I believe in malon He is playing this kit. Let's look at 1967 hollywood 2 He's playing this kit with sort of an oyster finish I believe this they played I know they played in malon and they played in a place in italy called leco Or lecho. I don't know. I've never heard of that town Um, you see again some different symbols. I don't know what these symbols are But this is a hollywood kit. It says clearly on it hollywood And then another night now look at um 1967 hollywood leco 2 We have actually a hollywood ad. This is a screenshot. I took from instagram somebody runs a a miyazi hollywood hip drums Instagram feed which is a cool feed that everybody should follow and totally here is a great photo of Of not only tony playing this kit, but they're actually kind of claiming that he's an Well, they're not kind of there. It says anthony williams exclusive miyazi artist, which he was not at all at the time He was a great player once you're exclusive. He was a gretch artist. He was still a gretch endorser at this time He's still appearing in gretch ads in downbeat magazine. Wow, you know, he he was consistently a gretch endorser But yeah, here we have him in idli playing a this is a different hollywood kit than the the dark oyster kit We just saw um, but what's really kind of amazing is Oh, and here is we answered my question of who sarah von strummer was omar clay if we look below tony Yeah, we see Omar clay exclusive exclusive miyazi artist trio sarah von leco, which of course he probably wasn't Probably wasn't don lemond festival newport festival all-stars For whatever reason don didn't have his own kit on this gig. He played the the miyazi uh, the the um The hollywood drums. Yeah. Well, and I have posted a video on instagram and facebook before of I believe copenhagen 1968 Max roach. Yes famous school video of him playing the same oyster black pearl or Black oyster pearl whatever you want to call it, right? Right. Uh, it's probably the same kit. Well, it could be but Max actually was A hollywood artist that max did he actually did leave gretch and wasn't a hollywood artist for a while into the 70s before he joined luddwick Um, and there's cool promo pictures. Yes console with the wheels and the bright pink colors and stuff And he had the tunable the pedal tunable floor tom. Yes and the electronics. It's a cool company It's very very very very cool company very very innovative and and ahead of their time and Came out with all kinds of cool things that that some of them, you know Were were influential and some of them just didn't really go anywhere But they they just tried a lot of stuff and you know, I guess Yeah, I mean tony played those drums in italy and we have at least two kits this one here in the ad That's kind of a white finish Um, so let's see. What else do we have? Um, there's Another photo. I just have it is 1967 maybe luddwick back line now This is not from the same tour and the reason I know is because every other photo of them on this 67 europe tour The whole band is wearing tuxedos except for miles and in this photo. Tony's wearing what looks like maybe a tan suit Um, but he's playing a luddwick kit. He's got a luddwick. Um, you can see a luddwick snare Um, and you can see a luddwick floor tom as well. Now. I don't think this is the same Kit as we see, you know that burgundy kit burgundy. Yeah, because he's not well, you know what? Geez, maybe it is maybe it is because I mean, he's wearing a different suit. He's you know in the the earlier photo where he's playing the burgundy kit in 66 at newport. He's wearing a dark colored suit in this photo He's wearing a light colored suit, but you know, maybe maybe they played a couple shows and maybe change suits Maybe they were there two nights. I don't know. It's possible. It looks actually like a similar Mike boom stand above the drums But tony is definitely in a different outfit. So I don't know There's some other back line from this period. Um, oh, there's a good one from london Um 1967 october london. So they the myles davis quintet played in london on october 29th 1967 and The photos there are a couple of photos from that concert and tony is playing a very cool looking luddwick What looks to me to be blue oyster pearl? It's definitely an oyster pearl kit It looks like blue because it's a little lighter than what you typically see, you know Like ringo's kits black and white photos of ringo's kit the black oyster looks darker than this so I guess it's possible. It's a pink oyster, but so this kit is a larger luddwick kit It's a 13 inch rack tom and a 16 inch floor tom and I can't actually tell if that's a 20 or a 22 So there's a second photo from london Where do you see myles and ron carter and because of the lug spacing on the bass drum? I'm pretty sure that this is a 22 Because we see three lugs on one side and we're not halfway We're we're about halfway down If it was a 20 with eight lugs, you would see a greater space between the sort of second and third lugs So I'm pretty sure this is a 22 and and 13 16 22 kits were much more common for luddwick than 13 16 20s were we also see there's a an unused Symbol holder on the bass drum That's sort of at a weird angle there that he's not using he's using a regular symbol stand You see that in both of these photos Pretty good backline kits though. I mean they're they're there's we've all played much much worse back It's funny you say that because I don't have any photos of it But there's a video the other the other film of this band from this tour is from Um, let me see it's from Germany. It's from uh, Carl Schruhe So my my wife who speaks fluent German informs me that it is a Carl Schruhe Or something like that. Um, but it's it's so november 7th. They played in Germany somewhere And um, there's video of it. I don't have photos, but there's there's video you'll see on youtube and he is playing a uh a premiere kit And and it's it's a pretty gnarly kit. I have to say it doesn't sound as good It sounds kind of thin It's got those premiere ever play heads that might be sort of like not even coated heads and It's just not the best and you can see that the simple stands and the hi-hat stand are all moving a whole lot Um, it's it's not on a rug or anything So everything's sliding around and and that is actually I think tony sort of struggling to to you know deal with this Um, not so good back line kit Um, one other kit to show you that I don't know Where this is from this is from a cd um, a bootleg cd of the band in belgium, but I don't necessarily think that this photo is from belgium um, but it's on the same tour And uh, this is this is a funny kit. It's another oyster Ludwig kit, but it's a different one than the I originally I thought this was just another photo from london um, but the photos from london you can see that the uh, the the rack tom is on rail mount and in this photo um He's the the the rack tom is on a snare stand Same size as 13 16 22 and we also have basically a piccolo snare drum Another odd thing about this kit is that I don't see a hi-hat And this is one of these things with back lines sometimes you show up and Boy, the guy forgot to bring a hi-hat stand or the hi-hat stand broke and it just he can't be used so It looks that like tony played a gig here Maybe without a hi-hat stand at least for for at the point when this photo was snapped We don't have a hi-hat stand bottom bottom right before the white. Is there a little something of a leg? I think that's the I think that's the throne he's sitting on. Oh, I think you're right I think that's the base of the throne. I thought that too, but but no, I think that's I think that's the throne No, hi-hat So, yeah, that's basically what we have. Oh one other um One other thing to go through with backline kits. There are a couple others that are Worth noting There's a photo shoot. So let's look at the folder called other backline kits There's a photo shoot. He did for an album He he recorded an album with the great tenor sax phone is named charles loyde It's a really great album called of course of course with um, uh gabber Zavo on guitar and ron carter on bass and there are a couple of promo photos that have somewhat recently service nice color in studio photos and he's playing this sort of strange Um gretch kit that I don't think that tony owned because I've never seen Any other pictures of him playing anything like this, but it's a red sparkle kit No rack tom just a 20 inch bass drum and a 16 inch floor tom There's the uh, 41 60 snare. It's possible. This was tony's own snare, but it could have also just been with the kit We have a ride symbol and hi-hats the hi-hats look like they're on a premier hi-hat stand Oddly and the snare stand is some sort of very large bass snare stand um And I think this is just some oddball kit that was kind of thrown together for this photo shoot um But it is still pretty cool always cool to see tony on gretch um another interesting one that recently surfaced on um, facebook if we look at 1963 monoray um tony sat in with a group um that was sort of a trajazz group a dixieland type group with pops foster on bass um, and he sat in He didn't play the gig, but I don't know who the drummer was but we see it very very young tony williams sitting in on somebody's camco drum kit Which is pretty cool looking another really interesting photo that that popped up on I believe on facebook Not too long ago Is um, I had mentioned before in the previous episode about how tony did this um Tour of japan with elvin jones and art blakey this sort of drum extravaganza tour in 1966 Well, apparently when he was in japan He got some sort of hookup with yamaha drums when yamaha were just sort of starting out making drums um He appeared in a yamaha ad very similar to The uh, the hollywood ad that we see now. He was still a gretchen dorser Um, but you know, I think maybe endorsements were in some ways a little looser or maybe people figured Oh, well, nobody's gonna ever find out that I you know agreed to You know appear in an ad in italy or in japan, you know, like gretchen isn't gonna find out You know, so he's apparently in some sort of yamaha ad that we see here if him playing these early I don't know that much about these this era of yamaha. There's some guys that are experts in this This yamaha era, but it's a pretty cool photo of of tony playing of yamaha bopkit in the late 60s Awesome finish. Yeah, great finish now. I assume this photo was taken in 1966 when he was there for this drum battle um Now a couple other funny backline photos. There's there's um this one um He played at the newport jazz festival in 1972. There was a newport held in new york This is a photo of him playing a yellow kit But this i'm almost a hundred percent certain is him actually sitting in on elvin's drum set now he's playing double drums with art blakie and um This kit I as I said, there are a lot of photos of elvin playing a kit identical to this It's it's a gretch yellow kit 12 13 Probably 16 and 18 floor toms an 18 inch bass drum It's uniquely elvin because it has you can see curved spurs on the bass drum elvin's kit this era kit had camco spurs added to it There's something very unique about the placement of the badge on the second rack tom that again matches with a million photos of elvin Also, you see um three 20 inch symbols Two of which have rivets which is a elvin signature and not a tony thing at all So, you know elvin was on this festival. I'm pretty sure that that's tony sitting in on elvin's kit and not actually tony's kit um There's another little backline photo from 1977 the trio of doom, which was an all-star group of john mcgloughlin On guitar jacob estorius on bass and tony Apparently there's this photo of them rehearsing and tony is playing Probably the drums that were in the rehearsal studio, which looks like a uh a Ludwig kit in silver sparkle With the front head off and a big towel shoved in the bass drum See this is exactly why those later gretch bass drums had those internal supports So that you wouldn't have a drum you can almost I don't think it is but you could almost Sort of see how a drum would start to sag if you didn't have that support Happening on the shell the weight of it. Yeah. Yeah. Now. There's a very funny backline photo from it's from the 80s apparently He's got his red jumpsuit, but he's playing this really sad looking rogers kit from the 60s And I don't know what happened here with that second tom, but it's just it just looks like a backline nightmare to me Maybe it's falling off, but this is what you see in like a catalog where they're like drum set and they're completely Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it could be or I mean, who knows. Yeah, and and the mic is like touching the front That's just there's so many You know just and what a good sport tony is to just go ahead and just play this kit, you know But but man, what what a what a nightmare backline kit Another interesting one from the 80s is a photo of him playing a nice yamaha recording custom kit Um, again, maybe he was just sitting in on someone else's gig The angles don't quite look right for tony, but you know, whatever. I mean, he's It's yeah, but it's a unique another a second photo of him playing yamaha. I guess which is he looks He looks blissful playing that one. His face is very uh, he looks happy. He does look happy. You're right Yeah, well, he's he I'm sure he was swinging And he was probably playing with some other bad dudes. So Um, now there are a couple of interesting photos of him in the 80s Or 90s playing playing backline kits. So let's look at um, not the studio session But these other two photos the first one 80s 90s backline Where he's playing a gretch kit that looks to be his size is 1314 rack toms But these are power toms and it looks like a dark, you know, either walnut finish or a rosewood finish One of those great dark gretch lacquer finishes, but this is obviously not his kit. It's a you know Power tom backline kit. He's also got a boom stand on his left hand symbol Which he normally wouldn't have had, you know, he normally always use straight stands except for the The the symbol holder um for the middle symbol Now there's another photo which I initially thought this is also a power tom kit in a dark lacquer finish And I kind of thought originally it was the same Kit or at least from the same gig, but we see a straight symbol stand on his left We don't see a boom stand We see um, he does actually have his um Middle symbol mounted on the little boom stand off of the uh off the tom mount So I don't think this is the it it's possible. It's the same kit Maybe, you know, but it's a different date. It's a different, you know It's a different hardware anyway And it looks to me like he's got his own yellow snare drum there because that snare drum looks lighter In that photo. This is the black and white photo. We're looking at And then one last backline photo I found that's pretty interesting is is um, tony in a recording session um I don't know who that is standing behind him though It may have been his tech at the time or it may have been a recording engineer And again, it looks like they sourced the right sizes for tony. It looks like some big rack toms, but It's not yellow. It's definitely not his kit, but it also appears that everything is mounted possibly on one of those pearl Drum racks that like jeff porcaro used Yeah coming from the front exactly. Yeah, and the toms are on pearl Tom arms and they're also on rims mounts. Um, he's got pearl Boom stands that the symbols are coming off of so that's kind of a unique setup something I don't know what record this could have been but some recording date where he wasn't able to bring his own drums But yeah, that just about does it for backline and we covered a lot there I like to point all of that out because I don't I don't like the idea of somebody seeing because I've made this mistake before myself I see a photo of somebody playing What I don't realize is a backline kit and think like oh, well, tony williams used the Ludwig burgundy sparkle drums You know and and he didn't that's a that's it's a it's a common or twice just once right exactly Yeah, or or tony played this um white satin flame kit or you know the I don't you know those I mean I that kit the white satin flame kit is clearly don laman's kit We have photos of that photo of that kit with don laman's You know the name on the front bass drum heads. So, you know, I just he's he's endorsed by hollywood drums exactly Yeah, yeah, right exactly Yeah, so it's I think it's important to just kind of point some of these things out and Clarify where something seems to be you know a backline kit versus something that he owned so Absolutely, and I mean so that basically wraps up part two. Yeah, so Uh Paul is going to come back on and we're going to do one more recording for this round and it's going to be part three Which will be symbol sticks Hardware, I mean we talked about we talked about the hardware. I think it's going to be simple sticks and heads heads Yeah, I mean there's not much to talk about with the heads, but we will talk about it And um, I have one photo that shows tony's drum cases so we can talk about his cases as well I think I might have seen that where yeah, yeah, yeah Anthony on the front or something like oh, I don't know. Well, let's we'll I don't know. We'll see maybe there's there's more to the mystery Yeah, yeah, but but the big story of course is going to be symbols. That's that's you know, tony symbols are literally the stuff of legends so um, there's a lot to cover there and a lot to talk about and um A lot of influence to be had. I mean it's just this this guy is He's just such an It's it's really hard to overstate. It's impossible to overstate how incredibly important tony was and is and how influential um, he continues to be and you know I I have students that were not born when tony was alive that are massively influenced by him and I think it'll continue to be like that and and I just think that's a wonderful thing and he's just such a such a wonderful Amazing drummer and musician and I I'm really happy to be able to to pay this little tribute to him and Super just geek out on his gear and You know just try to try to get people You know, I mean, it's fun to talk about his gear but you know, everybody really should be going out and and listening to tony williams as much as possible listen to The records with miles listen to his solo records listen to believe it and emergency and Native heart and all of these I mean, it's just so much great music. So Yeah, that's that's absolutely. That's what it's about first off paul. Thank you very much for doing this again And we're very welcome. We'll we'll do it for part three and then we'll get Garrison on as we get that scheduled and everything and and as a reminder to people if you're listening to this like in real time As they're coming out and you just want more paul in your life Go back and check out the neil pierce series That's a three parter that did very well and people love that and uh, and it was it was amazing So there's that's other stuff with paul There are some other tony williams episodes that I did about a biography With uh, dave goodman, which is awesome. There's um a clinic breakdown with rob hart Check the description. Um, but I appreciate everyone watching and stay tuned for part three We'll be back for the symbols and the heads and the sticks and then after that we'll get we'll get garrison on for part four, but Before we end real quick right now paul. Is there anything you want to you want to plug in case someone is just watching this one for the first time um, well, actually, yeah, I uh, one of the bands that I play in is um, vince giardano's night hawks, which is a um band that specializes in early jazz music 19 teens 1920s 1930s um, and we were um, absolutely, uh, just very very Lucky and blessed to appear in the latest martin scorsese movie Uh, which just came out killers the flower moon Um, it's I have not seen it yet, but by all accounts it is an absolute masterpiece. Um, it Seems like it's gonna yeah. Yeah, we're in it So we did some music for it and then we're actually invited to participate on screen performing some of the music that we recorded We do a lot of soundtrack work, but um, this is an opportunity to actually appear on screen and we appear now It's a very long movie. It's over three hours long and if you make it all the way through We actually appear in the very very last scene There's a there's a sort of an epilogue to the to the story that happens at the very end And we are apparently prominently on screen throughout this this end scene. So, um, you will see me I actually um, because men didn't shave their heads in those days the movie mostly takes place in the 20s This epilogue I think takes place in the 40s Men didn't shave their heads. So I actually had to grow my hair out Um for this shot and I had to shave my beard because beards weren't really in in those days So you might not recognize me, but I it is me there. Um, I'm playing some um 1930s era gretch drums and some timpani and some other crazy things We're playing this sort of quasi orchestral piece. So If you see killers of the flower moon, which you should because it's apparently an amazing movie and a really Powerful story at the very end. You will see me playing some drums And hear me because that is that is that is us that is us playing On the soundtrack as well. We weren't just miming. So Yeah, that's uh, yeah the payoff of the movie. I'm sure that when it wins lots of Oscars, it's going to be because of our Yes Man, I didn't I had no idea that is incredible. Well, congratulations, man. That is uh, That is very cool. That's awesome. So I want to see it. I'm a big Scorsese fan and it's absolutely I mean, it's an unbelievable honor to be in any way involved with something that he did So it's it's I'm really uh, I did also play I mean not to plug my stuff But but his previous film um the the Irishman Um, I I did a lot of soundtrack work on that. Oh cool. I like that movie. You can hear me. Yeah, it's a good movie You can hear me on that. Uh, and I mean I am in the credits at the end Um, but but this is one where I'm actually on screen with the band. So Um, super cool. Yeah, so check that out And if you're in New York speaking of Vince Giordano's night hawks, we play We have a residency at birdland. Um the fantastic jazz club in midtown Manhattan. We play every monday at birdland It shows at 5 30 and 8 30. Um, so if anybody is in New York City, um come out to see us. It's a really fun Uh gig when I'm in town, I I do miss it sometimes when I'm out on the road with Curtis digers But when I'm in town, I'm always there on mondays. So check that out Very nice and be sure to tell paul. Hey, I saw you on drum history podcast or that other martin scorsese guys movie You can mention that too, but uh, yeah, yeah marty something. I don't know. I forget marty. Whatever. Yeah, it's the real story Yeah, I love that neil pierce series man screw the movie a lot of people have been um, actually writing to me and and I've had people come up and say that they watch the neil stuff and and um, That's been extremely rewarding and and and really nice that people have seemed to to really enjoy that series. So Thanks to bark for making it happen. Absolutely Oh man, you're you're you're the star of star of the show. So Neal's the star of the show neil and tony are the stars of these shows. Yeah, that's true. We're just the You know the carriers of the information and uh, we're just the narrators the just a narrator. Yes. Yes All right, paul. Well, uh, this is awesome, man. I appreciate your time on this one and I will see you on part three And yeah, thanks to everyone for listening to be sure to subscribe And like this and it'll pop up on your feed and you'll stay in the loop and uh, all that good stuff So paul, thank you for being here. All right. Thank you part. Take care