 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today we have our old friend Mr. Anthony Amadeo back on the podcast Anthony welcome back brother. Thank you for having me Bart. Nice to see you again Yes. Yes, this is really cool because you you do some extremely really important research for drum history in general, but particularly your You're a Roger's guy. I think that's that's very very Clear when when I talk to you and even your background now in the video You've got Roger's everywhere and I love it because Roger's the history needs to be kept alive So but today we're talking about Ellis Tolan truly a prolific guy. We're gonna hear all about him today I mean, he's the definition of an unsung hero and someone who deserves a lot of credit So we're gonna learn all about this. He's really a drummer that everyone should know about so this is gonna Be a great episode, but before we do that. Let me do a quick patreon shout out I want to give a mention to Matthew Brown who joined at the upper tier $15 a month And he gets a shout out on an episode so he wanted me to mention that he just started a New band it's called AOM or elm. I think I'm sorry Matthew. I think it's something like that AOM It says it's a brand new band just starting out band consists of 25 members from all over the world and he says they're getting more So who knows you might be listening to this and soon you'll be a member of AOM because they just keep getting new members So, uh, thank you to Matthew Brown for joining the upper tier if you want to get a shout out You can go to patreon.com slash drum history podcast join there. You also get your name at the end of the episode So All that being said Anthony, I am very excited for this because you always do such Incredible research and have such great topics. So let's jump in and tell us all about who Ellis Tolan is Absolutely. Well, first I want to say as you mentioned before and as you know, I'm a Rogers fanatic And um, I guess you could say a bit of a historian of all things Ohio era Rogers And over the years of doing my research on Rogers drums This name kept coming up Ellis Tolan, but it was always sort of like a footnote or an afterthought You know, you'd be reading things and it would say the dynasonic snare drum Joe Thompson and then somewhere at the bottom, you know Ellis Tolan So I'm thinking who is this guy and I would ask people who I would figure would be in the know And the answer I always got was oh, he was involved with the development of the dynasonic snare drum So I'm wondering who he is. So I do what all of us would do is I go to the internet and Surprisingly, there's virtually no information on Ellis Tolan on the internet. Like if you googled Ellis Tolan right now what comes up is videos from my youtube channel and Virtually nothing else. I mean there might be like an old Philadelphia article that he was mentioned in and whatnot, but I quickly realized that I'm gonna have to dig deeper So I started to join Philadelphia like vintage Philadelphia facebook groups and things like that and would reach out and See if anybody knew Ellis and I got a couple people that would jump in and say Oh, I I bought my first drum set from Ellis and this and that but There was one person who contacted me and I can't remember who it was at the moment But they said, you know Ellis's son is on facebook So I find him donnell tolan And I reach out and he gets back to me wonderful guy and you know, he says He tells me like these really great stories about his dad and gives me a lot of information and Sends me some photos and he says, you know, you should really Contact my older brother bobby who worked at the stores and stuff like that So I get in touch with bobby tolan and over the past year or so I've developed a great phone relationship with bobby tolan He's he's a great guy and he's told me a lot of hilarious things about his dad and working at the store with him and all that And he gave me a lot of really great pictures most of which we're gonna look at today But he suggested, you know that I should talk to some of his dad's friends So I reach out to a man named alan fogle who knew Ellis really well and alan was sort of a legend in the vintage drum world and He had some really great stories about Ellis that I hadn't heard before and now also gave me some pictures And bobby also led me in the direction of a man named dick cully Who was a friend of Ellis if anybody doesn't know who dick cully is I definitely recommend Looking him up. He's an incredible drummer and was a friend of Ellis and actually he Sent me this photo right here Yeah, that's dick cully with max roach. He was like Protégé of like buddy rich or something as well wasn't here. There's some connection there there's definitely a buddy rich connection he kind of like plays very much in the style of buddy rich and Kind of built his career on that I guess you could say Yeah, sure But I think this is a photo is from probably the mid 90s Dick cully max roach and Ellis tolin and max and Ellis as we're going to talk about just go back decades So that that's a pretty cool photo there Yeah, so when when was Ellis you might have said this already, but when was he born like what was his he was born in 1923 Okay, okay Bobby also led me in the direction of a man named jack mccarthy who is a brilliant philadelphia jazz historian And he filled in some of the gaps and all of this kind of started to come together But the most valuable piece that I uncovered was this phone interview with Ellis done by a woman named susanne cloud and susanne cloud is a philadelphia jazz musician and philadelphia jazz historian and actually her and jack mccarthy They both run the philadelphia jazz legacy project Which everyone should check out which is awesome And she granted me access to this two-hour phone conversation that she had with Ellis in One phone call was from december of 2000 and the other one was from january of 2001 And when I heard this the floodgates just kind of opened hearing him tell all these stories And with her permission i'm actually going to publish those interviews in entirety on my youtube channel For everyone to access easily and and to hear Ellis tell a lot of the stories. We're going to talk about today Um, and and believe it or not. It's the only known recorded interview with Ellis tolin But there was another one done with uh a previously mentioned alan fogle But those tapes have mysteriously disappeared alan said he about 20 years ago He lent the tapes to someone to transcribe, but they never gave it back to him And he doesn't remember who it was that he lent it to so if anybody knows where the alan fogle Ellis tolin tapes are Please contact me But what i'm getting at here is I went into this Just simply looking for more of the Ellis tolin rogers connection And what I came away with was this guy has lived an incredible life I mean he was an outstanding jazz musician He knew all the great players of the day and was dear friends with them. He basically invented the drum clinic He had a swing club above his music store That was incredibly important within the jazz scene in general He played an enormous role in rogers rogers drums elevating to the greatness that they did in the 1960s He owned one of the most successful music stores in the country played on hit records I mean this guy is like unsung unsung legend of drumming. Yeah and jazz in general So I figured what a better platform to shine some light on the name Ellis tolin then the drum history podcast, right? so well, I agree and you know to be to go back so I recently did something about the The drummer who was with playing with hitchcock on the film. It's like and I mentioned in that that like I just love that like information I feel like it has to be out there somewhere and you are proving that of like, you know, it's like You just go digging and then you find this interview and you talk to someone where it's it's not easy to find but if you dig and you find it then it's out there and there's Like imagine in 50 years if you didn't do this this interview and get this stuff up on youtube And already do the work and do the presentations It would truly I mean it very well could be just completely lost to time Totally which is such a shame. So it needs to be documented. But I mean before we move on Why do you think because he's so prolific? Why do you think drummers like Ellis which there are others as well who? They sort of are unsung heroes like why does it sort of get lost to time? Do you think I don't I don't know I think maybe just because they weren't the big names that are sort of in the way And even though he did play on some hit records. I don't think people got the credit Yeah, like physically on the record and even just the credit for being there back then because it was more about the artist I mean you hear about it all the time with Hal Blaine and Carol K and all those guys They don't know who's on what record because they played on so many and the credits weren't there So I mean things just get lost to history and like you said when you go digging It's just everybody kind of tells the same broad story But there's little pieces here and there that you pick out. Oh, I haven't had to heard that before All right, nobody said this before and you kind of just put together this little this little puzzle That is slowly just deteriorating to history with people passing away and people's memories fading You know, so it needs to be documented and that's why you know I want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to celebrate Ellis Toland's life and Put something down that will stay, you know for history Absolutely. It's the perfect kind of Non, you know, I love the ones that are just kind of your more I don't want to say basic but obvious choices of episodes But this is a very cool one that you you've come up with so where do we go? Let's go deeper into all those. I mean you mentioned so many things there. Where do you want to kind of Dig in first. Well, I guess we could start from there right from the beginning Ellis Toland was was born in 1923 As I mentioned in Philadelphia and grew up in the Philadelphia area his dad was in insurance and Had to open up a gas station to kind of make ends meet through the depression and Ellis knew early on that He wanted no part of that and he claims that he was obsessed with drums by the age of two And at the age of five on a trip to Atlantic City His grandmother buys him this little toy drum set that he destroyed the same day Which isn't hard to believe having kids Oh And a nice little nugget of information that his son Bobby gave me he said in the 1930s Uh as a kid Ellis was a Duncan yoyo champion I guess Duncan the toy company had these yoyo competitions and Ellis became like the national yoyo champion And even into his old age he would rip out the yoyo and make it walk the dog and whatnot I just I just thought that was kind of funny. That's so talent. I mean honestly, that's not that's not really drum related But I feel like there's like a hand-eye coordination talent sure dexterity Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, well being a music and drum instructor You could kind of see certain kids have a thing and then certain kids don't so Yoyo thing certainly plays into that sort of thing But at a young age he claims that he decided he was going to dedicate his life to drumming He didn't know he could make a living or not. He just said that I'm not doing this I'm doing I'm doing this So at 13 they finally get them drum lessons and his first teacher was a guy named Jesse alt miller Who was the show drummer for the fox theater in philly? And then later on another guy named joe hutland Who was the pit drummer at karman theater in philly? But these were all orchestral players and Ellis was really into chick web and gene krupa and he wanted to play jazz He wanted to swing, you know, so um, yeah Finally at 15 he gets his first real drum set and he describes it as a slingerland with a big bass drum Chinese tom tom and temple blocks trap tray, you know, the whole thing And apparently excelled really quickly and started Just right out of the gate working and playing paying gigs And then at at 16 years old His life pretty much changes when his dad takes him to the broadwood hotel to see the tommy dorsy band This is I guess 1939 And in 1939 the drummer of the tommy dorsy band was a young buddy rich And Ellis tells the story that there was on the corner near the broadwood hotel. There was this little luncheonette And before the performance Ellis's father takes him to get something to eat He said he even remembers getting a grilled cheese and a coke Sounds good it does And so they're in there who walks in but buddy rich and his father So a young Ellis. Oh wow, you know gathers up the courage to go over to buddy and he says, hey buddy I love the way you play. I'd love to be your friend. He said buddy said to him. Who needs friends He's tough even man I guess the typical buddy responds when Ellis took it in stride and they went and they saw the first set of the performance And during the intermission Ellis's dad took him back to the luncheonette to get a milkshake or whatever and who walks in again But buddy and his father So Ellis walks over to him again and he says buddy I'm really enjoying the performance and I could tell that you like chick web And this time buddy looks at him puts out his hand and says friends And they were literally friends ever since I mean like like Family friends like anytime buddy was in town in Philadelphia. He would stay over at Ellis's place instead of staying at a hotel and Ellis would visit him on the road and they knew each other's children and they were literally like family I have a couple photos right here This is the one of uh, that's buddy Out in front of the tolin residence in philadelphia And oh wow under his right arm is donald tolin and under his left arm is bobby tolin I mean this this Buddy was basically uncle buddy to them. I mean he would stay over the house Bobby tells me stories of how they would wake up in the morning on a saturday morning or whatever And Ellis would have to go open the store and their mom would have to would be somewhere else And and they would leave the kids with buddy And and buddy would take them down in the basement where the drums were And and and play drums and kind of like show them things bobby said he remembers sitting right by the high hat and buddy's playing and showing him things So he was over the house all the time. Here's one of uh, Buddy and his wife marie at the tolin residence just for a visit Kind of cool to see these candid shots, you know, you see the old phone in the background there Yeah, I feel like buddy kind of famously was very like Like there was a wall that like It was hard to get through but once you did He recognized very real genuine people who weren't kind of just after autographs and stuff And if my math is correct, you said 1935, but 39 is where they met. I think buddy was 20 and Ellis was probably 16 Yeah, I think buddy gets that reputation because of the bus tapes and all that but I mean I know I know from people who know him. He was obviously a really warm guy Here's a cool picture of that's that's buddy with Ellis's wife and donald Oh, that's cool. Bobby's mom He apparently called her monkey and you could see on the kind of on the top it says monkey love To monkey love buddy. They were really like family. It was like that's awesome And um, it's a cool picture of of buddy kind of hanging out at music city You know looking real relaxed in his hat there Wow, and did you get these like family photos? I got these straight from bobby tolin. Yeah, this is these are like family photos Yeah, these aren't these aren't things you're you're gonna find out out on the internet or anything like that So, yeah, I mean that that that was a life-changing thing for him to meet buddy that day And it really stuck, you know when he said friends he meant it and they became lifelong friends um, but you know, okay through that Ellis continues to play gigs around the philadelphia area and um And he's he's using some some really unique drum sets that I want to kind of show pictures of I think you'd be interested to see this if you look at this picture right here And if I could kind of describe it to to people who are watching yes, this is unique I guess I mean the first thing I noticed is there's no bass drum And he has a snare drum, I guess in the traditional position a hi-hat in the traditional position And where commonly you would see a rack tom is a set of bongos And to his left sort of above the hi-hat is another floor tom To his right, I guess in the traditional floor tom position is another floor tom But then one in front of it, which looks like a 20 and then above those is another rack tom So it's this really odd setup. I mean would would you say that's a good way to describe it This is one of the weirdest looking drum sets. I've ever seen but it's really really cool, but it's almost just like What it had to maybe have a really specific kind of like Use like like a song that was like or almost like it was set up for a video Maybe maybe here's another angle of it where you could kind of see it looks like he's using what looks like a 20 inch floor tom As the bass drum with an upbeat pedal And he has the et his initials on the floor toms on the front there Okay, yeah, and I think you could clearly see this is that this is a wfl set Yeah, and then we've got a tom on the far on the outside, but it's got like floor tom Legs on it that are up about as high as you could ever have a floor tom You know what I mean there this is it's cool. I mean, I think it's it's almost like kind of like that daru jones kind of like Bizarre setup today It is bizarre here's another angle of that same set where he's playing the bongos with his hands and that that that symbol it it's almost like a A precursor to the boom stand. It's really just like a bent straight rod. That's kind of a Yeah, unique thing and then you could really see how that rack tom As you said has sort of a floor tom leg attached to it with a bracket there At a cockeyed angle to make it level out like it's like almost like they planned like where it would need to be Yeah, where things would need to be bent, you know in his mustache. I honestly if I looked at that I would say that looks like Walfredo reyes jr. His dad walfredo reyes senior because of the little mustache in the glasses The pencil line mustache that looks like wall walley's dad interesting interesting and here's a cool ad. It's a ufib ad I would say probably from the 1940s It says a 14 inch ufib symbol carries big as most 18s Says ellis tolin drummer with alvino reyes orchestra. So a cool little endorsement ad by for ellis You know early on as a young man. Yeah, we're translation to like carries big as most 18s 18s were considered big then I guess That's a cool ad well here and here he is on on more of a traditional four-piece drum set with with an actual bass drum And what jumps out at me with this picture is the size of the rack tom. It almost looks like a power tom Kind of bigger than you would see most rack tom's of the era. I think Yeah, beautiful drums and and and such a dapper looking looking guy and but it's so funny because like sometimes with the perspectives He looks like almost like a little boy sitting behind a huge drum set with these because it's like Sometimes these photos and then probably even the photo of the photo is like kind of bending up Yeah, but that's really cool. And again with this with this pencil line mustache. Yeah, very cool But you know, so he he continues to play around and he in um stan levy the great drummer stan levy Who was also from philadelphia and they were friends from from very young He in stan would hang out a play at a place called the downbeat club in philadelphia In the 1940s, which was a place owned by a guy named nat seagull which a pretty popular place to play jazz around in the area and That's where they had met dizzy gillespie for the first time. I guess dizzy was in town Doing a three week residency And ellis says that when they first met dizzy his mouth was all busted up because he had just gotten in a fight with cab calloway So he could some real. Yeah, so he couldn't play because his mouth was all busted up But um, he remembers dizzy saying to him, you know, you guys need to go to new york city and check out what's going on there As at the time, I guess ellis was explaining to him that in philadelphia all he was getting were society gigs Which is I guess what you would call like Dinner parties and weddings and you know playing society music and ellis wanted to play jazz So uh and dizzy said, you know, you got to check out what's going on in new york And so at 18 years old stan levy and ellis tolin moved to new york city and get right in the middle of What was the inception of what would become bebop what was percolating in the underground in new york city And he said they got a penthouse apartment for 11 dollars a week on 45th street And they immediately ran into Guys like charlie parker max roach the loneas monk clifford brown dexter gordon bud powell Myles davis and all these guys were just young guys Running around the city playing gigs and here's a really cool picture Of that stan levy behind ellis tolin's drum set you could see the et on the bass drum And on bass there is lennard gaskin Um, you obviously have charlie parker on saxophone and to charlie parker's left is myles davis And then to the far right you have dexter gordon. This is at the spotlight on 52nd street in 1945 So these are the kind of guys that they were running with when they got to new york city the excellent picture there crazy because now you you think of it as like These just untouchable jazz icons, but I guess then it's really more just like You know, they're still legendary, but this is so early for everyone that it's just guys on the come out to be able to get involved Yeah, exactly. I love his logo too the et and the he's basically got the you know, the the music symbols there You're you're more learned than me. Yeah, it's got the treble cleft and the bass cleft. I forgot my music theory class Yeah, and and it's hand-painted. That would be goes back to that episode right with literally painted. Yep Totally. So these are the guys that they were running with there and he said, you know, they would also Play gigs with ben webster lester young roy eldridge. He said sarah von He even mentioned harry bellafonte at the time was around new york city trying to be a jazz singer and that after the gigs All of 52nd street would go back to ellison stan's apartment because it was this big penthouse and they would all Just listen to jazz records all night. You think about it, you know, like as you said These weren't it wasn't charlie parker yet in max roach. They were just kids in their 20s Doing what they did, you know, just actually creating something artists creating something Must have been a really cool scene there and no and that that went on for for a few years until ellison said that unfortunately everybody started to get hooked on harrowing Well, I was gonna say I get the image of like, yeah, this this awesome apartment, you know penthouse new york city with miles davis and all these guys and i'm like I'm pretty sure they're not all there just like chew and bubble right right. I'm sure some of these guys were up there I mean, that's But that's what was going on, you know, they were all what happened. Yeah And you know, he said that well, he said that, you know stan got hooked at max roach and obviously bird And he said that, you know, everybody thought if they stuck needles in their arm, they were going to be able to play like bird But um, you know, that's he said eventually stan kicked it and max kicked it But you know bird and some other people unfortunately didn't make it but He ended up because of that. He ended up supporting stan levy Financially and and having to pay the rent and everything and he had to go back to philly because he just couldn't be involved with things like that Anymore after some years So he goes back to philadelphia and starts playing gigs back there again. I guess back to the society gigs or whatever um, but I should mention another Life-changing incident when he was about 20 years old. He would be playing and would get these sharp pains in his hands And he remembers mentioning to buddy one time say saying You know buddy, how long do you have to play for before the pain in your hands sets in? And buddy says what the hell are you talking about ellis? So he knew, you know, something's going on here So he goes to see a doctor and the doctor does the x-rays and whatever they have to do And it turns out that he has osteoarthritis Oh at a very young age and that's something that ran in his family So, um, it was obviously devastating to someone who's Wants a life as a drummer and you know, and he's doing it. He's doing successful. He's really doing he's in the midst of it And now he has this this issue that keeps him from playing really long periods of time But he plays through it for a while and ends up on on bands like the henry gerome orchestra but it's having trouble getting through some really long gigs And I guess widely wisely discovers that you know, I'm gonna have to devise another life plan And figures he'll go into teaching So in 1947 he starts teaching And opens a teaching business with a business partner named bill welch And they start what they call The tolin welch drum studio And they open a drum studio in the werlitzer building. This is the werlitzer building here They were on the second floor werlitzer was on the first floor And I guess the tolin welch drum studio had the second and third floor Um, and he said within about a month. They both had full rosters of students Wow So it it took off pretty quickly and all of these students ended up wanting to buy drum sets. So His plan alters and he says, okay, maybe I'll start also selling drums. So, um, they start to sell drums and they changed the name to music city from tolin welch drum studio and Right off the bat. They get a wfl exclusive, which was a big deal in those days Sure And for anyone who doesn't know what what getting an exclusive means is the manufacturers would give certain retailers exclusive rights to sell their product In a specific region. So in the greater philadelphia area, the only place you could get wfl drums Was at music city Which was a big deal and that's gonna You know play an important part in this story coming up in a little while That minute and obviously there's no internet right, but there's no you can't order them You can't you got to go in and get it And that is huge and honestly too seeing the picture to describe for people world. It's a huge massive sign on the side of it that says world sir is music piano organs radios records According musical instruments. So he's almost like double dipping and getting basically a free Obviously, it doesn't say his name on it, but people are coming to that building for musical equipment I need drums go upstairs. That's right. Kind of thing exactly. Yeah, it's a good way to put it. Sure. I didn't even think of that So, yeah, they're on the second floor of that world that's our building And they eventually turned the third floor into a performance room which would eventually become the swing club and um As I mentioned before ellis ellis would pretty much hold the first drum clinics ever For all of his students. He had access to all these players And would have them come in to talk to his students about playing jazz and playing drums And it was exposure to all these great players Asked them questions and see them up close. He mentions having gene krupa, buddy rich and shaughnessy max roach Papa joe jones louis belson art Blakey and here's a picture of louis belson at one of those clinics A young louis belson probably, you know late 40s, maybe early 50s. They're giving a drum clinic cool And I mentioned that the third floor was a performance room And here's a picture of the the stage there and if you look at the top left of that sign It says exclusive wfl dealer Obviously something they were very cool. They were very proud of and that's you know, like I said It's going to play a role later another picture of that stage there. There's ellis on drums And I think ace ace to sewn on bass and billy root on saxophone, but again, you could see The sign exclusive wfl dealer very proud of that Yeah, there are so many flowers in front of that stage So many flowers one two three four five six seven eight nine. There's like nine huge Overflowing vases of flowers. It almost looks like a funeral. I was just gonna say that unfortunately almost looks like a funeral No, but very very cool. But someone might then maybe they were just like, let's stage it for a picture Probably probably Very cool But those drum clinics that I talked about they would they would carry on in the next music city location Which we'll talk about in a little bit and they started to call it the drum club And here's like a little advertisement drummers drummers drummers across the top It's like come see your favorite artists at the music city drum club and You know, you could you could hear and see and try the best musical equipment available and all that And uh, here's another drum club advertisement saying that, you know, you could come see butch ballard And unfortunately, I can't tell who the guy under him is and the name is sort of folded over but These are just some of the advertisements for the The drum clinics that would happen and those clinics, um At at 1035 chestnut street and the wordlets are building It would eventually become the swing club and at this time ellis got very into educating the youth And bringing jazz to the youth he wanted these kids to be indoctrinated in jazz Um because around this time the earl theater in philadelphia, which was in all ages venue closed and there was nowhere for these kids To see jazz music. So he turned what were the the drum clinics into a swing club And there's a cool newspaper article here Where that says teenagers take their jazz seriously and you see ellis with the band And some teenagers kind of looking on and it's date stamped december 7th 1955 And that's great. I mean because jazz kind of got a with people doing heroin and getting hooked on stuff It got sort of you know, got a bad name connotation. But like to be like no, this is a way to keep people uh, because now I think of it as such a Um, it's like fine art of music. You know what I mean? Yeah in a way and and and it's cool that he You know uses it. He seems like such a nice guy totally very positive cool guy And when you hear him talking those susanne cloud interviews, you know, he's just just got so much charisma And you could tell he was probably an amazing salesman because he's got Just really great people skills and a great communicator and even in his old age in that interview He's just sharp as attack um, so he he starts this swing club and he says that he would stay up all night Making these flyers explaining what's coming this coming week and they had it every tuesday night at seven o'clock And what happened last week here? You could see is advertising max roach is coming And there's a picture of max and under that last week cliford brown was here Really cool to describe for people. It's like a collage. It's like nowadays. There's like zines and stuff Like diy things that's what it looks like exactly and collaging and it's like Really really cool. I I think just You can see how much effort and passion and time he put into all this stuff, which It's awesome. I wish this stuff was still around, you know, absolutely And here's a cool picture Of max roach on drums at the swing club I think that's again ace to sewn on base and you could clearly see on trumpet is dizzy gillespie The unmistakable cheeks. Yep the cheek you can see that him and alfred again alfred hitchcock, but those two and they're cheeks Absolutely famous cheeks Great photo right there of those guys at the swing club and here's another flyer Again, like the zine collage Advertising horus silvers coming and on the bottom you could see it's last week was our blakey and lee morgan And he you know, he put a lot of time into this as you could tell And this is another cool one right here The swing club sessions miles davis and his modern sounds this tuesday december 6th 1955 7 p.m. Bring friends so You know, he was he was having the heavyweights come in and play this club It was it was a major part of jazz history here A woman named ruth price who went on to found the jazz bakery Which was basically an institution in los angeles as far as you know, the jazz community Got her start singing at the music city swing club at 18 years old and she all through her life always credited ellis With you know, given her her start And lee morgan the great trumpet player in his autobiography talks about how important music city was for his development as a musician And how that's where he met art blakey And you can see a picture here. There's art blakey on ellis's drums at the swing club and right in front of him is lee morgan And next to lee morgan is billy root And this is where lee morgan met art blakey and they went on to make all those jazz messenger records together So you can unbelievable clearly see how important this was to you know, the jazz scene then and then unfortunately, there's the story of clifford brown how he Played his last performance at the jazz, uh, the music city swing club And he had left that gig On his way to chicago and unfortunately gotten a tragic car accident on the um, the pennsylvania turnpike and and and lost his life But the last gig he played was at music city And here's a one of another one of those flyers saying that clifford brown will be there And um, if you look at the last week section, how buddy rich is there? There's something kind of funny at it It's just a bunch of pictures of buddy and the bottom picture is sort of a A picture of buddy standing at a microphone talking to the audience full of kids And there's an arrow pointing to it and it says picture of buddy saying nice things I just thought that was pretty funny Many of the the music city swing club sessions were recorded And unfortunately those Tapes have been lost to history. So if anybody knows where they are, you know, maybe they'll surface one day There's actually a clifford brown record That is released that I believe you could find online that was recorded at music city and has ls on drums Um, but a lot of those are are gone to history. There's a there's a great picture from an audience perspective here You can see the kind of audiences that they were drawing at the swing club Wow, I mean, this is like packed. Yeah, and this is the third floor the third floor above the store Wow Unbelievable man, this is so cool and everyone it's not like it's different than now where like if I go I'm like, you know, all right, let me get a beer and stand around and kind of move This is like it's clinics. I mean, but it's not it's bands, but it's it's just different Yeah, totally and I think he was I think he said he was charging 25 cents or 50 cents admission or whatever And he was clearly go losing money on it because he You know would have to print up all the flyers and all that stuff and um, here's a cool music city flyer and sort of advertising the teachers that he had teaching there it's kind of a Small print, but he had mike golberg who was formerly of benny goodman. He had Uh, lennie paton that was with duke ellington and as I mentioned ace to sone All these guys who were who were their teachers there? So when you got when you went there, you know, you were getting some Some musicians who uh, who were out there and really doing it Teaching so he was he had a pretty great roster of of teachers there Yeah, really and uh back to the the wfl thing for a second. I kept showing those pictures of the sign and Yeah, you know mentioning how proud ellis was to have the wfl exclusive What happened was um Bill lennie ended up basically screwing over ellis And I figure um instead of me telling the story I thought maybe we could check out a clip from just a short clip From the susanne cloud interview and here here ellis himself Tell the story of what happened and this directly ties into The rogers connection So I guess but you could check that out Everybody's all slingerland dwells because gene kruble plays slingerland But the kids went for it right and We were selling for uh Ludwig wrong. We had gotten exclusive on it. I don't know whether it was within the first year We used to fix the drums up. They were so bad I used to have to mechanically correct them and do this and one of my students came in and asked me to fix His snare drum and I started to fix it and I look at him. I said He didn't buy this drum for me. Would you get it? He said eight three music Eddie Hirschman and his brother used to run the place Anyhow when I found out that they were buying it from a music and they were very close friends of mine also I called them up and I said, where did you get the lovely? And they said from William F. Ludwig, of course So I called up bill Ludwig and he said the one bill I said I supposed to have an exclusive in philadelphia And you're selling drums six blocks away from that. What are you doing? He says we need more exposure I said, well, I said there's only one thing I can suggest. He says, what's that? I said take a drum company and shove it Later on a guy named Henry Glowsman walked in the store, but that's later on And at that time I was still burning from the Ludwig thing Henry Glowsman says gls. He said we heard all about you. He says I'd like to talk to you. He showed me some holders Swill thematic drum holders and how are they? How we get what what do you think they would do on the market? I said, you did great. They got a sell. He said I also bought a drum company I said, what's the name of the drum company? He said rogers, right? He rogers as Me is a toy drum company I said, uh, I said I can't handle rogers drums He said, well, the reason we came to see you is is we want to know how can we take this drum company and make it the way You would like it, right? And I said to myself here's my chance to fix bill Ludwig That's all I thought of. I didn't think like a business man. I thought like a drummer, right? Right? I said, I'll tell you what I'll do. I said, I'll show you how to build the drums and to make the best drums in the world I'll get your buddy rich to play them. I get your louis belson I'll show you how to do drum clinics because we have been doing drum clinics in the store Not in the store in the studio in 1947 at 1948. We started doing drum clinics I said, I'll even show you how to build the best snare drum in the world So I designed the donna sonic snare drum. Okay, right? I never asked for royalties My head wasn't in that particularly All I wanted was for rogers to now have the best drums on the market and for them to give me an exclusive Right, which they did and henry and henry glosman was a man of his word He stuck by it all his life until he sold the drum company Wow That was a lot of uh, it's so funny how You know, just angry he got over it and his main goal was to be like, I mean, we all get that. Yeah, everyone gets that Explain it. What are your thoughts? Have you heard that? He gets screwed over by bill Ludwig and you know There's a lot of talk about the dinosonic debate in the rogers community who developed what who came up with what idea And that's you know, that that's another story, but ellis was definitely involved I think he saw it as a great business opportunity Not only to get back at bill Ludwig But to have some creative control within a drum company that he could sell exclusively I think that was his motive because he didn't get any royalties um But you know, you saw it as Two things I could get back at the guy who screwed me and then I can have a great product that I have say in How how great it is and sure, you know, there's You know, I talk about who was involved in what but there is You know the the great snowstorm story which is um After that meeting at at music city Joe Thompson engineer at rogers and ben Strauss the marketing man and artist relations man flew to philadelphia To ellis tolin's home and they were going to have a meeting on how to design this new this new drum that they were going to put out and they go down in the basement and they're devising their ideas and I guess it was Ben Strauss who went to leave to go get some cigarettes and realize that there's a blizzard outside and they're not going anywhere so Joe Thompson and Ben Strauss were snowed in at the ellis tolin residence for I think it was a day or two And when they came up from the basement The design for the dynasonic was apparently finished and when talking to bobby tolin Bobby remembers this I guess he was 10 or 11 years old at the time And he said that he was particularly struck by Uh, Joe Thompson He remembers him specifically because he had on a big a big belt buckle and cowboy boots And you didn't see that very much around philadelphia at the time. I guess yeah, no But he also said that he remembers, uh, you know when the men came up to get something to eat He went downstairs and he saw all the sketches and drawings all over the table and ashtrays full of cigarettes and all that um But you know According to his family and friends ellis tolin's family and friends that I spoke to ellis had much more to do with the change in success of rogers than just the dynasonic snare drum and I don't want to ruffle any feathers in the The rogers community, but you know and don't shoot. It's like I don't shoot the messenger kind of thing, but um, You know the years following ellis tolin's involvement A lot of major changes started to take place at rogers and it's kind of no coincidence at Being what they're suggesting to me are the things that changed Post their visit. Um, the first thing was the bearing edges The bearing edges he suggested that they changed from the kind of rounded overbearing edge of the early drums to the sharp 45 degree edge And a lot of interviews ellis talks about how a drum head should Sit on a bearing edge the way the strings of a violin sit on a on the bridge So that was one of the things he brought to rogers and that's what changed actually with the development of the dynasonic the sharp bearing edge came and then also Making the shell size an eighth of an inch smaller than the advertised size based on the ledi floating head principle Where ledi would actually make their heads an eighth of an inch bigger So they would float on the edge He suggested that rogers make theirs an eighth of an inch smaller to get the floating head principle And this and to fit with Traditional heads right because but the plastic heads were now becoming the thing and they were one size fits all You weren't going to be able to get the flexibility you would with a calf head And this final thing, uh, it's not something I've I've mentioned publicly yet Uh, but again, don't shoot the messenger. Don't shoot the messenger um His friends and family are suggesting that it was ellis Who recommended that they change the lug design completely now if I can explain Um Rogers had what was called a bread and butter lug a drawn brass lug that had a flaw under tension It would crack in the corners Rogers knew this everybody knew this and rogers was indeed redesigning the lug But they were redesigning it to look Like the old bread and butter lug just a cast version that wouldn't break I'm not suggesting that ellis designed the lug I'm saying that he went to ben strausson suggested you need to completely change the look of the lug Because people are going to come in they're going to see this lug that looks the same And they're going to think it's the one that breaks and they're not going to buy it makes sense So apparently it was ellis tolin who said you need to change the design completely And rogers went and designed the the beaver tail lug Wow Obviously, there's no hard evidence or no paperwork. He got no royalties But logic says, you know, he had a business investment in this And obviously he's going to want the best product to put out for his exclusive Deal with them. Yeah, yeah, I mean it makes sense that you don't have to be a lot of times with everything There's not one person who does every single thing someone might walking down the hall Suggest something and it goes into the final product Totally, you know, I mean it happens a lot. So so it seems undisputable that he had Large involvement in in some cool things with rogers. Sure. And the timeline meets up exactly You know where where his meeting with them and then all of these changes start to play take place in the coming years And that video he also mentions how he brought buddy to rogers Which I totally believe because he was close with him since he's 16 years old And I I don't know of anybody at rogers having a relationship with buddy. So Um, there's also another story that I want to tell real quick that my friend rick jiles told me That involves a man named henry addler henry addler was a a great educator and um Wrote a lot of drum book and he also had a music store in in new york city. He actually co-wrote Buddy riches modern interpretation of snare drum rudiments with buddy It says he taught buddy in collaboration with henry addler exactly Yep, um, and he said he tells rick jiles the story they met up at a nam show I believe in the mid 90s and they got to talking about rogers and henry henry told Rick that buddy came into the shop one day and he was like, what what does this all this rogers? I'm hearing about probably from ellis or whatever and henry said they're great You got to check out this hardware. It's bulletproof. You know, it shows him the swivemmatic stuff shows him the knobby brackets on the floor tom's and henry told rick that buddy said if I go over there and I jump up and down on that floor tom and it doesn't collapse I'll play rogers drums and henry's like no no buddy. Don't do it Don't do it. So apparently buddy rich went over and he starts jumping up and down on this floor tom and it didn't collapse And now supposedly played a role in him choosing rogers drums, but that's that's fortunately, buddy's pretty small right But I got a kick out of that story Yes, so um actually at the shields classic drum show in covington on april 27th uh Poshai and myself are gonna have a sort of friendly debate about The dynasonic the two sides of the dynasonic, I guess Of the benstrous joe thompson side of the story and the ellis toll inside of the story I'm gonna give a little presentation on ellis And then we're gonna have a little friendly debate and give both sides of this dynasonic story But I think it's indisputable that ellis was absolutely involved with the the design Yeah, totally. It's he it It worked out well that he had that Arthritis in his hands sure not for him. I'm sure that was absolutely terrible, but really I think the whole drum Industry was better to have him on the inside as a You know with the clinics and the drum store and the and the you know just his knowledge sure It worked out great, you know, I'm glad he I'm sorry to cut you off But I I think rogers was lucky to have them because none of those guys Henry Grossman joe thompson benstrous Great businessmen great engineers brilliant guys, but none of them were drummers So to have to have access to a guy like ellis Who's been a drummer his entire life knows the ins and outs of what drummers want what? You know, I think it was to their nose drummers like really he's friends with these absolutely So it benefited everybody involved it benefited the people making the drums And it benefited the drummers who were buying the drums to have ellis involved So absolutely at all So he so no more wfl exclusive exclusivity obviously that he kind of cut that off I'm sure he probably stopped selling wfl at all after that because he was so burned. Yeah And he went all in on rogers. He was just yeah as we're going to see some pictures coming up here In 1957 they moved to 1711 chestnut street ellis said it was more difficult to get business on the second floor of the warlets are building So they moved to a street level storefront and business really started to pick up And this was the store where the rogers deal took place And there's some great pictures that um bobby tolin and also alan fogle gave me access to from 1711 And you could tell right here there's ellis sitting in the store Next to these beautiful rogers drums. I mean this just looks like a candy store to me And he's proudly holding the dynasonic snare drum Which he was very proud of sitting in front of a wall of snare drums And you can see in the background. There's the cool tricks on kit with the odd bass drum And a shelf shelf full of Practice pads and bass drum pedals and just I love this picture. It just looks like everything I want a drum shop to look like to me. Yeah, it's it's really cool and the floor just everything about it is very You know that that period in time Just you just want to walk in I feel like you can almost smell what it looks like you took the words right out of my Mouth I was good to just say I could actually smell this room I love that photo and here's another one kind of of the of the same room And that's ellis and his business partner bill welch kind of admiring the dynasonic snare drum Again flanked by rogers drums everywhere. He was he was you know, as I said all in on rogers Yeah, he's got the symbols there and the racks and Honestly holding the dynasonic this much in the pictures and looking at it and let's get a photo with it Even points further to like the involvement of him. Absolutely. I don't think he doesn't also He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd be like Falsely claiming something and then yeah the picture you have up now where he's pointing at the dynasonic bottom going Basically, I did that check it out. Very proud. I was involved with this Very proud and I've this picture right here that I'm going to pull up now I've always wanted to know the story behind this. It's I was going to say do you know what's happening? There's like I would love to know Two are those dollar bills. Yeah, they look like fives and tens and singles and it looks like there's three rogers drum sets And on every head, there's a a set of bills. I don't know what this represents. Yeah Yeah And Ellis standing there like yeah, look at this. I don't I don't know. I might maybe I'm pulling in money selling rogers I don't know. I don't know what it means and I've asked around but the nobody knows Yeah, the two bill thing maybe he had in his pocket a hundred dollars split up and he Divided it up and each drum could get two bills, but it seems symbolic of like it does But whatever It's great shot. It's just it's probably in reality. It's someone being like put some money on the drums because you're doing so well Yeah, nothing behind it. Right. Yeah, there's that Wallace snare drums again and all the sticks Just really great shots from this store. There's a cool shot of him in the store with arman zilgen Just kind of hanging out a young arman Yeah, and then very very cool there's uh Ellis on the left with ben strouse in the center and I don't know who that man is on the right. I've asked around nobody Nobody recognizes him But I like this like and it's it's happened up It's happened before with like the rob cook episode about like frank's drum shop that like these drum shops And then there's these kind of like middle-aged men in business suits who are like at these drum shops like nowadays I think of like Like your hat you have a wooden weather hat. It's like joe. Absolutely here like charlie at badges It's like they're more like younger guys. Yeah, totally. We're more like rock and roll Sure, like jess at good hands and all these young guys. Yeah, these are like business totally these look like Very, you know, yeah, well, that was the suited up guy That was the look of the day like if you went to a sporting event now It's just people in jerseys back then it was suit and ties and fedoras. That's true. That's and these guys were going to work Ellis got up in the morning and he was going to work, you know, so yep Very cool. So around around this time same time that 1711 was happening There was a record company in philadelphia called camo cameo parkway records owned by a man named bernie low And ellis was one of the session drummers for the label played on records by ruth price donnelly charlie ventura cliford brown And probably the most important record that he played on came One day when he was in the studio. I think in 1960 And bernie low comes to him the band and says, you know, we're going to cover this song So that we could play it on dick clark's american bandstand because anything that got played on american bandstand became a hit apparently in some form or another And um, so he goes to ellis and he says i want you to play a twist beat and ellis says to him What the hell is a twist beat? And bernie responds. I don't know just make something up and the record they ended up cutting that day was The twist by chubby checker Oh, so ellis ellis plays drums on the twist and which was eventually a number one hit And then some years later, uh, he also played on let's twist again by chubby checker, which was another huge top 10 hit A lot of twisting. Yeah a lot of twisting going on and it's funny because ellis says Uh, there's he quotes in that interview. He says well all my jazz experience and studies. I end up playing on the twist You know But he probably started receiving like royalty checks for that some degree. I hope I'm sure I mean it was it was an enormous Actually, yeah, I hope because you you never know back then who if you signed away like do I want money up front? Or do I want points on the record? like work for a higher kind of thing because I mean, but it's good to hear also that he's still performing Right because really we've been going on the like, you know clinics and the shop and the the roger stuff But yeah, I mean cool. He's I'm glad he's still yeah, still playing like he can't do the three hour You know jazz orchestra gigs, but he could run in and cut the twist real quick So at some point in the 1960s the store moved from 1711 chestnut street right down the street to 1725 chestnut street And bobby had told me that this was their most successful store And obviously they were there when the Beatles hit So business was booming that and always packed Here's a cool shot of ellis standing in front of that shop. That's 1725. You got the cool fives set in the window Music city discounts. Yeah But it's always been More than just drums, correct. Yeah. Yeah, like he's sold other equipment. All right, that's good Everything and you'll see it in this shot and he's he's a little more dressed down here You know, he's kind of got the polo Button up with the with the suit exactly Uh, but here it's this this picture is a little grainy, but this kind of gives you um A taste of what bobby was telling me he said every single day the store was packed Just like this and hoffner hoffner bass right there on the right unclosest. They got the paul mccartney looking Bases which are you know There you go sign of the time just a wall full of guitars and he said that that Uh shelving unit was a suspended shelving unit hanging by chains. I believe he told me and when I was first looking at this I thought those were snare drums, but those are all drum sets Those are bass drums with the tom stacked next to him just from the front of the store all the way to the back with drum sets He said every lot of weight every day. This this store was just absolutely packed You know, this was obviously the most successful store bobby had worked there and he said that um You know, actually this is about the time that ellis leaves drum playing drums to just managed a very busy store uh and He was saying that all you know any musician passing through on tour Always came to music city music city was like the place to the place to shop for anybody passing through town They supplied the mike douglas show with all the gear that you saw on tv Oh, cool. Um, he said that todd rungren was a regular stanley clark dower hall and john oates anybody Who was a philadelphia musician? You know Shopped at music city and musicians from from all over And um, eventually they opened another store a second store in cherry hill, new jersey at 1610 carleton pike in the 70s And then around 1975 unfortunately the the 1725 chestnut street store closed and they were only in new jersey And around that time i guess ellis absorbed a few small music stores around cherry hill And it eventually ran its course and he got out of the business around 1984 when some of the instrument sales declined And um, he retired to florida and got into various things alan fogle was telling me when he would hang out with him He was really into like animation cells Like buying like disney animation cells and selling them and became like a a dealer in that area Um, but i guess just enjoying retirement and fading from the spotlight Uh, but in in wrapping up i'd like to kind of set up a video that we're going to show Of ellis in his mid 70s um His his health had been failing and he ended up in the hospital and um While in the hospital he had an aneurysm and actually flatlined died. Jesus. Um, and they revived him Uh, but after that it left the entire left side of his body with zero mobility and he was basically paralyzed So when they got home His son donald who i'd mentioned earlier was like, you know, let me take out his drums Maybe if he sees the old drums, he'll get behind him and maybe work some things out rehab and get some mobility And actually a picture of that drum set This is the set right there a white marine pearl rogers drum set with a nice dynasonic, of course This photo was taken at um, steve maxwell's shop Him and ellis and steve were were were friends and this was sold to steve After ellis had passed ellis's wife sold it to him Under the agreement that he would never sell it. So I hope he still has it Yeah, i'm sure he does But this is the drum set that he they brought out for ellis to rehab and there's actually a cool picture of ellis right here Rehabbing basically learning to move again Unbelievable playing his rogers drums something you love This guy's a drummer right like to his absolute core So that's gonna do more than doing like, you know, exercise us with Stretchy bands or something, you know, it's unbelievable, you know, and it was basically taking from taken from him multiple times first with the arthritis And then later in his life with you know, the losing mobility in his left side So This video shows ellis at 75 years old performing with a big band It's about a year before he passed And a year after losing mobility and a year before he passed and a year after his left side Being paralyzed and not playing drums for for decades. It was shot by his son And I thought it'd be a great way to kind of conclude the story about the wonderful life of ellis tolin And in that susanne cloud interview she asks him Of all things you've done in your life, what are you most proud of and he says First my wife and kids and second my music And I think you could really really see that in in this video that we're going to show in a sec Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so we'll end with that in a second here But first I just want to say to everyone listening, you know, thank you. I hope you guys have enjoyed this But for you anthony, thank you for doing all this work And putting this all together. I mean truly this is stuff that like Again, I've been I said it in an episode recently Like I've been doing this for so long and there's still so many things to To learn and you do research all the time and I'm sure you're learning things all the all the time And it's not every day. It's in no way like a thing where you're like, oh god I I've never you know like oh shoot. I didn't know that it's more like amazing. Yeah. Yes. Yeah more We can keep going. So so thank you for doing this. Do you want a real quick plug? I know you said you're going to be speaking at the shields classic drum show. Yeah, what is that april 20 That is april 27th at the covington elementary school at 807 chestnut street coincidentally chestnut street. It's odd in Covington, Ohio It's starting at 10 a.m Poe runs the show and it's named for um, it's founder jerry shields who was a dear friend of all of ours And it's a great show and it's all dedicated to rogers drums and uh this year I'll be doing a short presentation on ellis and then like I said, we'll have that Friend po shy and us who runs pose percussion. We'll have a little friendly debate on the uh, on who developed the dynasonic snare drum Yep, it'll end in a complete brawl with the guys on the ground a bloody brawl. Absolutely Like cab cab cowboy and dizzy gillespie style. Yes, exactly I hope to be there. I got to go I have to go somewhere for work in early april and then a trip with my family mid april But it's it's like 45 minutes from all I love to have you out again, man. I should be there last year was awesome. So um, anyway, thank you to everyone for uh, watching this episode and um, I hope you guys enjoyed it and again Auntie your your youtube channel and all that stuff is great. So you want to tell people where they can find you there? Yeah, you can either you can either search my name or it's uh, I also go on. I guess they have those tags now, which is of rogers drum videos Yep truly Like expert level college course kind of like like high quality the stuff you put out It's just incredible and I I mean really to be consistent and have high quality is like is what Is what you got to do nowadays and and you you absolutely do that. So keep up the good work there I'll just I'll link everything in the description So anthony let's hop over here and I'm gonna play this clip and uh, this will be the end of the episode So once this is over, we will we will conclude so anthony. Thank you for being here my friend Thank you bar for the kind words and thank you for allowing us to celebrate the life of ellis tolin today man We really appreciate it Absolutely. So here is ellis tolin when he was 75 One year after the you know That when he lost the the mobility and one year before he passed away correct, correct Okay, and and last last thing thank you to ellis tolin's family Totally for providing you all this stuff because I think it's incredible and I guess you like you said you guys have become friends So it's just incredible. So thank you to them and um, here is ellis tolin. Thank you anthony. Thank you bar You