 Hello, and welcome to the Drum History Podcast. I'm your host, Bart Van Der Zee, and today we are joined by Mr. Mark Griffith to talk about the incredible drummers of the late great Wayne Shorter. Mark, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Bart. It's a pleasure to be here, man. I've been a fan of the podcast for a long time. Oh, thank you. I mean, your work is incredible. I'll tell people up front, you are currently the editor-in-chief slash director of content at Modern Drummer, which, holy cow, that's kind of a dream job. But you've been a writer for M.D. for a long time. You're a performer and also an educator with a ton of students. So you know what you're doing. Usually, you're on the other side interviewing people. So today, we're going to flip it around and talk to you. Sure. No sweat. So, well, right off the bat, before we even get into it, I just want to say that I think what is happening with Modern Drummer is really cool. It's still going forward. There is a man involved. Obviously, the whole team is great, but you've been writing with M.D. for a long time. When was the first article you wrote for Modern Drummer? I wrote the Artist on Track series for Ron Spagnardi in the 90s. Oh, wow. I forget exactly what year, but Ron came into a gig that I was on and started talking to me at the bar. And I didn't know who he was. And we started talking about drums. And he said, hey, do you think he'd like to write for a magazine? And I said, sure. And then he introduced himself. And I said, oh, you're that guy. That's cool. I mean, he was great. It goes to show that you never know. And I've had that with the podcast. Like, you never know who's listening or you never know. It's like, be cool to everyone. You never know if you meet someone at a drum show or something. You never know who people are. You should be nice to them in general, but it can't always help you in a business standpoint as well. Just be cool to people. I've had the good fortune to interview all of my heroes and most of the all-time greats. And they're all cool guys. They're all just hardworking musicians that might have had a little bit of luck here and there, but can all play their butts off and are all great guys. That's something that everyone should know. That's good to know. It's kind of that never-meet-your-heroes kind of thing. But I think with drummers, it's a little different. We all love drums. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I've heard that never-meet-your-heroes thing a lot. I've met most of mine and got a chance to work with a lot of them and man, they're great. They're great. I don't know if it's drum thing or what. This drum fraternity that we've got, this thing that we have is pretty strong and for some reason. I always think it's because we're all drummers and we've all, at some point, had to bring our drums in through the kitchen, stick to the floors, walk around the dishwashers, make sure you don't bang into a waitress and then load it out while it's snowing or raining and you're soaking wet and sweat. And everybody's done that. I mean, Ringo's done that. Of course. I mean, everybody's and Elvin did it and Tony did it and Vinny did it and weckled it. So, I mean, yeah, I think that's the thing that bonds us all together. We all know that underneath all of the shiny stuff that some people might have to present an image, we're all just hardworking drummers. Yeah. And that's pretty cool. It's hard to skip that phase. Yeah. I think there's a few that have, but most people don't know how that works. Yeah. I'm sure that's cool. They're cool too, though. You know, we're all, we're all drummers. Sure. Speaking of that, I believe a non-drummer, but I want to give a big shout out and a thank you to Bob Cataliotti, who wrote the Drummersville book and the New Orleans stuff, which he's been on the show. He got us connected, which he's a big music fan and an incredible brain for this kind of stuff. And he knew that we would gel well together and you'd be a great addition on the show. So, thank you to Bob, Robert, Bob, for doing that. I was lucky enough to interview him for his book and for the museum in New Orleans. And every once in a while, through MD, I come across a book where someone sends me a book that, you know, it's more, I think deserves a little bit more than just a review or a little thumbnail blurb or something like that. And that was one of them. And so, I couldn't wait to talk to Bob about how he wrote the book and all that. And it was fantastic. I got to make it down there and see the museum because it sounds like they're doing great stuff. I've been and it's incredible. I saw it in 2019 and it is well worth it. And, you know, New Orleans itself, we all know has such an amazing history that it's well worth visiting. So, all right, Mark, well, today we're here to talk about a great topic. We connected and then we said, well, what are we going to talk about? You said, let me think about it. And somewhat recently, Mr. Wayne Shorter passed away who is a jazz legend, maybe not like an everyday household name like Miles Davis or something like that, but someone who's extremely impactful as a saxophonist composer legend in the world of jazz. And his list of drummers, you said, is drum history itself. And you have had the chance to talk with, interview some of them throughout the years. So, for maybe people who've never heard of him, let me preface this with, I can't really include many musical examples if you're listening to this. It gets taken down. YouTube gets it dinged for copyright issues. There's problems. So, go listen on your own. I'm sure we'll name some tracks and things today, but maybe give a little description of Wayne and then we'll get into these iconic drummers. Well, I think a lot of drummers have heard him and a lot of musicians have heard him without knowing it. He was the saxophonist on a session. It's the only time he played with Steely Dan, but he's on Asia. He's on the Asia track. It's him and Gad going back and forth on Asia. He's also the saxophonist on the Don Henley track, the end of the innocence, that there wasn't a drummer on that track, but he plays beautifully on that. He's been on a million John Mitchell records, some soundtrack work. He played on the soundtrack for Glenn Gary Glenn Ross with Jeff Piccaro. He was also featured on the soundtrack for The Fugitive. So, most people heard him, but I think a lot of people don't know that they've heard him. Most people know that he began his professional career in the Art Blakey Jazz Messengers Band, but before that he played in Maynard Ferguson's band in 1959 with a great drummer named Frankie Dunlop, who a lot of people know because he went on to play with Monk. And then most drummers relate to Wayne through the great work he did in the great Second Miles Dave Elvis Quintet with Ron and Tony and Herberby and that whole band from 63 to 69. And then if that wasn't enough, he co-led Weather Report for however long Weather Report was a band, but him and Joe Zaw and Yulia Miroslav-Vitosh started Weather Report in 1970. And you could easily just talk about the drummers of Weather Report because there was a ton of them. That's been suggested as an episode. And this is kind of a new concept of an episode where once you do this, I mean, we could do other ones down the road. Well, the weird thing is, we'll get back to the MD thing for a second. I wrote two pieces for MD 20 plus years ago. One was the drummers of Frank Zappa and one was the great organ drummers of all time, the drummers that played in the organ trios. And when I was working on those, I figured out in my mind a mantra saying whatever you want to call it, but that great drumming lives within great music. And then hopefully great music lives within great drumming as well. But that's all up to us. And I started to do this with students. I started to have them find an artist or a band or a band leader that had had a lot of different drummers in their band and stuck the drums through the evolution of the gig instead of just finding drummers to like and finding drummers to dig on and transcribe and things like that. And amazingly, there's a lot of those bands and those band leaders, Pearl Jam. You can study the evolution of drums since Pearl Jam began through the drummers in that band. But I mean, if you want to go way back in history, you could do that through the drummers of Count Basie. You read my mind. Yeah, you could do that through the drummers of Miles, or Train, or Monk, or Michael Brecker, or John Schofield, or Chick Corea, and then in Rock, the drummers are Jeff Beck, the drummers of Pearl Jam, the drummers of Sting, Prince, Zappa, whatever. So I sort of stumbled upon that and I use it a lot with students to to help them. And what it does is it, it lets you hear different drummers, different great drummers takes on the same idea. You know, it's great to hear the same drummers play, you know, the same tune. You know, you can do that with Sting, you know, it's great to hear Stuart Copeland, and Omar Hakim, and Manon Anu, and Vinny all play the same song, you know, slightly different in their own, in their own. Yeah, yeah, because, you know, because as young drummers, that's what that's what most young drummers are asked, are asked to do, unless we're in unless we're fortunate enough to join a great original's band or something like that. So, you know, young drummers, when they're coming up, have to interpret songs that have already been recorded, just like a lot of these great drummers have done. So why not learn from the greats that have done that? And in Wayne, and in Wayne's case, I can't find any musician in music history, who's played with more of the great drummers, jazz, fusion, rock, whatever, then Wayne shorter, he's played with everybody. And I've had the good fortune to interview a lot of them. And whenever I had the chance, I would ask them all about working with Wayne, and, and, and advice that he gave them on drumming, on music, etc, etc, etc. And if you know, and if, if, and if you know anything about Wayne, he didn't speak in real straight lines. He was a real sage that sort of spoken and like dots and stuff like that. In fact, on the cover of next month's modern drummer, I interviewed Terry Lynn Carrington and Terry. Oh man, he's awesome. He played, played with Wayne for a lot. And we talked a lot about Wayne. And, and she, she explained, you know, I'll just, I'll just give, just give a little tidbit of what she said. She said, you know, that Wayne and her be, of course, those guys just play life. They don't play music. They play life on their instruments. And it's a pretty unique way of saying it and seeing it. So, so, and all of these guys along the way have had really great stories about Wayne. I got to meet Wayne a couple times. I never really got to interview him. I'm sort of thankful about that. Because I do know he sort of speaks in a very unique way and getting him to directly and getting him to directly answer a question was all, was often a little difficult. So there's a great book out on him written by an author named Michelle Mercer. And, and it's a fantastic book. And when I was, and when I first heard, heard about it, I, I tried to reach out to her and sit and just, and just wish her good luck, because I don't know how one would sit down with Wayne for a couple of days and write his life story because as one, as, you know, as wonderful as it was, he would have to speak in straight lines. And yeah, where you kind of want to go, just like, okay, can you just answer the question? Right, exactly. Exactly. He was, he was a wonderful, you know, he was a one, a wonderful musician and guy. I happen to live in Northern New Jersey. I'm a little north of Newark, New Jersey, and he grew up on the Newark Jazz scene. And there's still a lot of guys on the Newark Jazz scene that knew him and played with him. And whenever I heard that, you know, the first thing out of my mouth was telling me about Wayne, you know, nice. Yeah. Yeah. And when I heard he died, you know, one of the first things I thought of is this, you know, because the drum, there's a Wayne shorter, you know, the drum, you know, I mean, the podcast called the drum history, but you know, you know, music history is drum history. Yes. Yes. And no one played more music than Wayne. No, it makes perfect sense. And I'm excited to get this because from you, because there really isn't like, if you type in, you know, Wayne shorter drummers, there's not too much of a definitive list. And unless you start, you know, looking at album credits, it's sort of hard to piece together. So I'm excited to learn from you. But before we even start, I love what you just said, just to back up a little bit about the concept of like, take Count Basie, for example, where it's almost like every drummer that comes through is a becomes a legend. I don't know if it's they were a legend before or after because they went through that like boot camp. But yeah, why? And this is again, a very broad question. But in your experience with this, what is it that makes it that there is a typical turnover with drummers in these types of groups where they go where there's there's a rotating sort of drummer after their tenure? Is it like, I'm going to go to the next gig? Is it difficulty with personalities in general? I know again, it's very broad. But what's your thoughts on that? Wow, I would have to think about that. That's a great question. I don't know. It might be different in every case. Yeah, yeah. I think I think I think great band leaders and I think great musicians slash band leaders are often very itchy people. And and they want to keep evolving. And they and and sometimes changing the drummer in the band is a pretty good way to to move things forward, because as we all know, the drums drive everything that happens. So I mean, that might be it. I I don't know. I've never thought about that. But sure. No, that's a good answer. That's the first thing that comes to mind. You know, so so so many of these legendary, you know, band leaders that we talk about are our little itchy musically and they want to keep pushing. So, you know, you know, clear out the band every every century or something sort of works, I guess. Yeah. And the music changes. And maybe this guy's got more of that rock feel that I want to get now that's the 70s or something. Yeah, you know, they hear the next they hear the next step in the next drummer. And and they go from there. But that's yeah, that's that's a real interesting question. I've never really I've never gone on that side of what we're talking about here to think about that. Yeah. But I wonder also what that conversation is like, is it awkward? Do you hurt their feelings to be like, hey, Omar Hakim, I'm going to now move on and go to someone Vinny's coming back in or you're not going to get the call on this album. Oh, you know what? Oh, you know what's weird? And I was just talking to somebody about this yesterday. I'm also I'm also a little bit of a sports nut. And like head and like there's a saying with head coaches that they're hired to be fired. You know, you know, no head coach spends his entire career with one team. You know, it just doesn't happen. You know, eventually it's their job to move on to the next thing. And and in music, especially in the freelance career, we've all been let go fired, not asked to come back, etc, etc, etc. And that's just part of it. And and I think that when that happens, you know, there's rarely hard feelings and if there are, they don't really last that long. But it's business. Yeah. And you know, and I think musicians are hired to be fired, you know, like coaches sometimes because there's very few bands that have stayed consistent through their through their entire careers. Yeah, there was that's more rare. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. All right. All that being said, let's get to the meat of it now. And I think that's a good way to lead up to it to give a frame of this kind of how this works. But so let's go chronological order. Who do we start with? Well, you know, like I said, you know, Wayne's first gig was with the Maynard Ferg gets in big band. Him and Joe's out and you know, we're actually in the band at the same time and they would meet 1510 or 15 years later to to form the report. But that was a great big band with the great Frankie Dunlop, who who played drums in that band. And and Frankie Dunlop is just one of the great big band drum members of history. And like I said, a lot of people know him from Monk's band, but he had this really playful, playful approach, sort of simplistic, but sort of quirky. I hate the word simplistic, but a little quirky and was just this fantastic drummer drummer that every jazz drummer I think has to really know. And that was the first professional that Wayne shorter worked with. And and then Wayne went on and and and Frankie went on and Joe's out and you'll also went on. So that's so that's 59. That's that's that's before Blakey. And then you know, and then also in 59, you know, Wayne got Wayne got his chance to be a lead leader. And on, I believe his first record is a leader called introduced called introducing Wayne Schroeder. He plays with Jim, he plays with Jimmy Cobb. And and they sounded and no one ever really puts those two guys together because they didn't interact or intersect in Miles's band. But but but but Wayne and Jimmy Cobb sounded unbelievable to get the other Wayne also would would record again with with Jim E. Cobb with Bobby Timmons. And I'm not sure which year I could look it up, but it was also in the 60s. And and and that was the second time he recorded with Jim E. Cobb, which is an interesting stutty because we all sort of think of Wayne as playing with these, you know, fantastically busy drummers like Elvin and Tony and all the guys he would play with and wet the report. But he but when Wayne was playing with Jim E. Cobb, it I mean, it was just I mean, it was magic, you know, and and and there's two fantastic recordings of that. What are those recordings? I feel like it's good to kind of if you have the names so people can kind of do a little homework on their own. Sure. The the Wayne the Wayne record was called Introduce Introducing Wayne Shorter in nineteen in 1960. And then the record he did with Bobby Timmons was 1966 called. And that's if you know the name people can find it, I'm sure. Exactly. And yeah. So are they in is this I would assume just because of the time in these players? Sure. Or is this very New York centric at this point? Yes. Yes. Yeah, they're they're all perfect. They're all they're all they're all real only New York centric jazz jazz recordings. Wow. And then with with playing with Art Blakey, that had to be an incredible he clearly knows how to like interact with drummers. Yeah. Yeah. Has an appreciation for it. Yeah. And then, you know, and then in 1960 on on on Wayne's second soul, in his second solo record called Second Genesis, he hires Blakey and and and and it and it looks like that could be around the first time he plays with Blakey and he and then he also in 1960 did join the jazz messengers made a string of unbelievably wonderful records with art that that can sort of be separated into a few different classific agents. The the early ones are sort of, you know, real inside and just straight ahead swinging. And then by the time they got to the end with records like free for all, you get through and stuff like that, the front line had gotten a little bit bigger. Wayne was writing a little bit more and the rhythm section got a little bit looser and a little bit more adventuresome, if you want to say, say that word. But, you know, if there's any, if there's any drummers who haven't heard the track free for all from the Art Blakey record free for all, it's one of the most exciting jazz recordings ever. That's good. Blakey and Wayne are just all wrapped up in in each other and they caught some magic on tape. So that's a that's a really unique take. I love getting the you kind of need sometimes with jazz and any music in general, if you're just digging into something, you need those. Check this song out. Absolutely. There's so much stuff out there. There's so much stuff out there. It's hard to know where to start. That's why that's why I developed that whole thing about finding a band leader and studying a little bit of drums that way. Because, you know, I need to come up with a name for that approach. But, you know, maybe you or someone else can help me devise a name for that. But just. But it's really smart. It's it's almost, I don't know, in a weird way, my brain immediately thinks of almost like a like the visual of like a family tree where it branches out. But it's a little different. Now, did you ever get to interview Art Blakey? He died in 90. So that was kind of before your. No, I got to I got to see him twice at the end of his life. I got to speak to him, speak to him a little bit, but I never got to review him. And I sort, you know, I sort of wish I had it. I mean, he was not before my time, but he was before my interviewing time. That's what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, I never got to really learn a lot about him. But he's an interesting, I mean, if you can get somebody on that can really talk about Art Blakey's life, I mean. Well, his son, I've been trying to get his son, I believe, Takashi on. And it's just scheduling takes can take sometimes it can take a day. Sometimes it can take five years. Absolutely. You know how it goes. So. All right. So we've got Frankie Dunlop, Jimmy Cobb, Art Blakey. Believe I'm not missing. Maybe a few others in there that I'm missing. But where do we go from there? Well, you know, you know, and then, you know, and then strangely on Wayne's third record, which is a record called waning moments, his third solo record, I think he he calls upon a Chicago drummer named Marshall named Marshall Thompson. And Marshall was actually the singer in the shy lights laid on in his life, but he was also a jazz drum drum drummer. So so along so along the way, there are these little I mean, he didn't Wayne didn't only just play with the cream of the crop, the best guys ever, you know, Marshall, Marshall Thompson went on to make a great deal of real of real good records as a side person. But he's not one of the one of the the names that everyone recognizes in jazz. But that's more realistic because they can't all be, you know, me Cubs and our bleakies. And it's it's suspicious if they are it's like, where's the normal right? So, you know, so, so, you know, then I mean, after several years in Blake Ake's band, Miles sort of plucks him away from Blake Ake to to join the second great quintet with her behind Ron Carter, Tony Williams, and, and Wayne, and, and they make that whole string of legendary, you know, records with Tony from from live in Berlin to ESP, and live at the plug nickel and Nefertiti and Miles Smiles, etc, etc. So I think there's eight. I think there's eight of those records all the way up to Wayne being included on in a silent way and on bitches brew. I believe it's on bitches brew. So, so I mean, you could just look and, and there have been a lot of stuff that he's done of this stuff, you know, of that of the great quintet of tone, you know, and drum wise, they've focused on Tony, but it's hard to separate that that that that great quintet. It's hard to look at Tony without looking at Ron, without looking at Herbie without looking at Wayne. So that's sort of, and then of course, to look at Miles, you know, but Wayne's Wayne's in her action with Tony and in that group was just was just something else. Ironically, Tony also hired Wayne to be on his first record as a leader called spring. Okay. Which was, I believe 1964. I think that was 1964 as well. Wow. If not 1965. So, so there was a strong, there was a really strong bond between Tony and Wayne. I got to talk to Tony a lot about Wayne and there was a strong kinship, brotherhood there. They, it seemed that they both really felt music in the same way. And, and Tony's tone and Tony's tone, it will, you know, so it doesn't get much higher praise than that. No, no, that there's a special bond. And I think it comes with mutual respect of, you know, beyond just playing, they clearly had, he has a connection to rhythm players in some capacity and not a man of the people. Is that typically someone that gets along with drummers? Yeah, exactly. Now, Wayne as a composer and, you know, the guy putting the notes on the page, he clearly has a way of writing things that work with great drummers. Do you think that he, did he in his writing style leave a lot of room for drummers to do what they wanted? Or was he pretty specific and I want you to do this? Through looking at Wayne's music, it seems to me that he left a lot of space for a lot of guys to be themselves, which is even more interesting to us as drummers because it didn't, because it didn't seem like he was, he was telling guys exactly what to play and exactly how to play. And I think he probably learned that from Miles, you know, when Miles would hire, would create a band, he would hire guys to be themselves, you know, and then let them be themselves. And I think when Wayne did records, I think that's, I think that's sort of how he chose musicians and then just let them be them, you know, and that, you know, yeah, yeah, you know, and that leads, you know, and then that leads up to this, you know, those three 1964 records that, that he made with Elvin, that that's, that's where a lot of drummers start listening to Wayne, you know, in 64, he made Nightdreamer, Juju and Speak No Evil with Elvin that a lot of people consider some of Elvin's greatest work. And some lead and, you know, and some legendary songs, V-5-4-4, Speak No Evil, Yes or No, Juju, on Nightdreamer, there was a song called Armageddon that Wayne would play throughout his life. And, and those records are just, I mean, it's small group jazz from the 60s perfected. Yeah, absolutely. And to hear him playing with Elvin was, you know, was different from hearing him play with Tony. Yeah, I was going to say Elvin's got his own, it's a different style, whereas Tony's more, I don't know. It's hard to put words to it. It's fine tuned or, but Elvin's more like pouring out of him feeling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, so that, you know, you know, so that made Wayne play and made those, and made those tunes sort of present themselves in different ways. Yeah. You know, and then, and then, and then ironically, the drum drummer during the 60s that Wayne played with the most was an El, was an Elvin or Tony, but was Joe Chambers was the great Joe Chambers who was still alive and still playing really great. He's a great composer. I've, I've, I've recorded some of his music and played with him a couple of times. But he's on. He's on a record called Etcetera. He's on the All Seeing Eye. He's on Adam's Apple, which is a quartet record. Then he's on a record called Schizophrenia. And they, and they were all Wayne records with Joe Chambers. You know, interesting. And Joe Chambers, and the reason I interrupted you there was Joe, was Joe was sort of, is sort of this unique blend of Tony and Elvin. He had the expansiveness of Elvin, but he had the directness of Tony, but he didn't have the chops of Tony, because no, yeah, he does. But Joe is this, is this real, is this really unique sort of come a nation of both of those guys. And, and Wayne and Joe recorded together a lot. And, and actually they recorded a lot of the same songs that, that Wayne recorded with Elvin or with, with Miles with Tony. So it's a real, it's a really interesting, reductive sort of way to study Wayne's music by listening to him play these songs with Joe Chambers. And then hear him play these songs with Tom Williams as well. These, these guys, it's this circle of incredible musicians where I just think it needs to be said that talk about an amazing time in history and an amazing place, New York, obviously there was different places around the world, but there was something in the air, something in the water that was producing just monster players and creativity. Yeah. You couldn't have said, you, you couldn't have said it better. There was, I mean, it was the 60s. It was the mid 60s. It was a great time for art and, and it was a turbulent time, civil rights, et cetera, et cetera. And, and no doubt that helped create some wonderful art. But yeah, it was, it was a, it was a unique time. But as strange as it is, there's, you know, I mean, the early 90s was the same way. And, and as, and for as much as people talk about how bad 70s jazz was, there was a lot of great jazz recorded and bands playing in the 70s as well. So, you know, for some reason, a lot, a lot of that mid 60s stuff has, has, has, has, has, has risen to stuff of legend. Sure. And, and that's not to take anything away from it. But yeah, yeah, it was a unique time. Let's talk about while we're going, we'll stay on the timeline here. But was Wayne performing, would he be recording and then also touring and playing live with the same drummer he was using or would he switch around? Well, that's an interesting thing because, because Wayne didn't work much as a band leader throughout his whole life. A lot of when he put together his, his last quartet with Brian Blade, that was the first time he had had a working jazz group that toured under Wayne's name for a long amount of time. Actually, we can go backwards. And the, and one of the only other times before that was he toured with sort of a fusion band in the 80s with Tom Breckline, you know, and Gary Willis was playing bass and I forget who, oh, and Mitch Foreman played, played, played keyboard, but I talked to Tom a lot, a lot about that. And that was one of the first times that Wayne had brought a band on the road under his own name. Now, he did do, you know, I mean, he did do gigs around town. Yeah, sure. But from what, from what I've been able to learn through talking to guys and some, and some research as far as having a working band, you know, he didn't have, you know, he, he was too busy with First of Blade, Icky, and then with Miles and then with Web report to, to, to have his own working band. So fortunately, we have the records of him documenting all of his, all of his great music and all of these great interactions with these great drummers as well. You know, I just got to say that you don't take it for granted that obviously this is your job, but your memory of all of these individual, everyone on every instrument on every album is pretty incredible. I mean, obviously you do this for, you know, a lot with your job, but I don't have that with my, I don't work like that. It's pretty impressive. You know, I'll, you know, you know, I'll throw, you know, I'll throw something else in here. This is, this has been one of my more recent things I've been pounding on. I interviewed the great Terry Clark drum drummer from Canton that is several years ago and love his playing with Jim Hall and stuff like that. And, and terror, and terror. He doesn't have anything to do with the Wayne shorter thing, but we were talking, but we were talking and, and we were talking about students and, and, and he said it perfectly. And I've been spouting his words since that when he was young and when I was young and when you were young, and this is not for, for us to sound like the old guys, but we allowed ourselves to become obsessed with things. And I just don't know if people are allowing themselves these days to be obsessed with things. In fact, obsessed takes on this sort of bad, bad shape, you know, and, and there's great obsessions. And, and I think, and the wonderful thing about lead, letting younger guys be obsessed with baseball cards, sports, whatever they choose to be obsessed by is once you learn how to educationally be obsessed with something, you can apply it to any other thing you, you become obsessed with. And I became obsessed with music at a really young age with recordings and with practicing and with playing in bands. And yeah, it's, it's just an obsession. And I've been lucky enough to make, make a living at it for, for, for a decent amount of time. Oh yeah. I love that. I mean, I am, if you're listening to this show, you're probably obsessed with the drums. Yeah. I mean, I'm obsessed. You're obsessed. We're all obsessed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. I'm so glad I prompted you to say that because like, or with that question because I've never heard of that's such a good way to put it. All right. So getting back on here. So we were at Joe Chambers. Where do we go from there? Well, so then, so then like the lead up, you know, sort, sort of after Wayne leaves Miles's band, he's still recording on his own a lot. There is a record called Supernova that Jack Degenette is on, Chick Corea also plays on that drums and plays drums on that recorder. And I think one of the only recordings that Chick plays drums on. And, and then, and then, and then eventually there's a record called the Odyssey of Iska, which is Alphonse Muzan. And so we have all these late fusion niche records, jazz rock fusion, if whatever you want to call all them recordings that are leading a step by step in very small ways to weather report. And, and, and amazingly, three guys seem to always be intersecting in very unique ways. And those three guys are, are Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawiniel, and bassist Mir, the Slav Vitos. And Mir Slav is on a Wayne Shorter record. Mir Slav is on a Joe Zawiniel recording. Joe and Wayne were in, were in weather that were in, in Ferguson's band together. And those three eventually, you know, create weather report. But, but the record, but the record Supernova is Jack. And then, and then there's a really obscure record called Moto Grosso Feyo, who is who, who Jack plays, Jack plays on that record a little bit. But there's a, from what I've learned, a Brazilian drummer named Michelin Peltzer listed on the record as, as Michelin Prell looks like the only record that I'm not sure if it's a man or one moment has ever done is the record that they did with Wayne in 1970. That's a hell of an album to do. Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. So Wayne is just not, not only playing with Jack and, and, and Alphonse and Joe, you know, he finds a Michelin Peltzer or Prell and, and put some on this great record called Moto Grosso Feyo. Yeah. You wonder how that happened. Was it maybe Moto, whoever they were, were just playing in like a bar or something or just. Yeah. And you know, and that, and that does happen throughout music history. You run across these weird little one offs. Yeah. But Jack Dejanette, as I'm quickly kind of Googling as we go along, he was performing with him as well, right? Another legend. Yeah. I mean, Jack, you know, a living legend of legends. Yeah. And, and Jack had a, had Jack had played with Wayne in the last incarnation of the Miles Quintet. What they've referred to now is the lost Quintet because they never officially recorded it, but they toured a lot, which was Wayne and Jack Dejanette and Dave Holland and Chikoria and Miles, known, known as the lost Quintet. And they played together a lot. So, so Jack and Wayne went on from that to play with the age of their good deal on a couple of, on a couple of Wayne's records. So this whole part of Wayne's career seems to be pointing towards what seems to be pointing towards weather report. And, and then whether the report happens in 1970, the first weather, the report drummer is Alphonse Muzan. And if you're a YouTube guy, there's a great, there's a DVD recording of it, but there's also a great recording. I'm sure on, I'm sure on YouTube of 1971 in Germany, any of weather report playing. And Alphonse is playing a little grutch kit. And boy, he sounds like Tony. And it doesn't get higher praised for me than that. But Alphonse is one of the, is one of the forgotten legends of, of drums and maybe forgotten is a strong term, but overlooked. Yes, exactly. I agree. And he sticks in my mind of seeing those videos of he's got just, you can just tell, and it's, you know, it might be silly to say, but his aesthetic, his style with the hat and the white kind of jumper, like, you know, 70s look, think things are changing. We're not wearing suits anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So, so he's in, so he's in the first weather report, along with Airtel is playing percussion as well. And, and then weather reports a band. And, and we get this, and we get the start of this great weather report band that for drummers is this wonderful band that changed drummers every couple years, every few years for a long time. And they had some of the greatest drummers come through that band ever. The guy that that came in after, after Alphonse Muzan was Eric Gravatt, who is one of my favorites. I've interviewed him and talked to him a few times and know him well. And he did this. He was on a record called Live in Tokyo that was only released at the time in Japan. And now, you know, one of the wonders of the internet, you can find this stuff everywhere, but just, you know, just by going to, to, to Amazon or something like that. But Live in, but Live in Tokyo is this wonderful record that, that Eric Gravatt and the rest of, and the rest of the weather report band, they're just painting, they're just painting soundscapes. And that's awesome. And there's a great video of that band. It was released on a DVD called Morning Lake, I think, but that's 1972. It's a black and white film and Eric Gravatt is just tearing it up. That's awesome. I'm not as familiar with him as I probably should be. He and he was in, he was in a McCoy-Tiners band at the same time that Alphonse Muzan was in weather report and they flip-flop and Alphonse Muzan joined a McCoy-Tiners band and Eric Gravatt went to a weather report. Interesting. Eric Gravatt is also on a great McCoy-Tiner record called Focal Point. Forget about it. You know, he is, he is another one of the sort of unsung greats. The strange thing after that was things, things got a little, you know, I think a little strange in the report. Some people wanted it to get a little funkier. Some people wanted to continue painting, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think there was some, there was some confusion in the leadership of the band between the three, but the drummer that came in after Eric Gravatt was a drummer who was playing in Slina Family Stone, Gregorico. Now there's, now he's the first guy that I'll mention here that there's no official recordings of. You have to go to the bootleg world and find those, but there's lots of them. Of recordings in 1973 with weather report with the great Gregorico who came directly from Slina Family Stone to weather report and turned the whole sound sort of sideways. It turned into a funkier thing and was equally just as exciting. And Greg, I interviewed Greg years ago for the magazine Stick It, and Greg talked about his time and weather the report. So a couple of months, it's like the musical highlight of his life. Yeah, that's a big deal. I remember seeing him in the Questlove documentary about God, I don't want to mess up the name. It was the concert in New York. It was sounds of summer. I forget what the name of it was. I'll put that in the description or something, but with him performing with Sly and I was like, man, that guy's good. And it made me look him up. And then I learned. Yeah. Yeah. And he was in the report for a couple, for a brief little, a brief little stint. There was also a drummer in weather report for a brief little time there by the name of Herschel Dwellingham, who I can't tell you that much about. I ran into him in Alabama, actually, strangely enough, playing in a club. And I spoke to him briefly. But interesting. There's not a whole lot to be said about that. Yeah. And then, you know, you know, you know, and then in comes in Dugu Chancellor. Well, well, actually, well, actually, before that, there was there was a drummer named Ishmael Wilburn, who was on the mysterious traveler on mysterious traveler record. And a really unique thing about the mysterious traveler record is that Joe's out. And you'll also put Skip Haddon on that record. Skip told me that Joe had heard him playing with an organ group out in Ohio, I think somewhere. And and wanted him to come and sort of play back. But background drums, you know, while the rest of the band was playing, you know, Skip just sort of painted colors in the background. And that's I think he's on two or three tracks on mysterious traveler, if I'm remembering correctly. So then so then what the report goes on and on and on. And Dugu Chancellor does does a record called Tail Spinning in Dugu. You know, incredible legend. I mean, yeah, legend. You know, in Dugu was also late in the late Neuron, Carlos Santana and Wayne Shorter co led the band, which in Dugu played and toured with. Oh, wow. So so that, you know, so in Dugu didn't go on the road that much. So for him, so for him to go out with with Wayne and Carlos was I'm sure a pretty big deal. Yeah. Yeah. It's a special group. Yeah. I mean, there's certain situations where you're like, yeah, I'll go out with you. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Because at that point, these these guys could make enough just playing on sessions and just do and make an albums that you wouldn't need to. And then, you know, you know, and then Wayne does sort of a sort of a left turn and records a record called Native Dancer, which was a Brazilian record. And the strange thing was before then there were a couple of records that he had done Milton Milton, Nacimento tunes and and some Jobim tunes. And and he does a record with Milton Nacimento called Native Dancer with the great drum, the great Brazilian drummer Robertine Hossilva. So that's 1975 where we're at now ish. So yeah. Yep. And he was born in 1933. So at this point, this prolific of a career, he was like 42 years old. 42 years old. Yeah. Yeah. A young guy really with this amount of musical history. We and we haven't even gotten to 1980 yet. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Exactly. And he passed away like 18 and when we're recording this like 18 days ago, I think if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. I mean, you know, I challenge, you know, I challenge somebody else out there to find another musician who's played with as many of the greats as Wayne had, you know, and we're only in 1974. You know, I'm not sure how much time we have left here, but but we're only we're only in 1974. So we better jump on things here. Sure. So when, you know, so when the report goes on, you know, of course, you know, of course, in 1979, Erskine, Erskine joins a band. But before then, of course, there's Chester Tom, there's a Chester Thompson and in do and in Nartana Michael Walden on black market. There's, there's Al. It's a coon on heavy weather. Yeah. One of the most, you know, revered fusion records of all time. I probably shouldn't have to tell men any people about that record. That's where yeah, or those two records are when Jaco hits the mix and and what the report takes on a little bit of a different thing, event, you know, and then Erskine Erskine's in what the report, I believe for longer than anyone else had been. I talked for the legends thing that I wrote for that I wrote for M.D. I bugged Pete. There are a lot about Wayne and and and Joe's out and you'll and what that band was like. And I got some really interesting stuff from him. But Pete there also wrote this great book called No Beethoven that he details his whole career and details of what the report stuff at, you know, very closely. That's a fantastic book. Yeah, that we should all read. I haven't read it, but I've it's been discussed on the show about the impact of how cool the digital format was when it came out with all of the it was like very forward thinking and progressive with what you could do with a ebook, basically. Yeah. Well, that's Peter. Yeah. There's a very forward thinking guy. So, you know, so then there's the Erskine Erskine Jocko, whether the report years that Wayne is Wayne is a big partner. And then eventually they get to well, and actually when Pete their first joining band, there was a or when Peter was, I forget, but there's a record called Mr. Gone that Steve Gad plays on and Tom Williams plays on and Peter and Peter also plays on. So there's there's another one of the greats, you know, I mean, it's everyone. It's like, yeah, it's incredible. Yeah. It's, you know, Wayne's like the wears wall the wears Waldo of drumming, you know, find somebody else see a sign somebody has he hasn't played with. Yeah. So then weather report goes on and on and on. Hakeem is of course in the last incarnation of web report with with Victor Bale and stuff like that. They do that great record Dom and O theory sport and life and procession. So there's Omar. There's a great Omar Hakeem. You can check another guy, you know, on the guy off team list when when Wayne starts to do his solo records back, you know, you know, after whether the report goes is along for a while. And then Wayne does a record called Atlantis in 1985 Ralph Humphrey and out and out Ixacunia again. So he's pulling from his weather report friends there. Yeah, he's pulling. Yeah, exactly. And then next in 86 was a record called Phantom navigator that Tom Breckline is on. This is the band. This is the quartet that toured for from what I have been told the first time Wayne took a band out on his own. They toured they toured as a quartet. There's some footage of that band out there. Tom Breckline just lighten it up sounding unbelievably fantastic. He's I think he's only on one or two tracks of Phantom Nav of a fan navigator and the rest is programmed. Oh, interesting. And and then, you know, and and then in eight and then in eight, Wayne did a record called Joy Rider with the Terran, Ellen Carolington play in drums and Terran Lynn and Wayne have a longstanding relationship throughout the rest of Wayne's life. She's on the last record he did called live at the Detroit Jazz Festival, which was just released last year with Terran Elyn and Esperanza Spalding and Leo Henn of Issa playing piano. And I don't know. So so I mean, she she started a playing relationship with him in 88. And it went to last year. So that's about as long as it gets. Wow, she's incredible. And she would I mean, she would have to be pretty darn young at that point to hang with these guys. She's a natural talent. It's cool to see a female musician in the mix here, because, you know, it's in that jazz world. It's a lot of guys. We all know that. So she really stands out. Yeah, yeah. And she she she sounds great on that record. That's that's that's sort of the one of those lost lost Wayne shorter records that because for a while he was recured. He was released in a great deal of records and some sort of get forgotten in the the sands of time. Yeah, you know, as I'm quickly kind of just jumping around clicking on Wikipedia as we talk, I just I've never noticed or heard this. Terry Lynn Carrington at the age of 11 received a full scholarship to Berkeley College of Music. Yeah. Yeah, she yeah. Yeah. Wow. Like I said, she's she's on the cover of MD in April. Oh, yeah, very topical. We did I did a real nice interview with her right before the Grant Mammese. She just won she just won the the jazz record of the year grant memory or something like that. And it's actually the second time she's won it. And it's actually the second drummer who has ever gotten record of the year jazz record of the year. The only other one was our Blakey. Oh, man. And she's done twice. So that's pretty that's really substantial. You know, it's good for all of us. That's good for all of us. Absolutely. Yeah. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. A drummer led record getting jazz record of the year that that's great for all of us. Absolutely. It makes us all look good. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So Wayne. So Wayne after that, he toured with the Santan a shorter band for a little while with in Dugo. There's a lot of really great videos of that. There's a really good one at the Montreux Jazz Festival. I don't think I don't know how long that band survived. But but they toured once and they record it a bit. Wayne had been on a Santana a Santana record called The Swing of Delight with where he played with Harvard where he played with Harvey Mason. Check another one off. You know, the great heart seriously. And and he was also on a couple tunes on that record with Tom Williams as well. So then again, you know, you know, check another one of the greats off. Then it sort of seems like Wayne for some reason sort of takes a break. And I don't know why, but, you know, a well deserved break because we're now up to 1988 or something like that. And he had been recording and playing straight through since 1959. So he deserved a little bit of a break. He comes back in 1995 with a record called High Life, which is this sort of large group thing with Will Calhoun from Living Colour. Wow, that's cool. Playing drums. And it's a fantastic record that was overlooked at the time by lots of people, including myself. But just compositionally, arrangement wise, doesn't get much better than that record. I also had the good for Urchin playing with a guitar player named David Gilmore, not the guy from Pink Floyd, but the guy from New York. And he was in Wayne's band at the time. He was also in Treet Lock, Gertrude's band at the time. And I did a record with David and David was on my first record that I released under my own name. But of course, in the rehearsals, and when we did gigs, I would do nothing but bug him about Wayne Shorter, Shorter. And one of the interesting things he told me about Wayne is that when they did that record, and Will also told me the same thing, that Wayne presented the band with orchestral scores and said, like, here's the music. These guys are looking at like 10 lines of music, but no chord symbols or no nothing like that. And they had to read that stuff. So that's the scope of that record. High Life is still one of the records I listen to that just repeatedly puts a smile on my face. When I talked to Will about that, when I interviewed Will for the Percussive Arts Society several years ago about that record, I said to him, I said, I don't know how you're going to take this, but you're on one of my favorite records of all time. And I forgot that you were even on it. You know, I said, and it's not a record that I love for what you played or anything like that. I just love the record and you happen to be on it. And he looked at me and said, I completely understand. He said, you have to be talking about the Wayne record. And I said, yeah. And at times I forget that you're even on that record. And he said, I sometimes forgot I was even on that record. It's funny. It's not about the drummer, really. I mean, it's not. It's not. Yeah. And yet he plays it. He plays his butt off. He's grew. He's grew and hard on that record. Terri Lin is also on a couple tracks on that record as well. And man, he just lays it down and just sounds utterly fantastic. Yeah. Well, let me ask, and I know there's there's still more to go. We can talk forever. But let me just ask you like, does does this sort of affinity he has for using incredible drummers? Does that also translate to he's also using incredible bassists on each album? Is every musician the best in class? I, um, well, I mean, you know, I mean, you look at the what I mean, you look at the bass players in weather report. And and although they had a million drummers, there was only really four. There's only really four a basis in the band. It went from Miroslav to Alfonso Johnson to Jaco to Victor Bay. Oh, there's four of the greats. There's four of the greats right there. So, um, I he he he had a great. I mean, he was what he was associating with a different crowd. He's associating with the greats. So he had access to the great. I mean, on that record, Marcus Miller's on that record and does a lot of orchestration on on that record as well. But but also drum but also musicians like Jim Beard played with him for a long time. And then and then, you know, and then when they toured from that when they toured that that record, although they although he did the first part of the first tour with Will Cal Boone, Rodney Holmes joined Wayne Shortner. There's been for a long time. I think before he was in Santana and they played all the music from high life and Rodney Holmes wasn't, you know, a big, huge name. But Rodney Holmes played that music unbelievably well. Yeah. So, yeah. So I think I Wayne just has this wonderful ear for drummers. Yeah, he does. It's like an affinity. I mean, he's got his finger on the pulse of like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good answer. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough to tell. But he, um, yeah, he I mean, he definitely had access to all of the greats. But he sometimes would, um, you know, would would hire guys that not a whole lot of people knew about, you know, like, you know, like Rodney, you know, trust your gut. Yeah, trust your gut. So, um, so then, oh, and there's also and there's also a really good DVD out of of the band with Rodney at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1996. You can hear you can hear Rodney playing this music sounding unbelievable. And then and then in 2001, 2001 is when Wayne put together, you know, what a lot of people called at the time like his first working jazz group, you know, at I don't know how old he would have been in 2000. But that's how long it took for him to put together a working jazz group with Brian Blade and John Pat Tucci and Daniela Perez. And they release a series of unbelievably great records that I think went above a lot of people's heads. Because like, like the, the report in 1972, live in Tokyo stuff, they were just sort of painting. And yeah. And it might not have been some of the most listener friendly music, but boy, yeah, it was fantastic. So, you know, in 2002, it's different than in 1970 or what, you know, with the taste of the right, this is whatever the individual is listening. Yeah. And that's awesome. Yeah. And you know, and he sort of played and subbed in that band a little while as well. There was also a drummer by the name of Jonathan Pinson, who's, who was a student of Terence Elins, who subbed in that band for Brian a little while I interviewed him last year. You know, a great drummer from the West Coast, who played with Wayne at that point. And they do footprints live. I think a lot of people refer to this quartet as the footprints quartet. And they, and they do out Agria or Allegria, I'm not sure, beyond, beyond the sound barrier, which is a live red record without the net and none. And then the last one live in Detroit with Terence Elins. So those last 23 years or so is all Brian Blade and Terence Elins, which is, which is a wonderful thing. Unbelievable. I knew going into this, that it was going to be, I was, I was expecting some of the big names, but it's, it's every big name of every decade. Yeah. It's like the who's who, which, which these drummers would obviously be playing with other people. They were, they were kind of doing all kinds of things, but my God, I mean, it's, it's more than I expected. And the, and the amazing thing is, when I got to in review each of these guys, and I've interviewed most of them, I would always sort of ask them about working with Wayne and get a special look in their eye and say, Wayne, you know, I got to work with Wayne, you know, and, and, you know, and, you know, and this goes on into the 80s. I mean, he's on a lot of Joan, the Mitchell records where he plays with Vinny. He plays with Jim Keltner, plays with Carlos Vega, plays with the great, the great John Gurren, you know, and I remember talking to, I remember talking to Vinny about playing with Wayne and, and Vinny from what I remember was trying to get Wayne to do his first record and it didn't sort of work out, but, you know, I mean, Vinny put Wayne on this pedestal, you know, and, and then he got to work with him on Herbie's River record with, with all, you know, with her being Dave and, and, and, and Vinny and Wayne. Yeah. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. In 1964, he does a side mandate with Lee Moore, with Lee Morgan, that Bill Higgins is on a great record called the Procrastinator. Nice. And him and Bill, and him and Bill, he really sort of mix it up. He's on, I think, I think it's six or seven Joan Mitchell records. That world of going out of his own kind of jazz world, which you touched on at the beginning of getting to play on like film soundtracks and things like that, that opens you up and even further musicians on those tracks, which are always, you know, incredible musicians. So it's, it's just amazing. It almost makes you think that he, you know, at some level, his, you know, per personality and everything might be at the core of getting all these, these incredible musicians together and making them who they are. To some degree, where he living to be 89 years old. I mean, Roy Haynes is still going I think he just turned 98 or something 99 years old. So there's some of these jazz greats are really getting up there in age, but it's incredible. Wayne Shorter, though, it says on here on Wikipedia, I'm sure things are missed, but I mean, he's got every award you could imagine, like Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards, Kennedy Center Awards, clearly a very well respected guy who is clearly going to be missed. But when you're 89, it's not like he didn't pass away at 40 years old and it's a tragedy. He lived a great life. Exactly. Some, some of the last great records he did was, was on John Mitchell's. She did two large group records, a record called Travalogue with Brian in Blade in 2002. And in 2000, a record called Both Sides Now with Erskine. And, and, and Wayne was a featured soloist on both of those. But yeah, I mean, you know, it just goes on and on and on and on and on, playing with a Procaro on, on, on Glengarry Glen Ross, you know, and I, and I read, I read somewhere about Jeff talking about that session that he was just, he was, he was just geeked that he got to play with Wayne Shorter. Yeah, so yeah, it's just, you know, he's, he's a thread that connects Art Blakey and Frankie Dunlop to Vinnie Carlos Vega and Jeff Procaro. Find another thread, you know, you know, there's that old, you know, the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, you know, thing. You read my mind. I was just about to say that. Find another musician that connects Frankie Dunlop and Vinnie Caliuta. Yeah. Good luck. It's good. I am. I, it's so cool. It's an incredible, someone needs to make a visual aid to see all these things and how they're connected. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then throw in wild cards like Greg Garico in Doogoo, of course in Doogoo played with everybody. So that wouldn't be hard. But, you know, it's, it's, it's, you know, like your broadcast is called, you know, the drum, you know, the drum history thing. Music history is drum history. And, and Wayne is music history. And Wayne is also drum history. And, and if you're, and if you're tuned in enough, I guess to sort of, you know, to sort of note is that you don't have to look for anything else. It's all right there. It's all right there. Just, you know, just pay attention to Wayne. I also spent a great deal of time playing Wayne Shorter solos and Wayne Shorter, you know, heads on the drums, you know, you know, just sort of taking his, sort of taking his wonderful compositions like Ju-Ju and Speak No Evil and stuff like, and orchestrating them around the drums in, in, in the same way that Max did with bird heads, you know, and bird licks and Roy Haynes did with bird licks. You know, I think, I think the next, I think the next step was to do that with Roy Haynes, to, to do that with Wayne Shorter solos and, and compositions. I spent a lot of time transcribing to the best that I could, and I'm not publishing them nowhere, but, you know, Wayne's, Wayne's solos on some of those miles, on some of those miles records, and then trying to orchestrate them around the drums. That's cool. To hear the rhythm, because if you move it from one instrument to another, it's still going to be, it has that special sauce that only he had. Very cool. Yeah. So he's, he's, he's that, he's that special of a guy. He's that special of a musician. He's not the only one, you know, I just wrote, you know, I actually just wrote the, my editor's overview from London Drummer for the April edition. And I called it, I called it Alan Chick, Edward, Jeff and Wayne. And it's for Hallsworth, Chickery, Ed, and Van Halen, Jeff Beck, and, and Wayne Shorter. And just sort of, it sort of goes back to that thing I was saying about how great drumming lives within great music. And those guys provided the great music for so much great drumming to live inside of. And we should all be, whether we're fans of those guys or not, I'm not telling people what music to listen to, but the music that Jeff Beck created and, and Chick created and stuff like that. I mean, it made so much great drumming possible. People don't go out and just listen to, if no matter the best drummer in the world, pop culture is not going to go out and just listen to a drummer playing. You need the framework of Eddie Van Halen or something like that playing to then give them the dose of Alex Van Halen or any other great musician he played with. Exactly. Exactly. And, and Eddie, you know, now, now I usually add, add really own, we did that for Al, you know, but all of the other guys on that list created the, I think in the, in the MD piece, I said, like, they let all these great drummers play in their sandbox, you know, and create this great music. And we should all be forever in debt, you know, in debt, because if you want to look at all of the great music that Jeff Beck created it for drum drum drummers from blow by blow and Bucks, you know, and Bucks, a Balero through the stuff with Vin Nanny and Nard and stuff like that, it's all Jeff Beck's music. And, and he was smart enough and giving enough to share that music with some of the great drummers of all time. And so was Wayne. Yeah. Yes. Well, that, okay, so to kind of wrap things up, I just want to say that this, this is a very, like when I looked at the, the, like, if someone sends me a message and says, Oh, do an episode on the drummers of Zappa, I look at that and I go, All right, I don't know, you know, how do I find the right person for it? The most connected, but having you kind of come up with this idea, it's not an easy episode to tackle, but I just got to say to you, you just made that entire thing seem effortless because you're passionate about it. It's something you care about and, and, and truly forced for me to go through and do all the research and everything it would take. I mean, it's almost a lifetime's worth of work with you enjoying this music and everything, but very well done. I mean, to, to go through each album and, and and interconnect at all. I am first off very impressed and it'd be fun to do more with you down the road. We can do whatever we can do whatever you want. You don't have to, you don't have to prod me to get me to talk about drums, you know, and I'm, you know, and I'm lucky enough that through, you know, that through modern drum, drum number, and through my students, you know, I have, I have a lot of time to talk about drums and a lot of time to think about drums and talk to other drummers about drums, both famous and old and not famous and young. We're trying to learn stuff. I've got students all over the world and I'm lucky. I get to do this a lot. You know, I get to talk about drumming. Yeah. Yeah. I get to talk about drummers and drumming a lot and, and then I get to play a lot. So hey, you know, I tell people all the meantime, I'm one of the luckiest guys in the world. Absolutely. Everyone's going to enjoy hearing about it as well. And I think the big thing too, I know for me, I've learned and I have a lot of things written down, but honestly, the list of, I was trying to keep up with the names of drummers and really it just turns into it's all of them. I mean, literally every famous drummer you could imagine, but a lot of songs that and albums and things for people to check out. So that's a great service just to tell, you know, give a little heads up on the particular ones. Yeah, they're there. He, you know, he wrote some jazz standards that, you know, there are, there are standards and there's jazz standards. The standards come from, you know, the great American songbook, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But, but Wayne wrote a great deal of songs that are jazz standards that you should probably know if you're going to call yourself a jazz musician, you better, you better be familiar with speak no evil and juju and, you know, and songs like that. And the great thing about Wayne is he played a lot of these songs throughout his career. Yeah. You know, in a lot of different contexts, he played a lot of that stuff with the band with Brian Blade. And he recorded a lot of that, a lot of that music with El Alvin and with Joe Chambers. And then he played it in Miles's band. So, I mean, just think about that. You could hear the same song played with the composer but being played by Elvin, Joe Chambers, Tony Williams, Brian and Blade. And in some context, he, Lynn and maybe even Vinny on, on, on that Herbie record or something. Wow. That's a pretty, I mean, yeah, just take one song. Just, just find the one song that they all recorded and just do that. Yeah. That's pretty special. And Erskine and Putty in, in, in there as well. So that, that's, there, I mean, there's some great books out there. There's some great guys writing fantastic books and methods and systems and stuff like that. But I'm always a little reluctant to take music out of drumming and, or to, I'm sorry, to take drumming out of music and to take a musical viewpoint of great drum, drumming and to study it within the history of great music. That really just speaks to me. Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. It's a cool way to do it. I mean, and I think people are taking the first step right now by listening to this episode and hearing more about it. So, like I said, very well done. Love to have you back on. Marcus, we wrap up. Is there anywhere you want to like tell people to find you on social media or a website or an MD in general or what? I, I, I, unfortunately, I don't have a website. I, I don't have time for social media. You don't need it. Yeah. I, you know, I'm working 100 out or weeks here between, between students and MD and gigs. So, you know, I, I, I, I really don't have that much time for that. But yeah, people can always contact me through MD and, and I'll, and I'll respond because I try to respond to every, to every message that I get. And I don't know if I mentioned it, but I worked on the legends, the legends book that I did with, the legend books that I did with MD. The first one was the, the first one was the, the Dan, the Sir Riffin book. The second one was the Ken Ernoff book, the Peter Erskine book and the Steve Smith book, all really worthwhile drum studies in those specific guys. We worked a long time and real hard on those. And I put my name next to those. I put, I put my name next to everything I do for MD. So, but those legends things are worthwhile dives in to all those guys. And you can sort of get a little bit of the sense of how my mind works from, from how those legends things are laid out with the transcriptions and with guys talking about their transcriptions and stuff like that. So, yeah, very cool. Incredible. Thank you to Bob Cagliotti for connecting us. Bob is a good guy and very, you know, just a, I love when people connect, you know, me to people who are a great fit for the show. And this worked out perfectly. So, Mark, thank you for being here and spending all this time sharing the legendary life and drummers of Wayne Shorter with all of us. Thanks, man.