 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm joined by Robert Cattagliotti, who is the author of drumsville the evolution of the New Orleans beat Robert welcome to the podcast. Oh, thanks for having me here Bart. Yeah, I gotta say so this is really cool First off this book is is awesome a lot of people involved in it kind of in the exhibit And there's a forward by hurl and Riley which we'll talk about all that stuff But I have been to the exhibit in 2019 at the New Orleans Jazz Museum, which is just awesome I got walked around and shown around by Greg Lambuzzi who who was who's been on the podcast before on a previous episode about New Orleans and Incredible exhibit and the book which you guys sent me which I'm very grateful for is just Wonderful, so why don't we just jump in and maybe you can just describe to people a little bit about You know the exhibit and the book and how they work together and kind of what you do with it and all that good stuff Okay. Yeah, so, you know, I I um I had a dear friend who passed away. It was musician in New Orleans named Spencer Bolin blues guitarist and singer and in 2017 he took me to the museum to meet Greg Lambuzzi And at that meeting Greg said and I have this idea and I had described my background as a music historian critic and Projects that I'd done for Smithsonian folk ways and things like that. And so Greg said yeah, I have this idea about a drum exhibit that traces the evolution of the drum set and the New Orleans beat and I don't know if it was that day or shortly thereafter. He said do you want to help me with this and I was like, yes, right away Yeah, and you know, it's interesting and you know, again, I'm not a drummer But when he first said it, I never really thought about where did the drum set come from? It's so pervasive rock and roll jazz Zydeco polka music reggae, you know heavy metal funk every, you know, there's just a drummer on stage with the band So where did the drum set come from and as it turns out New Orleans is central to the creation of that instrument and So eventually the Greg said well, why don't you go ahead and do the start doing the research for the basis of the exhibit and then No, eventually just said well, just go ahead and do it. Just figure out what you think should be there and So I did a series of outlines, you know I did a lot of research and ordered a bunch of books on drum sets and went over to the Hogan archive at Tulane University and She has inherited festival archive in the French Quarter and So I was sending these outlines to the museum And also the museum's holdings in their digital library and then You know, so I send the outlines to David Cooney and who's the music curator at the museum And eventually we became co-curators for the exhibit and David comment. I have this I have that I have a drum set for this guy. I have a picture of so-and-so and you know So that's kind of we weeded it down and eventually I Formed it into eight parts And sent that to David. Were you year a little different than like, you know Person on the street because of your background with you know Being a music historian, but were you aware of the importance of the drum set in the history of I'm talking before New Orleans. I'm talking like cavemen The importance of drums and drum sets because sometimes when I tell people about the podcast drum history They literally laugh and go, oh, that's weird You know, like they can't believe the importance that there would be enough to talk about for more than 10 episodes I mean, well, you know, okay, so I've been a music writer for over 40 years and New Orleans became a big focus for me For me very early on my first trip to jazz fest just I mean, it sounds cliched, but it totally changed my life it really did and and so writing about jazz and rhythm and blues and eventually the music of the African diaspora the Caribbean and Africa, you know, I became familiar with All these variations on African rhythms that all have drums, you know central to them matter of fact, I was just at a Tribute for fellas fellow cooties birthday the other night that an old friend of mine that I met Literally 40 years ago Tito Sampa, who's a master drummer and dancer from the Congo Was performing there and I met Tito's You know when I lived in Colorado when I was first becoming a journalist and spent a lot of time with him And so yeah knew about the different styles of drums and drumming. Yeah, I was definitely aware of that But the idea of the drum set never really Intrigued me in terms of where did it come from until Greg said that that day? Yeah, which I mean I think most people who are tuned in and listening to like a show called drum history Are are obsessed with it and have this kind of like you look at it And it makes you happy to just look at any drum set of any kind But but it's it's interesting to kind of hear that perspective of a music buff such as yourself But you kind of get that. Oh, there's something different to that. I mean it goes back really far But let's let's hop in here and talk about the evolution of the New Orleans beat going back to Congo Square And how it all started so kind of take it away. Yeah, so yeah, you know to me You know if you talk about music and music in New Orleans and really, you know, American music I'm not familiar with the the Neville brothers that the song they do Congo Square But Cyril Neville would always introduce that song the same I'm gonna we're gonna take you to a place where American music was born a place called Congo Square And you know, so that that that's central to the whole thing that By the early part of the 19th century Congo Square was really the only Regularly sanctioned place where people of African descent could play drums and dance traditional African rhythms And it was only allowed in New Orleans on Sunday afternoons eventually because the in the afternoon because People complained about it because it was interfering with the Catholic masses going on and finally the bishop Wrote a letter and said only after masses over But so these gatherings started taking place in Congo Square But I would say that as soon as African people arrived in Louisiana, which would be about 1719 Through the Middle Passage Now there may have been a few Africans in Louisiana With Spanish explorers a little bit earlier But as soon as those Africans arrived in through the Middle Passage Drumming was happening in Louisiana And it was pervasive and immediate as I say in the book because of the importance of Drumming within African culture and the spiritual significance of the actual rhythms themselves, you know, sure in terms of Religious belief systems that the drums rhythms can summon spiritual entities if you will You know, eventually you have these variations in the diaspora in Cuba. You have the Santarilla in Brazil, Condombele in Haiti, Vudan New Orleans Voodoo and And the rhythms from those ceremonies summon the Loas or the Orishas as they're called in the different traditions But you know, also these African people that came they weren't able to bring things with them on on the Middle Passage And so they had to re I usually like to say it as re re dash member remember The what what what their traditions were both in terms of recall recalling them and also rebuilding them or reassembling them from the Materials that they had at hand and so there's this improvisational nature That comes in African-based art That not only applies to the performance, but actually to the instruments themselves being yeah, it's kind of neat too that like drums are so natural Before you get into synthetic heads and all that stuff, but you could make it with what's found in nature around you You could create these drums animals would you know Yeah, look, you know the quote is in the book from from Johnny Vodakovich Who's you know just one of the great masters that lives in New Orleans today, and he says you know basically he says It hasn't changed in thousands of years It's a wood stump with the animal skin stretched over it and you beat it with a stick That's the drum, you know, you know, and it's basically it's that primal Aspect of it, you know and after the human voice, I would say percussion is probably the next instrument that evolved, you know sure Yeah, you know so that so they're building these instruments and bringing them to Congo Square and It's helping them to maintain an identity as African people I think it's also important that you know Congo Square was There was drumming and dancing going on it was a marketplace you know New Orleans had the the free people of color in addition to enslaved African-Americans who are coming there you have Europeans that are You know colonists that are coming there. You have tourists coming there eventually have people coming from the British colonies eventually United States are coming there. You have Native Americans coming there and so all this Interchange is going on but the root of it is the African rhythms and and I think it's important because It was something that was all their own That was theirs, you know where they had almost nothing else Based on the on the yeah Absolutely, and I mean I think that in if you're in that Horrible situation of being brought from your country for the sake of slavery to kind of have that it it's sort of it's sort of You know for religious purposes like you said, but also there's probably some power to it where they were trying to do things that were like You know, it's it's praying it's giving them hope that this will get better and using that to give keep their spirit up Definitely that I mean it's that it also gives them an outlet to critique their oppressors It creates and you know, it's communal, you know, you're talking about gatherings that range from the hundreds to possibly the thousands at one one time and and different ethnic African groups in in drum circles with these Rhythms, you know percolating across this open plane and today Congo Square has big live oaks on it But the trees were not there You know back during the colonial era So you have all these cross rhythms going on all these different variations different drum styles, you know and we have a lot of information about it from Journals travel logs newspaper accounts by Europeans often At the minimum ethnocentric Often totally racist, but you can read through the The prejudice to get to this is what and what the drums look like what was going on with the people that were participating You know, they definitely had the call-and-response pattern going on they were definitely Improvising and you had all these different kinds of rhythms sophisticated rhythms Happening there. Well, I mean, it's it's it's human nature to where it's like we are drawn to rhythm We're drawn to music and then there's a little bit too of like the I'm sure part of the the you know The culture in in New Orleans where you know, they were of the you know, let's say they're white or whoever of just the upper class You know, I'm sure their kids and and some of the women and some of the men were drawn to it But they weren't supposed to and I mean that's human nature to be like that's rock-and-roll. You know what? I mean, yeah, I'm not supposed to like that. Yeah, my dad doesn't want me to like it But I do like it and it's loud and it's noisy and you can't not hear it So I'm sure that trickles down into everyone's You know subconscious. Yeah, you know and at the same time you have European music having a major presence in the city, you know opera like Multiple opera companies going on at one time. You had classical concerts going on where and you had people of African descent whether they were enslaved or free people of color Performing that European music particularly the balls the dances where they're doing Waltz's and quadrills and berserkers. Those are all rhythms that become part of the Vocabulary of New Orleans music, you know, and I kind of speculate like Is there a guy where there guys that were playing drums at the opera or for a classical concert that on Sunday afternoon? went over to Congo Square and Played the African rhythms and how much of that African? Derived rhythm sensibility also made its way back to the European. Yeah venue venues, you know I mean so to to to kind of dig deeper into that. So what you're saying though is is like the people like African musicians would be performing with those traditional European like operas and classical performances There was definitely afric people of african descent either enslaved or free people of color Performing in the European concert venues Interesting and and both groups to see enslaved and the free people of color could attend many of those venues in segregated seating Up above the orchestra, you know, I found a Interview with baby Dodds where he talked about the the traditional jazz drummer from the, you know Really the the father of the yeah, the drum set said growing up he would go to the to the Toulouse theater and Stand he wasn't allowed in and then because New Orleans became more segregated after slavery was over with the reconstruction But he would stand outside in in the vestibule of the theater and listen to opera and listen to classical music and said he said he took That back and brought that conception that orchestral conception to his drum set Which is a characteristic of a lot of New Orleans drummers talk about playing melodically and and playing the melody and compositionally and Structurally fought rather than just keeping a beat, you know I mean this is like In some ways not related at all in some ways completely related I just did an episode about the biography of Keith moon, you know famous wild man drummer, but he was famous for playing kind of more Tony Fletcher who was on it described him as playing he would play the lead parts on the drums and the melodies But he was influenced by a lot of early jazz drummers in America So it's it's weird how you can honestly draw that back to that doing that kind of style way back way back Across different continent to this type of situation. Yeah, I think that's true Yeah, can we just check in real quick and say what year are we talking for like Congo Square and all of this happening? Like what you know, I would say that the Probably the 1820s 1830s, okay, it kind of seemed to have died out and then there's a newspaper account of Another The opportunity for for Africans to play only in the summer with written permission from their White masters That's comes kind around the late late 1850s and then from what I can tell It's it's over by the Civil War Um One one account I read said when the Union Army occupied New Orleans and stopped which is kind of ironic, but you know That is that is But anyway, yeah, so the first half of the 19th century, okay, let's switch over and talk about I have written down in improvisation because Before I mean like you said with you know, we're talking classical music and things are very written and we're using you know Notation. Yeah, you think jazz you think New Orleans you think improvising and freedom. Yeah, yeah, talk about improvisational Yeah, so, you know, I think you know for years I taught African-American literature and African-American culture and one of the things I always like to ground those traditions in is that There are cultural retentions that people of African descent have that Form the building blocks of African-American expression African retentions that become African-American so the three major components to me of that oral tradition Because it primarily talking about an oral tradition right passed down by word of mouth Yeah, is call and response that that pattern of a leader in dialogue with a group Is pervasive throughout all the different regions of Africa? Improvisation as an approach to performance as opposed as you said European which is much more, you know, the static text or the author, you know if you You know taught in English department, so I dealt with Shakespeare scholars and you know, they're often their big thing is is It the authoritative version of the text is a primacy based on that in Western Art, right, you know Beethoven symphonies you play them the way they're written, you know, you're not going to Add a little flavor here, you know if you're in the orchestra right where in African-based art There's a primacy bit you have a basic text that you improvise on and show what you can do with it So there's that improvisational nature of performance and then the third component to me would be the rhythmic sophistication I mean in Europe European music Harmony is really the dominant element, but in African-based music rhythm is and so that and that improvisation not only extends from It's extends from performance to actually what you're playing on So these guys these these African people are building drums and shakers and rattles and bells from whatever they can find in colonial Louisiana and Then that that tradition of improvising percussion instruments to me Re-manifest itself in the 19th century in New Orleans in what's called the spasm bands mostly young boys playing on homemade instruments on the streets of the city So I think it's probably Somewhat comes from that African cultural Heritage it also you could think about it as that kind of you know what you call the Yankee can do spirit right and You know I when I thought it because I said I taught African-American literature for years that Reminded me of these these guys these these people creating these Instruments out of things that are cast aside found objects right that remind me in the in the novel in Invisible man by Ralph Ellison with the the narrator Considered himself a thinker tinker. He has a concept and he acts on it, right? So you know that these people were thinker tinkers and like Ellison's narrator many of them were Invisible that is willfully ignored. Yeah by the main society and and they created possibility out of their invisibility that's one of the things that I loved was I found the there's a DVD that came out about two two three years ago called fests up And it's a interview with professor long hair that was used for the the interview was for the film piano players Rarely ever play together. I don't know if you're familiar with that film now It was a film done in the 70s and he actually Fester long hair died while the film was being made it was bringing him together with Toots Washington and Alan Toussaint and The interview was for the background sections of that film. And so a few years ago the producers put the whole Video outs by hour-long of fests sitting at the piano at tippetina's I'm just talking and he narrates that he was a fests was a drummer and of course. He's known as a Piano master, but he was a drummer and he he narrates in detail building a spasm drum kit from wooden boxes the tin Canisters real canisters from movie movie reels and tin cans and how he made a little ad hoc Drum pedal with a piece of leather and a rubber ball and things like that that improvisational spirit the washboard as As a percussion instrument, you know, there's an everyday object sure You know in New Orleans today Another old friend of mine who moved here is washboard Chas Leary who's just absolute master of the washboard I mean I was calling them the max roach of the washboard You know, it's a washboard. He's got a woodblock hanging off it He's got two tin cans on it and a little hotel desk clerk bell And you know, he can do sophisticated solos. You can play bebop. He can play, you know, country blues, whatever But that spirit that that's what's going on here and you have that that especially with percussion instruments, you know Yeah, shakers made out of tin cans with beans in them or pebbles or you know And then you have the Mardi Gras Indians that come along at the same time where they're using tambourines and they're using Glass bottles with sticks. I mean, there's a video that Alan Lomax made in New Orleans called I think it's called feats. Don't fail me now and he's got some Mardi Gras Indian practice video in there where they're on the out on the corner and they're actually Got a stick and they're playing the side of a shotgun house They're beating the rhythm out on the side of and then they turn the house into a drum, you know That's amazing, you know, so that is that whole spirit there of this creating these instruments out of what you have You know, you use what you got as washboard chance said to me and so Percussionists start doing that, you know, so the other I Guess thread we need to bring in here is the other major and probably the biggest European influence in New Orleans Is the militia bands that come in that originally drums and fife and then they start to be You know, they start to have brass instruments and then later on they clarinet and Read instruments come into it, but that introduces the you know, the brass bands have originally three percussionists the militia bands The cymbal player the bass drummer and the snare drummer at some point the cymbal gets attached To the bass drum and I stand more keeps, you know, he's such a Advocate for New Orleans drumming. Oh, yeah, he's just like, you know, there goes another gig for a drummer There's the put the cymbal players out of the band and of course once the drum the bass pedal get there goes another Drum gig for somebody exactly, but you know, so they attach the cymbal to the bass drum and now you have two drummers and then You know, they're marching Right and that whole second-line phenomenon in New Orleans what they call the big four Where you know, they hit the bass drum and the cymbal drum on the fourth beat that went in Marsalis credits to Buddy Baldwin as an innovation And the idea that that's where the lilt or the the swing or the lift comes in New Orleans rhythm So they're doing that as they parade and and people are dancing these freeform second-line dances But they also start getting gigs indoors And so the idea is it's more confined space Can we get by with only one drummer? And so sure concept of Double drumming comes along where they put a snare drum on a chair and now you have one guy playing cymbal bass and snare drum so which is that's the drum set Yeah, and that's that that's the innovative spirit the improvisational spirit and then you get Which to me is that he's that I always call him the star of the drums bill exhibit is DD Chandler in that photo from the 1890s with the John Robichel Orchestra where you know It's a eight-piece band and there's only one drummer and DD his snare drum is on the ground in front of them His bass drum is right in front of him with the cymbal attached to it and then hanging over on the The side of the drum is this overhanging or swing Improv I mean he built it himself hand-made bass drum pedal that I also found a description of The detail of that construction from the music colleges Samuel Charters in one of his New Orleans books talks about You know using he worked he worked in a grocery store DD And so he had a milk box and you know stuff that he got from work Stewart Copeland has a really cool Documentary that I'll put a link to in the description, but he kind of builds one the overhang pedal and Uses this technology which which even now you see and build it and you're kind of like God How does your brain go to do this and hang it and do this and it's because now we take everything as drummers and musicians We take everything for granted as we've already seen it so we know how to do it He didn't see it. He didn't know how to do it. No one was doing it You weren't hitting you were hitting the bass drum with a mallet So, you know from from my understanding and Stanton helped me with this quite a bit because he's such a scholar of drums too There were patents for bass drum pedals in even in Europe. Yes for DD Chandler I mean they were designed for them, but we don't have any evidence that they were used The the John Robichel picture is the first extant picture of a working drummer on New Orleans drummer using a bass drum pedal and then the other another cool thing we have in the exhibit is and it's in the book to a picture of it is this this Drummer named his breastband drummer named Papa Jacqueline Who apparently was a blacksmith as well as being a drummer? built an overhang pedal swing pedal that Was over at the Hogan archive at Tallinn University And there one of their music archivist Lynn Abbott said, you know, this thing we've never even catalogued it But it's been just under the desk here and he just kind of reached down and said Would you want to use this and it's like one of the most important things and like music I mean because again you you think it's I don't know to an outsider They might think it's silly who cares about that, but that is the the beat. Yeah every right song It's huge. It's and of course the bass drum or I just want to mention also then that So by 1909 William Ludwig Creates that first bass drum pedal which we have one of those 1909 Ludwig pedals that belongs to Stanton more He lent it to us and so there then then it just takes off then you have the drum set is now possible I believe there was a man named Ulysses Leeds UG Leady Leady he designed a snare drum stand Yeah, and So then you're on your way, you know, you have the snare drum stand the bass drum pedal the cymbal can hang from a tee You know a tee mount or it could be mounted on the on the bass drum And then the final piece is another New Orleans connection Baby Dodds is playing on the riverboat and Ludwig comes on the William Ludwig comes on the boat and says He notices baby Dodds stomps with his left foot and Says can you stomp with your toe rather than your heel and baby Dodd said I think so And so he did some measurements he measured baby Dodds foot he measured the space between his foot in the bass drum and he comes back with a Prototype for what's first called a low-boy Which is basically the hi-hat and it didn't work and baby Dodds said no and then he raised it up Eight inches or whatever brought it back it worked But baby Dodds hated it and never wanted to have anything to do with it again Which is you know, he would have been but it of course by the time we get to the 1930s You know Papa Joe Jones with the Basie band, you know creates mix the hi-hat just so central to the whole kit, but This episode is brought to you by Pocket Percussion in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania right outside of Philly They cater their inventory to suit everyone including beginners who need a great affordable starter drum set up to professionals Who need specific new or vintage gear? Pocket Percussion sells used gear Stands symbols custom drums snares hand percussion vintage gear plus hard-to-find parts and everyday necessities In addition to buying selling and taking trades. He also does great repairs and re-heading Learn more at pocket-percussion.com and keep up with their newest gear on Instagram and Facebook at pocket percussion Yeah, and the hi-hat I was gonna say You know, let's let's not go down that road too far because that is such a debated I mean, there's there's who invented it first. There's I have an episode with Rob cook It was a great historian who brought in skip Rutherford who had inventions and stuff But but there was the sock symbol. There was the Charleston symbol. There was the low boy there was it was like it's almost like It's just like things were just going to happen Yeah, like they needed the right people to test it and and it's neat to see these pictures But even looking at photos of like baby Dodds With kid Ori's original Creole jazz band bass drums huge I mean, it's up to his chest But also the snare is like so far off to the side. Yeah, and it's like it's it just takes refinement But again, you you we've all had that in our lives where you do something that's you're just used to doing it Until someone kind of says, oh do it like this. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was easier. Yeah You know, and then they start adding all the you know what they called contraptions. Yes wood blocks bells Chinese or Tyco Tom Tom Tom drums Yep, all that Which some people suggest is where the term trap drums comes from although I've heard Contradicting stories about where trap drums comes from but yeah, I mean contraption is typically the like accepted, you know And and and let's jump in here a little bit is when was this starting to leak out of New Orleans to the rest of the world The rest of the country at least, you know Yeah, really in broader American culture you have the the great migration taking place where African Americans are Leaving the South and they're moving in you know, massive numbers to northern cities for to escape the oppressive history of the American South and for opportunity and so, you know, you have Now King Oliver going on the riverboat first and then going to Chicago and then Louis follows him and then baby Dodds follows him and then Paul Barber in makes the same trip and Zootie Singleton makes the same trip So 1920s and then you have these, you know, you got three drummers there in Chicago. You have Paul Barber and baby Dodds and Zootie Singleton, you know blowing these just like big spider Bec is being blown away by Louis Armstrong. Yeah, you know the drummers are being blown away by these guys coming from New Orleans that are Doing something that's never been done before. I mean really kind of like pioneers, you know Yeah, well, let me just one thing. I think it's important because you mentioned it and kind of we went on another direction But that bass drum orientation. Yeah, it's so important in New Orleans music You know as hurling says hurling Riley says from the bottom up is the way we think about it and you know this I'm not going to quote it exactly right, but a Young drummer today who's up in New York from New Orleans Joe Dyson you know, he talks about the the groove Inhabits the kind of lower end of the drum and I'm like wow I love the way he's like Personifying the groove is like inhabiting somewhere in the lower frequencies of the drum set, you know But that whole focus on the bass drum and of course playing the big four on the bass drum You know is the New Orleans sound and you know that morphs by the time you get to the swing era You know where it's where the it goes to the hi-hat and the ride cymbal where they're where they're keeping time up there But the bass drum is where the you know the New Orleans thing and it's coming out of those parades like so many Young drummers talk about just or drummers talk about when they were young You could hear that bass drum coming, you know when the parades were coming and that yeah, you know, that's the key there That that's a much. Yeah. I mean it's to make people march. I had the pleasure of seeing Joe lasty and Walter Harris at Preservation Hall performing when I was there. Yeah, and man It's just this like it makes your body move a certain way where you're you're moving forward You're kind of chugging, but you're also they're kind of like it's a sway to it. I mean, there's it's it's like nothing else Yeah, yeah, it's it's absolutely unique to this city and you know, it's it's You can recognize it much easier than you can describe it in words You know, it's kind of ineffable in some ways. It's because it's got that spirit thing that goes back to Congo Square you know even the you know, I the the Spiritual thing is really important. I think The picture in that opens the book of the St. Philip Church of God in Christ Which features a number of women. There's a bass drum. There's a snare drum There's a there's a symbols and there's a tambourine And they're playing these rhythms in this this little church on St. Philip Street Which is directly across the street from Congo Square where the original Congo Square was which today is Armstrong Park One of the things I loved about that picture is that the history of that church By the 19th step picture was taken in the 1950s by a famous modernist artist named Raulston Crawford He was a abstract painter and he was also a photographer and he moved to New Orleans and somehow The city was extremely segregated, but somehow he gained access to African American culture Here and took so many great pictures jazz and otherwise and he took this picture in this church, but by the 1960s Shannon Powell as a little boy moves into the house next door his aunt and grandmother lived there and He still lives in that house today and But as a little boy, he heard those rhythms of that spiritual rhythm from that church and he Started going in there and that's where he learned to play tambourine and that was his first experiences on the drum set We're in that church and that's really where you know, he his Initiated because he's such a great in the pocket drummer and hurlin has the same experience out and Joe lasty Hurlin and Joe lasty are cousins right their grandfather had a spiritual church out in the 9th Ward and Frank Deacon Frank lasty was in Youth home With Louis Armstrong, you know Louis Armstrong was sent to this colored waves home He was arrested for shooting off a Pistol to celebrate. I don't know if it was New Year's Eve or 4th of July But he and that's where he got his first cornet lessons in that home Deacon Frank lasty was in the home with him And so his first musical training was in that home But when Frank lasty gets out and and goes out into the world in New Orleans His focus is not on jazz, but on the church and he is the one who introduced drums to the spiritual church And that's where hurlin and Joe lasty You know had their initial experiences. So that spiritual dimension, you know that That's communicated through the drums is really important to New Orleans music also, you know, one thing I want to also mention too is Going back when we were talking about the improvisation of Building instruments just putting things together kind of just you know Using what you can to find things and you talked about people making shakers and all these kind of things When my experience in New Orleans and and seeing you know things about Mardi Gras Indians and all this kind of things was it's like many many percussionists with All these different small instruments get put together to make one larger unit Yeah, so you're you're not like building and I mean obviously the drum set kind of shrunk that but like you would say Oh, I found this this little like washboard. I found this part of fencing that I can scratch on It's like that doesn't sound great by itself. It could sound really cool, but it seems like it's a very communal Let's I'm gonna make this this will be my thing you take that can and put something in it You take this very communal very for the greater good of the music Yeah, you know and I brought that up with up because there's also a Community of drummers here and one of the things that I learned from doing this project is that they taught each other You know, there's there seems to be You know, I read an interview with Ed Blackwell the great modern jazz drummer and free jazz innovator who did so much You know ground-breaking work with on it Coleman and he talks about like, you know, he said in New York you'd go to visit somebody and Their practice and they stop because they don't want you Get their stuff he says here, you know, it would be okay man sit down Let's play this together and this is a lot of stories in the book about drummers teaching each other And and playing together And you know and I want to mention that to a Donis Rose Who's a comes from a family of his father and his grandfather were both professional drummers here It's his father still his father's the snare drummer in Tremay breastband Vernon Vernon Severin But he said yeah, well think back to Congo Square there were you know groups of drummers of hundreds of drummers playing together So of course there's that your job is to make other people sound good and to make each other sound good You know, there's that that's communal kind of spirit That's really important in New Orleans drumming that thing you mentioned also another thing I thought I read from Blackwell was when he you know He he was the drummer for the pianist Randy Weston for many years And he went to live in Africa with Randy Weston in the 1960s And he said he noticed when he would watch traditional African drumming that he would walk around the group and See that each guy was playing something that was basically very simple But when you put it together it had this incredible complexity to it He said it reminded him of the cats in New Orleans when they would play together, you know, sure Yeah, it's a very special New Orleans is just a special place in general I mean, it's just the culture and the people and from my experience with the whole thing Which I talked about years ago in the podcast of going and hanging out with Stanton Moore and seeing the Rolling Stones and meeting Charlie Watts and going to Preservation Hall Truly one of the best, you know trips of my life. You can't really that will never be 2019 yes 2019. Yeah, you know Charlie came to drumsville When we in 2019 he was they were supposed to the Stones was supposed to play the jazz inheritance festival that spring and something happen with Mick Jagger's health and Charlie's drum tech Don McCauley had been in touch with Greg and when they came back They did that they were rebooked for the Superdom that July Um Macaulay called Greg and the hurricane Barry was coming. Yeah, so the city was shut down, but we opened the museum Greg I and a couple of the young women who work at the museum and brought Charlie in and you know, he spent the whole afternoon and just studied that exhibit and you know, I tried to narrate it for him, but Basically everything I said he said yeah, I know yeah, like yeah, he really is a scholar of him So so cool to have him there, but you know to talk about the reach of New Orleans drumming how far it's gone Yes, we talk about baby Dodds going to Chicago and revolutionizing, you know introducing how this this is the instrument and this is how we play it now You guys can take it further, right and those Innovations that happened outside New Orleans were absorbed by New Orleans drummers, but New Orleans drummers also kept innovating You know, it's like I said, so you had Blackwell. I mean, he's pioneering free jazz drumming I mean, that's that's huge and you know, I one of the things I found is that you know Ornette Coleman was here in the early 50s He was Stranded because he got fired because the band didn't like you know He's trying to do some of his free stuff and he hung out with the lastie family and Met Blackwell and that's really where the concept of free jazz drumming developed and then eventually Blackwell and Ellis Marsalis and Harold Bates went to Los Angeles to play with Ornette So Ornette makes his big big splash. He's got Billy Higgins on drums On the first album and then he goes to New York to the five spot But then you know for whatever reason Billy Higgins can't get a you know what these to call a cabaret card to play in Places that sell alcohol in New York City. Sure So a lot of the times you got to sense people say like well Ornette Called Blackwell to come fill in for Billy Higgins, you know take Billy Higgins place But really Blackwell was coming to take his gig back I mean he was the one that was the first With Ornette, you know so anyway, you know, but those kind of innovations went on with New Orleans drummers Yeah through the years Yeah for sure and one thing before I forget I want to mention too because we're just talking about Charlie Watts That's just the perfect example of how obviously he was way. I mean I was close to his death I mean that was two years before he passed away very sadly, but so talking way way You know earlier in his life and earlier in this interview when you were talking about spasm bands It's a direct correlation to the British like the skiffle groups, right? They're making their instruments out of you know wash wash tubs and bass and things You know, it's like that's a great. I'm sure they're influenced by all that noise sound and yeah You know, you know when you start doing research on a certain topic, you know It's things just kind of fall in place sometimes so you know when I was initially working on the Outline for the drum exhibit for Greg, you know, I I described to this Rock music magazine called goldmine, right? It's like a collector's rock magazine and Ringo star on the cover, right? And so the interview with Ringo is the question is what rock bands did you hear in Liverpool before the Beatles and he said none because there weren't any but I remember two shows sister Rosetta Thorpe and The George Lewis band from New Orleans and he said he had a drummer and that guy showed me What a drum kit was supposed to be he said he only had a bass drum a snare drum and a cymbal and when he wanted to Play the Tom Fills he leaned down and played them on the bass drum And he said that guy showed me a taught me a lesson And he said you'll never see Ringo play a 15-piece drum set because I learned it from that guy and I was like, okay Who is that guy, right? So I really started asking hurling. I asked Stanton I went over to Tulane and asked Lynn Abbott the who was the archivist over there and then finally I realized that George Lewis who had a huge Extended career in the traditional jazz revival used the same drummer for over a decade and his name was Joe Watkins and So I found the name he was a traditional jazz drummer in New Orleans and he later on eating his life He played at preservation Hall, but When I was searching for him in the Archive photos I find this photo of Joe Watkins on a train On his way to Liverpool To play the gig that Ringo saw and play at and if you think about it That was 1959 five years later Ed Sullivan February 1964 that Ludwig set with the drop T Beatle logo up on that riser You know the next day more drum kits were sold than any other day probably in history of people one you know and so and It's can be traced directly back to Joe Watkins and the New Orleans beat, you know And and I really said I wonder you know the Joe Watkins Probably had no clue when he got back on that train of how far he had extended the reach of that New Orleans beat, you know Yeah, you know, I think that's true though of You know for you like music historian professor me doing the podcast you never know who's listening You never know who hears it and gets influenced Obviously, I'm not comparing us to the Beatles on Ed Sullivan changing the world, but yeah It's it's really important though that just everything you do. I mean sure that was just like you know Obviously, he was probably excited to be Overseas, you know playing in Liverpool, but you just you never know man. It's yeah, it all trickles back I think that's the importance of New Orleans and the reason why people should study it and know more about it Because I think there's still lots of secrets in New Orleans and the music and to learn it from it Where should people go to check out the exhibit? The New Orleans Jazz Museum is in the old US mint You know is actually a mint in the 19th century there. It's become the jazz museum the drums Well, when I when Greg asked me to do the exhibit, he said, yeah, we'll probably have it up for about three months And so here we are Four years later. Yeah, I'm like that currently working with David Cooney in the music curator and One of the curatorial assistants Adrian Bird the three of us are revamping the exhibit to um, I Just better reflect the contents of the book And so we're doing that it was going to be ready by mid-December We'll have another opening night opening night part two And so and there's other great so many other great exhibits at the museum and currently there's a big Louis Prima exhibit there There's a small exhibit to Danny Barker. There's a photo exhibit to Monk Boudreau On the Golden Eagle Indians tribe So it's really a very cool Exhibits right on the edge of the French Quarter right behind the French market and then of course the book is on sale From LSU press and also on Amazon and Other bookstores egg if there's still bookstores out there. Yeah, but anyway, you know And you know, we there's a lot more to the book than what we what we've talked about profiles of so many influential drummers one of the things that both about the book and the exhibit that Has kind of stressed me out a little bit is that Just by their very nature of being an exhibit or a book space is limited so I always say Both the exhibit and the book are representative rather than comprehensive because there's so many other drummers That should be included that aren't so, you know, there's profiles of Baby Dodds and Zootie Singleton and Louis Barber and and Psy Fraser and Frank Lasty and Ray Bedouk another very interesting character from the Bob Crosby Orchestra, you know a big star in the 1930s like Gene Krupa or Buddy Rich or somebody like that And he was a solid New Orleans drummer and Yeah, yeah, that's interesting because And I mean this is like something, you know, they're throwing in right close to the end, but like you you do there's like an African-American drummer kind of connotation that goes sometimes with the New Orleans feel but there's a lot of great Drummers like, you know, who would be white guys like Ray Bedouk and then obviously Stanton Moore who's great and many many more Johnny Bedokovic in there. Yes, and and the other thing that struck me Which we're working on this and I tried to deal with is that Women are now drummers in New Orleans, you know So much of the the drum exhibit starts with that same Philip picture, right of those women in that church and you don't get Any more women in the narrative until the the last part of the exhibit the extensions and variations and not that they weren't drumming here Because they were drumming in churches. They were women drumming in Marching bands for carnival parades. There were women Drumming in stage bands in the public schools and things like that But I really wanted to make a concerted effort to acknowledge the women that are up, you know I called it. It's about time, you know, that women really got recognized and and and the profiles are really interest the women's stories are really interesting and You know and a lot of their Their drumming is similar is the same drumming that we're talking about but their stories are totally because you know drumming is very male dominated So, you know, they're up against Now she's a woman. She really can't be because I guess there's this perceived Physicality sometimes about drumming, but I think the six profiles that I have in the book show that that's certainly not the case Yeah, and it's interesting. I just opened right to I hope I say it right Mayumi Shara Yeah, yeah, when she said there's a picture here She says when I saw a picture of baby Dodds playing his drum set with a taiko Tom Tom I was like wow that Tom is from my culture in the Far East It's pretty crazy. I mean it really does. It's just like where does it end? Yeah, the influence Yeah, and you know her journey to New Orleans. I mean she can't she wanted to be a jazz She was a taiko drummer a traditional Japanese drummer and she Wanted to be a jazz drummer and people refused to teach her in Japan, you know, they just said no I The line was I don't have a vision of a I don't have an image of a woman drummer a jazz drummer And she says I will change your image, you know, good, you know good Which I think we all need to make a concerted effort of that. I mean it is the drum drums typically are a When you visualize it people think men and there's so many great female drummers And I think it's cool that you had that included in the Exhibit and the book and and I will put all the links for it in the description per usual But I just got to tell people and I hope people trust me at this point that I got to say this book is Like a coffee table book that anyone can open up the quality of it You know, there's a lot of great books that I've reviewed and stuff that are kind of I don't know even more smaller novel type books, but this thing is like a It would it looks cool in your like living room on your table. I mean, it's it's it's got a it's got a feel to it Man, I mean this is it's great. Yeah, the LSU press did a fantastic job with it and the art designer Just beautiful work just really I was beyond my wildest dreams to beat the honest with the end you know, it's all over a hundred and I think 130 pictures in the book and You know, but some of them are very very rare pictures that haven't been seen before Some of them are famous pictures, but it's a compelling story Very your drama or not really, you know, yeah a music fan any music fan would If you go to jazz fest and you like the music here at jazz fest, you'll like this book. Yes That's a good way to put it. Awesome. Well, Bob, this has been really really cool So I want to before we wrap up. I want to first off I want to tell people that if they like this there is another episode episode 38 Way back from February 2020 It's the episode of the pot of my show is it's called New Orleans Jazz History with Stanton Moore Walter Harris Joe Lasty and Greg Lambuzzi and that is a cool episode where I got to hang out at Stanton Moore's studio space and it was one of the only ones I've actually recorded live in person the rest of them are all like this but People can check that out. I'll put a link in the description But big thank you to Greg Lambuzzi for getting us connected and just kind of being a good guy and he's always kind of an ally in many regards David Kunian, obviously for his help, but Bob, thank you for my pleasure. I appreciate you doing this. It's great. I love talking about it and turning people onto this Oh, it's so cool. So Everyone listening. Bob is kind enough. He's gonna hang out and we're gonna do a patreon bonus episode And this is a cool one a little different from drumming, but still drum related. We're going to talk about Dr. John who's a great new orleans musician ambassador kind of promoter of all things new orleans, especially the drummers And uh, just awesome. I love dr. John. So i'm excited to talk about that So if you want to hear that go to patreon.com slash drum history podcast or go on my website You can find it and bob's episode will be there and also like I think 70 other bonus episodes as well. So Well, bob, my friend, thank you so much for doing this and it's been a real pleasure to talk to you today Well, thank you for taking the time