 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I am your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm honored to be joined by Chet Falzerano, who is located in Germany, Chet welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, this is really cool. Today we're talking about Billy Gladstone, who you are an expert on and have written a book and just you're the Billy guy. So you're you're located in Germany now, but you were born in Cleveland and grew up in Dayton, which is very, very close to me. And we're going to hear from him later. But I want to also just mention David Wood, who owns one of, I believe there's two in existence, if I'm not mistaken, we'll learn all about it. One of the Billy Gladstone drum sets that he purchased from you. So we're going to pipe David in later and learn a little bit more about that for a little segment. But let's start off by I just want to ask, how did you get into Billy Gladstone? What drew you to his his history? And what's the story with all that? Well, first, if I may, I'd like to change change expert to student. Okay, I'll take the title of student rather than experts in this world. Especially in the vintage drum business. There's just too many experts. I'd like to just be a student. There was really no one particular thing that got me involved. Probably the biggest influence was an article that I read in Modern Drummer in the October of 81 issue of Modern Drummer by Ted Reed. He did a three or four page recap of Billy Gladstone and his life and his work and his drums. And so I just got very interested in that. So I contacted Ted Reed and just just a lovable guy. He was more than happy to talk. But he started off by saying, well, the first thing I would suggest is you get a copy of that issue in October of 81, which of course I did. I knew about Billy Gladstone primarily through his practice pad. Everyone is well aware of his practice pad because it was included with almost every Ludwig drum that ever left the factory. And so I was aware of Billy Gladstone only through that. But Ted's article just enlightened me further about his drums, about his playing, about his inventiveness. He was one of the most inventive persons I've ever encountered. It was just incredible the number of inventions that he came up with. He's credited with like 20 patents. Wow. And it's a whole plethora of things, not just drum related. I mean, there's a tongue depressor. There's a key case. Yeah, it's really interesting. He was just an inventive guy. I had many conversations with Ted Reid because I got interested in his drums. Because as you're probably aware, there weren't a lot of custom drum builders back in those days. He started building his own drums in the 50s. There are actually two versions of Gladstone. The Gretsch Gladstones, which was a partnership between the Fred Gretsch company and Billy Gladstone that started back in 1937 at the New York Music Trades Convention. They introduced the Gretsch Gladstone. It's a drum with a three-way tuning device. And probably many of the people that are listening in today are aware of how that works. But Billy's concern was to be able to tune his drum from the top only. He had a very limited space in Radio City Music Hall where he was performing. And he also didn't like the idea of flipping the drum over. It was distracting and he was a very formal person. One of the more interesting encounters I had was with Arthur Press. He saw Billy when he was just a teenager at Radio City Music Hall. And he said it was just incredible to see this tall because Billy was over six feet tall. Tall, well-dressed, perfectly dressed person, rise up. Because the orchestra was on a rising platform at Radio City Music Hall. And he would rise up with the orchestra and he would be in just full dress attention throughout the performance. And he did not want to be able to have to turn his drum over to tune the bottom head. And in those days, drum heads were all calf. And so therefore when the orchestra rose from the basement to the playing level, to the orchestra level, there was a change in humidity and therefore the calf heads would change dramatically. So of course it needed to be tensioned and it needed to be tuned. And he didn't like the idea of flipping the drum over in front of his audience. So he wanted a drum that could be tuned from the top only. So he devised this three-way tuning system whereby he was able to tune both the top and the bottom heads from the top. There's a little two-step top to the tension rod. There's the regular square tension rod that tunes the bottom head. And then below that there's a hexagonal nut that tunes the top tension rod. And because he had a key that had three different sockets, one socket turned, as I said, the bottom head. The other socket tuned the top head. But then he had a third socket where it locked both of them together. And you could turn both the top and the bottom simultaneously. So I just thought that was really ingenious that he would devise such a system. And as I said, back then there were no custom drum builders. Now there's just a plethora of custom drum builders. But back then it was a rare thing. And so I just got really interested in his drum. And I proposed to Ted Reed that he sell me one of his drums. He had a collection of seven Billy Gladstone drums and two Gretch Gladstone drums. As I said, it started with 1937 with Gretch Gladstone. But then the Second World War put a dampener and all that because there was a shortage of metal. And so Gretch discontinued making the drum because there was so much metal involved. And drums back during the war were made primarily with wood parts. There was very little metal in a drum. And so they discontinued the drum. And so it was during the war, during the war years, there was no Gretch Gladstone. After the war, they came out with a Gretch Gladstone, but it was just a two-way drum. Just a drum as you know a drum today where you tune both the top and the bottom separately. And so Billy decided he would continue building his own drums. And he started in 1949 building his own drums and continued through the 50s. And unfortunately died in the early 60s. He built 60 drums. And those are very prized drums because there was only 61 of them. By my count, I've been able to account for 61 drums. Ted Reed said there were 50, but I've been able to come up with another 11 drums through the years just by making contact with various Gladstone drum owners. And they would connect me with other owners. And so I came up with a total of 61 drums. And so those are very prized drums. I mean, you hear about Gladstone drums. And without knowing all this information, you know they're rare. But when you say they're 61 of them, that means they're really rare. That puts a number to it to go, oh, that's why they're so rare. And I just want to like step in and say, so I just released a very short episode last week about a really short bio on Ted Reed because it was kind of I got some information from someone on a drum forum. And I said, OK, this will be a good filler because honestly, I didn't have a guest for that week. And I was OK, I'll just read this little bio about Ted Reed, you though. And I got multiple messages from people saying, what about Billy Gladstone, his relationship with Billy Gladstone, blah, blah, blah. The stuff which was I'm really glad people reached out. But so it's neat that you're talking right now about Ted Reed because it's very topical because a week before this episode, I was throwing some information there out there about him. And it's it's it's cool because he's actually, Ted Reed came off a little bit as like a I would say a little bit of a mystery because there wasn't that much information available on him. But it's cool that you got to actually talk to him and meet him and talk about Billy Gladstone and his collection and things. It really kind of personifies him a little bit more. Well, if you think not much is known about Ted Reed, you can imagine when I started with all this, nothing was known about Billy Gladstone. I mean, Ted was was was the guy and nobody knew about him. So, you know, it was just that that short little four page article. It was in Modern Drummer that, you know, how many people saw that? Not many. Yeah. And so, yeah, it was a great experience being able to connect with Ted and to find out about his association with Billy. Absolutely. All right. So he was born December 15th, 1893. I'm looking on a Wikipedia page, which I believe is 100 percent referenced from you and your. Well, not not 100 percent because believe it or not. In the book that I wrote about Billy Gladstone, I got his birthday wrong. But wait, wait, wait, wait, let me let me just say that I got that from Ted Reed's article. So, you know, I thought it was correct. And so I went with it and I love the interview you had with John Aldridge about about his book that he wrote. Like he said, once it's once you write a book, it's it's locked in forever. It's not like the Internet where you go back and revise. Yeah. So, you know, unfortunately, I had the wrong date, which is kind of kind of embarrassing. But, you know, that's what Ted wrote. And so I just I took that as gospel and I should have I should have done a little more investigating. Oh, I feel your pain on that one. I have had so many times where I go, oh, jeez, I thought that was true. And it just you just say it. But it happens. But all right. So he he again, born late 1800s. And where was he born in Romania? Okay. Yeah. Okay. And born William Goldstein. Is that correct? Yes. And and and he changed to Gladstone because there was an error made in immigration and and and he just he just stuck with it. You know, he got the wrong name. And I guess that that happened frequently back then, but he just stayed with stayed with the name Gladstone. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then he is you you kind of touched on a lot of stuff before, but just to kind of go a little deeper. So he was he's really most famous, I would say, outside of his drum building, but as being the drummer at Radio City Music Hall, right? Yeah. Before that, I mean, is there any details you want to throw out about his, you know, his early career or, you know, things like that? Well, before that, he was with the Capitol Theater in New York. But but yeah, he played he played the theater circuit in New York. He hooked up with Rapé, who was the conductor at the time at at the Capitol Theater when Rapé went to the Radio City Music Hall. He brought his protege Billy Gladstone along with him. And so they just kind of stayed together. Yeah. Yeah. And you said it before, but always well dressed and all that stuff. I I can't. I only have an image in my mind of him wearing a tuxedo, maybe because of the cover of your book, which I OK, so I've mentioned it a few times, but you have a great book just about Billy Gladstone that is is I think it's it is the source. You know what I mean about Billy Gladstone? There's not like a bunch of different like with Ludwig, there's a bunch of books and stuff, which are all great. But this is basically it is the book. And and I all right. So if I'm looking at the cover of it, I find it so interesting that he's playing obviously a Gladstone snare, but he has that same very unique stand that's the Ted Reed is playing on the cover of syncopation where it's that almost like I don't know. It looks very formal. It looks almost like a like it would be holding up like an expensive vase or something, you know. What's do you know any more about those those kind of stands? It was actually something that that Gladstone put together. It's it's the it's the stand of a of a music stand from the Klegel company. Klegel made lights is what they're mostly known for and television. I was in broadcasting for many years and Klegel was was the name for lights studio lights. But they are besides lighting. They also they made music stands and that that base is is the base of one of their music stands and then he just put a basket inside it and did it all up in gold. Everything you know with Billy thing was everything was formal. And so gold was you know, the he he really liked everything in gold, which I thought was kind of cool too. Yeah, very just. I mean, everyone can just Google Billy Gladstone and you'll see but just such a dapper. Yes, everything's very. I mean, his hair. Everything is just is just perfect. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by dream symbols and their awesome new symbol bag. It is a heavy duty, strong, durable symbol bag made for professionals with a nice tread on the bottom and it's reinforced everywhere that it needs to be. You have three compartments on it to in the main pocket area and then one separate compartment on the outside of the bag. It has padded shoulder straps and a nice handle or you can wear it with a single strap kind of across your body. It fits sizes up to a 24 inch ride, which is really huge. And then you can just walk around having the confidence that your symbols are safe in this awesome bag from dream symbols. Check it out at dream symbols dot com or on social media at dream symbols. I feel like he's always probably tinkering with things and building things. When did he really is it known when he got into drum making, you know? Well, like I said, it started in with with with the Gretsch company in 1937. Sure. They formed a partnership whereby Gretsch was interested in his in his patent. This three way patent device. Yeah. And they formed a partnership and they were putting out drums. Yeah. But yeah, keep in mind that he was he was at Radio City Music Hall. And if you've ever I had the good fortune of going to radio while I was writing the book, I went backstage and met with a curator there at Radio City Music Hall. And it would be just an inventor's dream to work in a place like that because, you know, it had stages that were on hydraulic lifts that that were so elaborate that the government they were using the same kind of lifts in in the battleships in the war. Wow. And so they were a closely guarded secret on on how these lifts were actually devised. And so you can imagine a guy who was inventive and who liked to tinker, you know, being at Radio City Music Hall with, you know, the latest and greatest of of lighting equipment, the latest and greatest of of staging, you know, it must have just been a dream for him because, you know, he was surrounded by all this stuff. Absolutely. Did he was he like married with a family or was he a single guy? Actually, he was married to a rockette at Radio City Music Hall. Yeah, yeah, she was she was a rock. Dorothy was her name. She they were they were married. I started talking about Arthur Press seeing seeing seeing Billy Gladstone at Radio City Music Hall. He said he said it was really incredible at the time because they lived in an apartment on Fifth Avenue. And he said when you went into the apartment, there was a kitchen, but it really wasn't a kitchen kitchen because that's where Billy built his drums. They did very little cooking there because the show started at like 10 o'clock in the morning and went until, you know, 10 o'clock at night, 10, 11, 10, 11 o'clock at night. And so most of the time they would eat out either at at the cafeteria at Radio City Music Hall or go out to a restaurant with their colleagues. Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Wow. Yeah. All right, maybe we talk a little bit about his technique, which is commonly known as the Gladstone technique. Why don't you explain that a little bit about his style? Because because he's a great teacher as well, which I'm sure we'll cover. But what is his technique all about? Well, this is going to be a subject that I don't know quite how to approach this. I don't know that there really was a specific technique. If you pull up on YouTube, the Gladstone technique, you'll see just a plethora of YouTube videos on this is what the Gladstone technique is. Well, none of these people ever even met the man. How can they say what the technique is, you know? The one person who studied with Billy the longest was Arnie Lang. He studied with Billy for three years. He put out a video about the technique, about Billy's technique. And before he decided to do this video, he contacted me and said, Would you care to get involved? And I said, Of course, you know, because I had already wrote the book and I delved a little bit into technique, but not a lot because I never met the man. I, you know, I never even had the good fortune of seeing him play. So how can I say what the technique is? You know, unless you've actually studied with him, it's kind of foolish to be saying, Well, here's what the technique. It's the finger technique. Well, yeah, there were fingers involved. Ted Reid had the best description. He said the way Billy saw it was like the key of a piano. You strike the key of the piano. It in turn strikes a lever that in turn strikes a hammer that comes down and strikes the string of the piano. And he said, That's what Billy, that's how Billy really saw the technique. It's not just fingers. It's not wrists. It's not arms. It's everything. Everything has to be in conjunction, has to be together. So, you know, I can, I can pass along that information because it was from Ted Reid. When I heard you, Joe Morello, he talked about, you know, just the fingers. But, you know, it had to have been just more than fingers. Morello, if you've ever seen, I had the good fortune of not only interviewing him, but seeing him play. What he could do with drumsticks was just phenomenal, just unbelievable. And he said it was Billy that put the finishing touch on his playing because he helped him with that finger technique. But I don't, I don't believe, I don't know because I've never taken lessons and never even met Billy Gladstone. So how can I say for sure? But I don't believe it was just fingers. It had to be more than just that. In fact, Arnie Lang described his encounter with Billy Gladstone. And they met at Radio City Music Hall, a colleague of his, a farberman, invited Arnie Lang to go to Radio City Music Hall to meet Billy Gladstone. Of course, you know, Arnie was totally into that. He said, we all went to a practice room together. And, and he said, OK, everybody, let's, let's play. And so everybody just started playing. And he said, Billy Gladstone came over to me and he says, you're experiencing pain in this area of your arm, aren't you? And, you know, Lang was just kind of like, oh, yeah, well, why? How did how did you know that? And he said, well, because of the way you're holding the stick. He said, I think, and you're probably in your left hand, you're experiencing pain in this part of your hand. And he like, he was kind of taken back because it was all true. And he said, the next thing I said was, do you give lessons? And he said, for three years, you know, he studied with Billy Gladstone. And so I wonder if, you know, the technique was geared to that particular person. You know, if he's having pain in his hand or pain in his arm, well, then, you know, you need to be doing this or you need to be doing that. Or in case of Joe Morello, if you want to, you know, get this facility with your fingers, you need to be doing this. So I think it was geared, I don't know, but it seems to me as though it's geared to a particular person's needs rather because there is no technique. There was no there were no books Lang said that, you know, they never studied out of books. It was mostly execution rather than technique. Wow, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. He and I imagine he was he was probably he seems like he'd be a pretty in tune person if that's his style to to like and sensitive to the changes of or of watching someone and what they're doing and helping people like his teaching style would be very like you said, custom tailored. I mean, that's a great way to I think if you're going to assume something that seems like a good assumption from everything we because how else do you know? And it also kind of fits with his personality, you know, because he was an inventive person mechanics, you know, was important to him, obviously. And so he would know that. Well, if you hold a stick this way, it's going to cause problems. Yeah. You know, and so yeah, that's my take on it. Yeah, absolutely. No, I think that's smart. And maybe we jump now into so as a teacher, he did have a number of students like you said and it he really taught some big name players. And I think that's maybe what also led I think with Billy Gladstone, there's a little bit of like a almost like mythical like with the things. Maybe again, it's the the 61 snare drums that are in existence, but there is definitely a and also maybe it's the lack of video and there's not that many pictures out there. Like it just adds a little something to it. But also you hear about him, you know, teaching great drummers like if correct me if I'm wrong, but he worked with Buddy Rich a little bit, right? And then Joe Morello, as you said, Shelly Mann. Is there any more info about that? Like where would they do the lessons? Typically was it at Radio City or would it be at the people's houses or wherever? I mean, what's what's it? What else do we know about that? Mostly it was at his apartment as I understand from the guys that I interviewed. Arthur Press said, you know, that's where he had his lessons with him. Sticks McDonald, the one country drummer actually took lessons from Billy Gladstone and had drums and a drum set made for him. Also met Billy at his apartment. So I think a lot of it was was there. It was also on the road because, you know, after he left Radio City Musical, he went on on the road with the My Fair Lady musical, and that's where Joe Morello had most of his encounters with with with Gladstone was was it was in San Francisco because they were performing. My Fair Lady was performing at in San Francisco and they would meet after the show. Sure. Yeah. Is I pretty pretty recently a couple of weeks ago had a Buddy Rich episode about buddies snare drums and stuff like that. And it's interesting to think of Buddy Rich as we all know of this, you know, mega, you know, the the king of drummers kind of guy taking lessons. I mean, but I feel like Buddy would kind of bow down to someone like Billy Gladstone, who very respected kind of a working musician. I'm sure they got along well as just both great drummers. Well, if you know anything about Buddy Rich, you know, he he didn't bow down to anybody, you know, he was happy that there are there are stories about him and I don't know if they're all true or not. I know there's there's a story about him and Barrett Deems and they kind of lock horns at one time. Yeah, who's the world's fastest in that situation? Yeah, who's the world's fastest? But but but I have if you go on YouTube, I put up a number of YouTube videos about about Billy Gladstone. One of them is an interview that was conducted with Buddy Rich where Buddy said I'll paraphrase it because I don't have the exact words here with me now. But he said there's only one person that's better than me. I mean that in itself says something right because can you imagine an ego that saying, you know, there's only one person that's better than me and he said and that's that's Billy Gladstone. Wow. Well, you know, if you've ever seen Buddy Rich play, it's it was just it was just phenomenal with that guy can could do you know, and so if he had that kind of facility and he admired and said there's only one person that's better than me, my God, what could this guy do? You know, it was just incredible. That's a hell of an endorsement from Buddy. Yeah, he said he went to Radio City Music Hall and he would he would sit in the the farthest back seat in Radio City Music Hall just to hear him and watch him articulate office snare drum and he said what the guy could do was incredible. Now Buddy Rich said it wasn't fingers, you know, who knows, but anyway, he said it was it was all in the risk. Who knows, you know, it may be true. It may not be true, but you know that Buddy Rich would talk about his playing to that level. I mean, it must have just been phenomenal. Yeah. And all right. So on that note, Billy is not though. He's not at Radio City Music Hall playing a drum solo every night. He's doing drumming for shows. I mean, it's exactly. It's very but so he must have been very intentional and proper and correct in everything he was playing. But to be blowing Buddy away when you're playing sort of music that's there to supplement, I mean, you're again, it's not about the drummer, correct me if I'm wrong, but these shows. It's exactly you're exactly correct. But to be doing it something that's so precise that you're impressing Buddy Rich, that's even more impressive that he's not doing it as a solo, you know, ripping chops kind of thing. Yeah, they would say that you know, drummers would come to see him play and and they'd come back a second night and it would be just totally different the way he would he would approach something. And you know, if it was if it was just a Gossando role that started started the show, it was just, you know, a whisper and then it would just turn into this roar that would just fill the auditorium you know, in Radio City Music Hall is huge. So, you know, to fill that place with sound must have been. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Cool. So, we talked a little bit about when he, you know, his really early childhood and everything kind of, but do you know any information about when he started playing drums or his like early early, you know, dad bought him a drum set and then he was a prodigy any info that early. It started with he took a job as a teenager at Wanamakers, which is a big department store in New York City and and they had a drum and bugle core and he went to them and they said, well, we need we need buglers and he said, well, I want to play the drums and they said, well, sorry, but we need buglers and and so it ended up, you know, he started applying with them on the bugle. But then he he just gravitated over over to the drums and and it took off from there. Yeah. So he started as a teenager. Wow. You know, it's just a just a side thing working at Wanamakers and being part of the drum and bugle core there. It's interesting too, because for someone of his skill level to be starting as a teenager, I don't want to say that's later than I expected, but you know, you obviously we know buddy started when he was, let's say as the story goes like 18 months old or something like that with buddy. So it's kind of neat that Billy was in his, you know, he was a teenager when he started and became so incredible. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Why don't we talk about the drums? I mean, the Gladstone drums are like, keep using the word, but kind of mythical because of how valuable they are just everything about them. And so we've learned about his Gretch Gladstone collaboration, which I assume value eyes. Those are valuable and rare, but really the the his own Gladstone snare drums and the drum sets, which we'll talk about those are really the like the creme à la creme of snare drums. Exactly. I mean, they're not as good as it gets. Yeah. Yeah. He built he built 61 snare drums and four of them were with sets. So there were actually four drum set, but only two of them exist today. One of them was, as I said, Sticks McDonald was a country drummer had had a set in all birds eye maple, which you can imagine must have been just gorgeous, right? That was destroyed in a fire. And then Billy's own set, which was in Black Lacquer, the bass drum was destroyed in a flood and so only the Thompson snare drum are original. The bass drum was redone with a different shell, but of course that doesn't that makes it non original. Then there was a set that was made for Maury Feld, who was the drummer with Benny Goodman is a white pearl set that that's in the Charlie Watts collection. Although that set was the snare drum went missing and was was paired up with cozy cold snare drums, which was also in white pearl. So it's a complete set, but it's not original. And then there was a silver sparkle set that was built for his student, a Billy student. It's all Leslie Bymo. Wow, unbelievable. All right. So what let's talk about like the construction of the of any, you know, your average, I say lightly average Billy Gladstone snare drum and where they they were all custom made right out of those 61 drums. They were made for individuals. I'm assuming he wasn't like stocking a store with, you know, his drums. They would be made to order. Is that right? That's correct. There he had. He had they say that he carried around a trunk that had drums that he put together for display. You know, this is this is what the drum is. He made them in two different sizes, a six by 14 and a seven by 14. A six by 14 was primarily for drum set seven by 14 was for the concert snares. Yeah, interesting. And and the hardware was all custom hardware, as you can imagine with that three way tuning device. Yeah, the special key. But it also had just a phenomenal throw off one of the best throw off my estimation. Of course, I'm prejudice, but the best throw off that was ever designed with his throw off. Can you explain the throw off a little bit because there's there's a lot of it's a little different with the mechanisms on it. How can you go into a little more detail about the throw off and how it works and what makes it special? It's a very simple operating throw off. It's a drop down design. In other words, in fact, that was another thing that Arthur Press commented on. He said you could see Billy flick his stick and just tapped it because the the arm of the throw off was just above the top rim and he could tap that that that throw off arm and flip it back on and just do it with phenomenal speed. But yeah, it was just a drop down design that has been copied many times over the years. Gretch had a had a drop down design, although it wasn't nearly as good as the Gladstone. Of course, the Gretch Gladstone was was was the precursor. But his the one that he developed in the fifties was really incredible. It worked much better than the than the Gretch Gladstone. Yeah. So you said before, like the hardware is custom, all this stuff. I mean, I have this image in my mind of him doing all this in his kitchen, but like. Like the shell construction and really like building. I mean, like you can't obviously be pouring molds of with metal and everything in your kitchen. How where did he create all of the like? I mean, what is the shell? All that good stuff. Well, the shell is actually a Gretch shell on all the drums are the old three ply Gretch shells. OK, he didn't like the six ply. He thought those shells were were too heavy. He liked everything light. So he used the shells from from Gretch and and and the shells were drilled at the Gretch factory. Bill Hagner was there was the plant manager. I had an interview with Bill and he said that Biller was very precise in how the hardware was mounted on the drum. Everything had to be exactly pristine had to be perfectly placed because he didn't want attention to tension against the shell. Everything had to be free floating. And so he said Billy was very particular on on how the shells were drilled. And then Billy would assemble the drums at his at his apartment, but he used Gretch shells and he used Gretch rims as a matter of fact, but he liked the the early known today as a stick chopper. Yeah, a die cast rim rather than the later one that has the rolled over edge and Bill Hagner said that's also again because he liked the the lighter the lighter weight of the stick chopper. And also if you've had any experience with with the stick chopper as opposed to the the heavier chopper flange that the Gretch developed and then the sixties. That's a different sound. I'm sure he also appreciated the sound that was derived from from the thinner hoops as well. Yeah, absolutely. It's neat his connection to Gretch. You know, because I knew obviously the Gretch you see the Gretch Gladstones which there were more of like those are out there. Correct. I mean, there was a fair amount of those made that's fair amount. Not a lot though. Yeah, sure. All the drums I've had. I've had six Gretch Gladstones and and the ones from the the early ones had numbers inside and I don't know this for a fact, but I believe those were production numbers because they're they're sequential and the earlier drums that I've had obviously have lower numbers. Yeah, but yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. We'll soon dial in David Wood who's going to talk about his drum set. But why don't before we do that? Why don't you maybe give us a little bit more background on this particular drum set about the history? Because David Wood bought it from you. So maybe how you acquired it and then we'll get David's info and then what he's doing the very cool thing that he is doing with this set. We'll have David tell us that. But how did you acquire it? And then how did you end up getting it sold to David? Well, I've had so far I've had six Billy Gladstone drums. One of them is the set with the solace the vinyl set and I had six Gretch Gladstone drums. One of those was also a set. I saw I found this Gretch Gladstone set. It was in White Marine Pearl just a gorgeous set. That I that I procured. And then I saw an ad that the owner of this set this Silver Sparkle solace the vinyl set was selling the drum set. And he said offers considered. So I called him and I said, you know, here's what I can here's what I can offer you. And he said, oh, it was like half of what he wanted, right? And I said, well, I'm sorry, but, you know, I can't afford that. So I'll pass. And I ended up then buying this this Gretch Gladstone set and sure enough about a month later, the guy calls me up and he says, well, I've changed my mind. I'll sell you the set for the price that you said. And I said, well, you're too late. I just bought a Gretch Gladstone set. I don't have the money now. And he said, well, you know, that's all too bad. Well, that drove me crazy because of course I wanted the Billy Gladstone set. And so I unloaded that Gretch Gladstone set, called him up and he still had the set. So I bought it from him. Wow. He wants to remain anonymous. And so I'll respect that. Sure. The previous owner, but he got the set from Ippolitos in New York City. Apparently Saul Leslie Bymo, who was a student of Billy's who also taught drums lived in New Jersey. He played around the New York area and it must have been when he passed or when he decided to stop playing, he sold the set to Ippolitos. Ippolitos sold the set to the previous owner. I got the set from him. But the set was so pristine when I got it that I was sure that it had been recovered because the pearl was just gorgeous on it. And you know, pearls, as in some of your podcasts, they fade. Yeah. And there's barely any fade at all on this. There's a slight amount of ginger ale, but very, very little fade. I thought for sure the set had been recovered. He said, No, no, I think I think it's original. And sure enough, when I got the set, it was true. It hadn't even been recovered. The it had wood hoops and on both the toms and the bass drum. And I believe that the paint on the hoops is still original. It had a few chips on it, of course, because, you know, that's going to happen. Sure. But the set was just gorgeous. And I kept it that way for many years. I got the set in, I guess it was early 90s. Wow. And I kept it for many years. And then now in my advanced years, I decided to let my collection supplement my retirement. Sure. And so I decided to sell it. And so I did it with Steve Maxwell. I brokered the set with Steve. Also, he at the same time, that gold drum that's on the cover of Billy's book, I got from Ted Reed. He brokered that at the same time. Both those sets, the set and that snare drum just sold recently. Yeah. And David, David Wood. Yeah. He, he, David Wood also bought the Arthur Press drum from me. Wow. Steve Maxwell sent me an email and said, Chet, I've got, I've got a guy here that wants to, to buy the Arthur Press drum. And at the time I wasn't really considering selling my collection. I still wanted to maintain it. And I said, well, you know, let me think about it. And so, so he said, well, here's the guy's name. And I said, no, no, no, if I do it, I want to do it through you because I don't want, I don't want, you know, I like to have a middleman. You know, it's good to have that protection. And so Steve, Steve, contacted David. David was the student of Arthur Press. So it was just a natural fit, you know, and I, and I felt really good about that because then I knew it was going to a really good home, you know, somebody that would really appreciate it and not just sit up on, on some collector's shelf, you know, he knew, he obviously not only knew Arthur Press, but they had a very close relationship. So it was really nice that he ended up with that drum. Absolutely. And we'll get David on the phone here in a second, but you had to just, when you first saw that that Gladstone drum set was for sale, was it, was your mind just going, Oh my God, I have to get this thing. I have to have it. I mean, you know, I knew at the time there were, there were only four sets and only, well, the Billy set that the bass drum hadn't been destroyed yet. So that that was still a complete set. But you know, I knew I had many conversation with sticks and Donald, I knew that that set was destroyed. So there was only three sets in existence and, and here's something that one of them is for sale. I had to have it, you know, and the price, you know, I paid a pretty hefty price for it back then, but you know, yeah, you got to do what you got to do. We're going to now jump over and speak with David Wood about acquiring the Billy Gladstone drum set and he is doing something very cool with that, which we're going to learn about right now. Very cool. Welcome David Wood to the show. I'm excited to hear about your Billy Gladstone drum set. Well, thank you for having me. I've I've enjoyed and admired your work for some time and enjoyed listening and I'm grateful that you have me. Thank you so much. And this is a special one because honestly, I don't do really these kind of two-part interjected, you know, having having a special guest such as yourself on. So it's a lot of fun to be doing that. But let's first off, let's let's set it up with Chet kind of described the drums a little bit and talked about how there were four Billy Gladstone drum sets and then there was a fire and there was a flood and now we're down to two and one of which you acquired from Chet. So why don't we pick it up there and you can tell the story of how you got them and what you're going to be doing with them and maybe what drew you to such a rare special drum set. Sure. A lot of stars had to line up for this to to work out and Steve Steve Maxwell wrote me announced that this set would be, you know, becoming available and he was letting his people who would know and I I sent the link to to to my wife. I was like, what do you think? And she's like, you're not thinking of of buying those, I hope and I I said, no, but I'm just showing you that aren't they amazing? And and I said, I I I can't be responsible for for those drums. I they should be in a museum. Yeah. And and her eyes lit up, you know, it's a great idea and and so we decided to to buy them and put them in a museum. Wow, which so there it is. I kind of set it up before so you're donating these beautiful drums to the Percussive Arts Society and there's going to be an amazing exhibit in 2022, which I think is just what Billy Gladstone his legacy needs is something like this to bring the spotlight to him. So I think that's unbelievable that you you are doing that. Well, yes. And like I said, there's a lot of stars had to line up for this to be possible. So in my world, the stars have names so you don't mind. I'll tell the story is first Steve Maxwell, who is a great broker of vintage drums. He he contacted me and he's he's the guy. If you're ever looking for something, he helped me find a Gladstone that was very close to my heart and that's how how I met him. And and I bought drums and and other instruments from him since obviously first and foremost chat for taking care of these drums and and for so many years. I mean, there's there's only two kids left and we you know, they could easily be lost in somebody's basement or something. So and then we had a different plan for these drums. I'm perfectly honest in the Percussive Arts Society. Again, it was Steve that put me in touch with with Josh and I Josh Timon's executive director there. And I talked to him for a while and we just clicked I liked his sense of humor. I liked it. I just got along with him and it was at a weird time where, you know, we were sort of wavering. Do we really want to do this or not? And and and after talking to him, I you know, we said Steve's right. This is the perfect place for them. So so Josh the Percussive Arts Society is lucky to have him. He's a great guy and and then anybody who plays drums learns at an early age how how lucky they are to have someone that tolerates their their their passion for for drumming. And if you find if you find somebody that's supportive beyond that, it's wonderful. So we learned that with our parents and our later our partners and spouses. So I have to I have to give it up for for my wife. Collette Holt. She's only she's only would when we go to the dry cleaners and go to music events. I'm just my wife has a different last name. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, she's she's she's wonderful. She's in a completely different line of line of work, but that she got such a such a thrill out of this and was so so willing to to go along with it was was we were all lucky for that as well. Absolutely. So yes, we we went to pay sick. In November, yeah, it was in November and we saw that they have the drum set up and the stage is preparing for for the exhibit to open in early twenty two. So I I I guess I will have to hear from Josh. I'm not sure what their timeline is. Yeah, and I can provide more information as that you know as that comes around. And that's obviously in Indianapolis, which is very close to me. So as soon as it opens, I'll be sure to check it out and report back. And then we also have there's some info that that Chet kind of mentioned to us about you and Arthur Press. Why don't you tell us a little bit maybe briefly who Arthur Press was and then your connection with them and a little bit about that snare and then we can hop back over to Chet and kind of learn more about Billy. But yeah, talk about Arthur a little bit. Yeah, well, Arthur was my my teacher and mentor. He was the solo snare drummer and assistant timpanist in the Boston Symphony and I began study with him. I probably I was still at think I was still in college at Berkeley School of Music and I started studying at his house and we would sometimes because it was close to school. I go to the hall and have lessons there and one day he pulled out his Gladstone drum and to show it to me. I took a couple lessons on it when we would when I would have a lesson at the hall and I you know, I had never seen anything like that. I remember going and telling the other students at school about it and I always wanted that drum or one like it, but I you know, how do you ask somebody like that for for you know, for their price? Yeah, it was too hard. So I was on the road and I was picking up some sticks at Vic Firth and Vic told me that Arthur had sold all his instruments and quit the symphony and I was like, oh, did he sell his Gladstone? And he and he said sold everything and you know, his wife had died and and he just left the orchestra and and I just always regretted not not having the opportunity to buy that drum because I just loved it so much and so that's how I was telling my wife that story, you know, the beginning of the pandemic, I guess and and why don't you try to find it? And I was like, you know, I probably should somebody down somebody bought it and and so I called Steve and it's you know, if anybody would know it would be him and I left him a message. I said I'm former student of Arthur Presson and I'm looking for his Gladstone drum. You have any idea where it might be and he called me back a couple days later and and he said, I know exactly where it is and he said great Gladstone collector in Italy has it and I said, do you think he would sell it to me? And he's like, no, oh, that's too bad. But well, let him know if he's ever interested in I would I would really like to have it and and he did. I don't know how much time passed, but he called me back and he said we're we're not owners of these drums. We're we just take care of them until the next person does and because you're a student of of Arthur's you know, he thinks that this is Chet by the way thinks that you might you might be a good curator for it. So he agreed to sell it to me and it arrived not not not long after and it sits I'm looking at it now it sits in my in my studio as a reminder of that time and and my great relationship with Arthur and it's a beautiful beautiful instrument and it was because of that purchase that Steve thought of me when this drum set came about. Wow. So that's not yeah that's that's how the the connection happened. That's just so cool. I mean it's guys like you and Chet and Steve Maxwell who are keeping this stuff from I mean these are material items that are typically made of you know wood and can are not you know they're not invincible they can they can be damaged so you need to take care of them so it's great that you guys are able to do this to keep these ultra rare drums safe because I mean I've talked about it with Chet on the other portion of the show but I mean these are kind of holy grail drums it does not get more rare than you know a snare drum that's one of 61 or a drum set that's one of two can't be nothing is more rare. That's true. I mean when you win yeah I'm not going to embarrass anybody but when a big drum company comes out with a limited edition snare drum say you know signed a numbered it's one of a thousand and you know this guy made 61 drums in his kitchen exactly is in you know in 1950 and people are still talking about it yeah it is remarkable. It's also a tribute to I mean people lose a great gig and sometimes fall apart I mean Billy Gladstone was was very you know he thought he he would always be at radio some radio city and he he lost that job you know very unjustly and he could he could have just you know gotten depressed and but he didn't he started making drums and you know lemonade out of lemons however you want to put it. Yeah I mean his overall demeanor as a person is very much that he's he's such a well he's such a put together guy that I you know of course he moves on and creates some of the most rare drums in the world it's just it's a cool story. For sure and and for anyone who is curious and wants to learn more about it Chet's book is is magnificent and if I had my way and for any influence I have on this the exhibit at the museum will be Chet's book in a visual form I mean he covered it all and it's it's it's it's really a lot of a lot of fun and very informative and I don't think any drummer at least of my generation can can read it without finding some names in it that means something to them because that so it's it's it's fun it's fun every every page turn it's a new fact that you're learning it's it's great. Absolutely on that note David I guess we'll hop back over to Chet in Germany and then we will learn more about Billy Gladstone but I want to thank you for taking the time to come on and do this little you know short segment in the middle of this episode and really helping me put this together and reaching out and getting this episode started and this all happened in a really a short period of time which is just awesome. So I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us. Well thank you I thank you for having me I look forward to listening more and we'll see you with the Percussive Arts Society soon. So everyone just learned that the amazing you know story about David and his drum set and how he is donating it to the Percussive Arts Society and we can all look out for that is set up that he's going to be displaying in 2022. Wow pretty really cool. I mean talk about it. You know I said before before you cut away there that it's you know the Arthur Prestrom went to a good home. I can't imagine the set going to a better place. I mean you know when when Steve Maxwell said you know hey I'll broker the set for you and you know let's let's set a price and we did all that and and and I thought well you know geez I hate to see the set go but I wouldn't also might have the money to supplement my retirement here. You know I figured well they'll end up on some collectors you know collection but here you know when David did this I thought how cool is that that now you know so many people are going to get to enjoy and see that set. Yeah absolutely I mean it's it's about as perfect as it could be for such history and now I feel I feel confident that it's not going to get destroyed in a fire or a flood. I think it's in good safe hands. Not that that would happen at David's house but you know what I mean. I think it's it's now amongst other great collectibles yes all that stuff. So let's talk a little bit more about Billy Gladstone's inventions besides you know obviously we let we know his drums. What are some other things that he invented. You mentioned a practice pad and I know he's done some you know that some cool stuff with symbols. What else do we know him for. Well here as you mentioned that the practice pad everybody's aware of the Billy Gladstone practice battle was a really ingenious practice pad because you know it actually has a drum sound you know it's not like just the rubber pads that Ludwig and and all the rest of the companies were making but it also had two steps. There was a harder center section of the of the pad but you could also play on the outer section. So there was there was two different sounds that you could get out of it. So it's pretty ingenious practice pad. Yeah and for people who I did a practice pad episode and we talked about it for people who maybe don't know like Chet was saying it basically is everyone's every you've definitely seen it if you've played the drums for a while. It's that rubbery. It's an insert that goes on your snare drum basically I'm sure everyone's seen it. But yeah OK so carry on from there. Well then he also as I said had a lot of non drum related inventions. There was there was a key case that the story goes that that one of the people in the in the in the orchestra Radio City Music Hall dropped their keys and Billy strung them all together on a string and it gave him the idea of this of this key case whereby the keys would go inside a case but they would be on a string of a chain. And those were available up until just recently still available. There was a there was a company in Florida where I bought I got my first one from Ted Reid but you could also buy them from this company in Florida but they've since sold all all their supplies so there's no more of them left. But yeah he had those symbols of the handheld sock symbol that was before the Gretch Gladstone drum was even developed. I mentioned that if you go to YouTube and and you pull up Chet Falls Arano that you'll see there's a little over more than a dozen videos that I put together. One of them is is Chick Webb playing that that sock symbol. So yeah yeah that's some history right there. Yeah cool. Wow I I should have asked this before when we were talking about the Gladstone drums but I just want to so we kind of know if you're you know if someone's lucky enough to be buying a Gladstone snare drum one of his one of the 61. What was the time frame that he I guess it would be post Gretch right the Gretch Gladstone in from 37 to post war believe you said when when when was the time frame that like he was making his own drum so if you find one they're likely a 1950 blank. Exactly what was that time frame he started building him in 1949. The first drum was was for Shelley Mann. That was that was his first and Shelley was one of one of Billy's students. In fact that drum is also at PAS they're going to display the Shelley Mann drum and the Buster Bailey Buster Bailey was the percussionist in the New York Philharmonic. He was I believe his was the was the second drum. But yeah through the years then he built drums for geez all the great players he built one for Buddy Rich that went still out there somewhere. It's it's never it's never surfaced. But yeah he built him for for a number of the great players. Wow. I was impressed. Yeah I mean if you if you think about it 1949 he died in 1961 so well pretty close to the end of his life. I mean that he's making these drums so exactly to hand make and crank out 61 known drums is pretty impressive for one guy because obviously we know we're not talking about a factory. Cranking these things out. So all right then then how as we get closer to the end of his life what what happened there. Well he developed leukemia cancer and Ted Reid said he came into to they were very close Ted Reid and Billy Gladstone were very close Billy Gladstone came into Ted Reid Studio in New York and and he said he was as brown as a coffee bean. And and he died shortly thereafter and he's yeah yeah really kind of a sad story. I mean you know he never really he he he I guess you'd say he was famous but but not really you know I mean yeah drummer famous you know drummer famous yeah drummers know about him but yeah the world didn't unfortunately yeah well I tried to change that by writing the book and right now I mean us talking about it is kind of spreading the knowledge and I mean I think people can go down the rabbit hole of looking at pictures of all these amazing drums would you say they are one of the most collectible snare drums or drum set in you know in out there. Well of course I'm prejudice but it's the most collectible and I thought that from the very from the get go I mean you know people want when I would when I would pick up one of these drums and and I would reveal how much I paid for people said you're crazy you're spending that kind of money on a drum and well yeah I guess I am but but you know I think someday they're going to be worth a lot of money and they are you know now those drums are going you know five figures. Geez yeah it's an investment that is one thing where I think you probably you know you you saw it early on but they are definitely it's not just a it's it's a collector's drum it's not really like a you know do people if in your experience if people buy these drums do they typically play them out or do they sit more on a shelf and be you know you you drool over it or did people really use them. No people use them yeah I used them I played I played the drums to set I was I was really reluctant because you know they're taking four pieces out out was you know how do you know I'm not an octopus I can't have I don't have four arms I can't have carry all of them together but but yeah I played them out and they're just fabulous sounding drums in fact there's another YouTube video that my good friend Paul Testa came to visit me I was living in Italy at the time came he and his wife D came to visit me and he said hey do you mind if I play these and I said that's what they're that's what they're there for you know not to sit on the shelf there to be played so one by one he played him and and fortunately thank God he put up his video camera and videoed the thing and just recently just last month he said hey chat you know we were talking about me me selling the set to David he said you know I have that video would you like it I said what I like it you know of course I would like it and I ended up putting it up on YouTube so if people want to hear what a Gladstone sounds like there are you know he plays all six of my drums and you can hear the difference between that's very subtle but you can hear the difference between each one of the drums and Paul's a fabulous player so you know you'll be able to awesome appreciate it that way too yeah and I'll put per usual I'll put that stuff in the description of this for people to watch that video so before we wrap up I just got to ask because like I said you know in order the previous episode to this one was a little info about Ted Reed you obviously knew the guy I don't know maybe just like I kind of touched on some biography of him but just can you tell us just a little bit about Ted you said he was a really nice guy there's like there's not too much biographical information about and we know he played with some great players and was just a serious working drummer but it's it's neat to hear from you about talking to him and spending so much time with them and learning from him well probably the probably the most most interesting thing is when when I first talked to him I of course wanted a Gladstone drum I mean that that was yeah my soul intent I want a drum sure and and so I said you know would you consider selling any of the drums and he said absolutely not he said hopefully you'll find one before I do wow he said but I'll pick up every drum and so you know it was kind of funny at the same time it's kind of sad because I knew of he had seven of them I knew that you know I'd never see any of them but then shortly thereafter he sent me a note I'm a whole exchange of of correspondence with him he sent me a note and said well I've decided I'm going to sell you Billy's Gretch Gladstone drum oh my God this is incredible right and he said I'll sell it to you for $250 wow well as you can imagine I couldn't get to the post office fast and so I nailed it off and the drum came and it just it's gorgeous I subsequently sold that drum that was the other drum that Steve Maxwell just brokered for me but is a beautiful drum and shortly thereafter I changed the drum over to gut and I've varnished some gut and you know I followed what I thought was the correct procedure for doing Billy Gladstone gut snares right and Ted wrote back and he says well I'm glad you got the drum to sound the way you wanted to do he says but but you're wrong he didn't use varnish to use shellac not varnish and I thought well you know obviously I don't know what the hell I'm doing so I put the drum back exactly the way Ted sent it to me including the heads the snare wires everything was exact and when I sold it just recently it went out the same way it came to me and Ted was just just it was just incredible to me that he knew so much about Billy and admired Billy so much you know there was a mutual admiration obviously between the two of them Ted was a great teacher as well and and so it was it was nice having that experience dealing with Ted and and dealing with his his collection one of the other Gladstone drums that he had ended up in my collection that was Louis Belsons and it was because Louis he offered the drum back to to Louis Belson that's when my relationship with with Ted Reed kind of took a debt because Ted was so upset because he sent the drum back to Louie and Louie immediately sold it to me so Ted Ted was as you can imagine kind of missed by that yeah like that you know that wasn't the intention you know that was not the intentional but was my fault you know I mean if Louie wants to sell me the drum great gee you know and it's an incredible drum yeah man was Ted last question about Ted I mean was he so syncopation was such a famous is such a famous and just but it's just everyone has a copy of it of course yeah I mean what were did he ever talk about that or you know he must have I mean been able to support himself and and at least because a lot of authors know that you don't make that much money off books but I can I can tell you that's most definitely true yes but if you write one of the most famous drum books that's you know every student Scott did he talk about his you know the popularity of syncopation at all well no I mean you know it's kind of taken for granted you know it's it's it's the seminal one of the seminal books that's out there and so we never really talked about it that much but he was also a great teacher I mean he had a he had a whole cadre of students and so I think he made a lot of money that way too is absolutely yeah cool well this has just been really really cool chat and I want to say that I know I've gotten multiple recommendations over the years from people about doing a Billy Gladstone episode and kind of one of those things were so many people suggested it I'll just say thank you to everyone instead of individually saying it but obviously a big thank you to David Wood who originally emailed me about what we all heard about before from David but said you got to talk to chat and he got me your email and got us in touch and then and then we put this together pretty darn fast which sometimes these take as long as three years to book which was a recent one but we got yours together in about a week week or two so yeah so and chat is going to be kind enough to hang out and we're going to do a bonus episode which people can find on patreon and we're going to talk about another story about him finding one of his ultra rare Billy Gladstone snare drums so if you want to hear that you can go to drum history podcast dot com click the patreon button and there's all the bonus episodes there so chat is there anything you want to promote I will put a link in the description where people can buy the book it's it's a must have for drummers but yeah chat anything else you want to where people can find you website or anything like that well I mentioned a couple of times there there's there's a number of videos on YouTube it's under my name chat falls rano there's also a Facebook if you if you search Billy Gladstone you'll find a tribute page that I put together for him that has a lot of a lot of it good information that people send in to me and and so it's it's it's a nice place to to to find out about Billy Gladstone but between that and and the YouTube and the book yeah that's sure that's the way to to find out about the man yeah perfect and I'll link all that down below and if you're looking for on your own chat last name is falls rano f a l z e r a n o and you can check out everything he's doing so now chat and I are going to hop over and do the bonus episode and chat thanks for taking the time to do this it's always a pleasure to have another Ohio boy on the podcast it's been my pleasure yeah it's been my pleasure if you like this podcast find me on social media at drum history and please share rate and leave a review and let me know topics that you would like to learn about the future until next time keep on learning