 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I am super pumped to have my old friend Paul Wells back on Paul. Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks Bart. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm good. This is very cool. Well first things first the Neil Peart series you did was a smash hit especially on YouTube that one was Kind of a flagship episode for the show and and brought a lot of new listeners and viewers in so I appreciate you taking all the time To do that. I know you've had some good response from that as well, which is pretty yeah Yeah, yeah, and and thank you to everybody who who checked that out and Just gotten so many nice messages and support from people who really enjoyed our hours and hours and hours of Total geekery on yeah on Neil's drums. So yeah five hours. Yeah, seriously. Thank you everyone for watching that I've said it before but someone told me they watched it three times the whole series Which I think is the record maybe someone's beat that but So Yes, Neil is very special But we're talking about someone who's very very special in a different way today We're talking about the gear of Tony Williams. Yeah, you are the professor of jazz drums at Julliard And you perform with Curtis Steigers and Vince Giordano You know, you're a jazz drummer. You're a jazz teacher happened to love Neil But today we're talking about Tony, which is a little closer to your you know, main genre that you play, right? Yeah, I have played a lot of rock and when I When I grew up in Pittsburgh The music scene there is a smaller music scene and you tend to have the opportunity to play a lot of different styles If you want to and in New York once I came here people it's such a big scene people tend to end up specializing Quite a bit. So I I did play a lot of rock professionally in Sort of in the odds and Neil was a huge influence on directly on the way that I play I still remain a huge fan, obviously, but I don't really get to play like that at all anymore I will actually point out I know this is slightly off topic to what we're discussing today, but I had the amazing opportunity to actually play I I've been in touch with the gentleman who owns Neil's Candy Apple Red Tomah kit He was kind enough to invite me over to check out the kid and and he actually let me play it and You know, he has it set up He studied photos and he has all the angles set up as close as possible to Neil's He has everything tuned to the exact same pitches and you know, I'm I'm a professional drummer I can I can sit down generally on a kit and sound You know, I can do my thing I can sound like a professional I could not play I sounded like an idiot trying to play that kit. It is so hard You know, it's just so different than what I do. It was it was everything about it It was it was I mean I can close my eyes and think about the setup and I know exactly what everything is and I can think about the Parts, but actually sit and play that stuff for me. It was just a completely different I'd really have to spend some time in the shed trying to work that stuff up I was really at a loss as to to what to play whereas, you know with Tony, that's You know, he's he's I mean, I don't really I don't get to do that many gigs in New York You know getting to play that type like the kind of jazz that Tony was associated with in some ways But it's it's a lot closer to to that than getting to play like Neil. I never get to play So that's cool. That's an awesome opportunity though. Yeah, I mean, I'm talking about Tony and and doing all of this Research. I mean, this is all research. I've been doing for years I've been studying photos and setting recordings and reading interviews for most of my life with with Tony and with many my other favorites So yeah, but but getting deep in to do this for this podcast was really really fun because I'm Such an enormous fan of Tony's such a huge influence. He's so important to me and to drumming in general And it was really wonderful to get, you know, really to kind of go Deep into doing this research on him and like you said, it's it is a bit more relevant for me personally because I do play In styles more like this. So sure. Sure. Well said so a couple things first I'm gonna direct people. There is an episode I did a couple years ago with Dave Goodman That's a biography of Tony Williams Dave, you know, he was in Australia awesome guy. He did his thesis On Tony Williams and it's it's very thorough. So we're gonna leave that well I'll put it in the description people can check that out There's also one I did with Rob Hart that was a 1982 clinic breakdown that Rob recorded because he took lessons with Tony and that's a cool one So so those are some examples of other episodes about Tony We're talking purely about gear and to actually break it down further We'll see but I I think Paul had the great idea of doing This episode which this will no doubt be a multi-part episode It's it's just your style man. No, this one is going to be I think primarily about the drums Then we're probably gonna do part two on the symbols and the hardware Because they're both so legendary and his symbols kind of hold a special place in people's hearts on their own so we don't want to like We've learned through this whole process of these gear episodes to not rush and just be chasing the clock the whole time and and doing that so Is that still sound good? Yeah, yeah I think what you'll find when we go through this is the the kits changed more than the symbols in Tony's case Especially in the 60s. He seemed to be using a different kit pretty much every year But kind of stuck with the same symbols more or less And same thing You know it I mean there's a point where it changes, but you'll see it It kind of makes more sense. I think to do it this way and and yeah Well in the second episode we'll do we'll do Symbols I've done a lot of research into the sticks that Tony used we'll talk about the heads because there are some interesting things there I even have some information about the cases he used. So oh cool Well, yeah, we'll get pretty specific and a very cool thing about this series that that is unique is in the I don't want to say a number in one of the future parts towards the end of Tony's career when he was with DW we're gonna have Actually a different guest on it's gonna be Scott Garrison who is kind of famously works at DW But he was Tony's drum tech for a long time and worked with Tony personally So Garrison is gonna take over that DW era Because he has all the info and I think it's I think it's pretty cool and and speaks to your character Paul to just kind of be like Whatever gets the best info out there. Let him do it Which that's gonna be exciting so that'll be part three or four or five whatever Part 97 part 97 feature Garrison So why don't we get started then please okay take it away at the beginning we can start with His first kit basically now I believe he was maybe eight or nine I think actually Dave Goodman had it had a precise year When he got his first kit, but his first kit was a You know for for even for the time if we figure he was born in late 45 So maybe this was like the mid 50s, you know 53 or something when he got this kit It was it was a radio King kit You see it on the back cover of his record the old Bums rush It's a great photo of him as it as a little kid playing this kid. It's just a bass drum A rack tom and a snare drum and there's one little symbol And what looks like a very ancient pair of hi hats with the very large cups Which are the kind of hi hats he'd sometimes see in the late 20s early 30s like very early sort of before Joe Jones and Dave Tuff Worked with zilgin and oh and chickweb to kind of standard eyes Hi hat style of being a symbol with a smaller symbol with a smaller bell So you see that now all I can really tell about this kit. It's it's it's a big bass drum it looks maybe like a 24 maybe a 26 looks like maybe a 9 by 13 rack tom and We've got a six and a half or seven by 14 snare now. I am not a radio King expert At all I'm hoping maybe some radio King experts will look at this photo and say Ah, this is actually this So have at it Radio King experts looks like a duke Yeah finish right right of some sort and looks like he's sitting on a regular sort of dining room table or something our dining room chair Instead of a drum thrown Yeah, so that's that's his first kit now. I'm gonna read from a modern drummer interview that he did in the Let's see. This is the chill no June 1984 issue of modern drummer and Rick Mattingly Interviewed him and asked him about his association with Gretch You know, he asked him, you know, what did you buy Gretch because you had an idol who played Gretch drums? And he's and Tony says when I was a kid I used to sit and look at the pictures of Max meaning Max Roach who was his first, you know Really big sort of drum idol and he always used a Gretch drum set and I thought I want to have one of those He said after the radio King cat kid. He said Finally I had my first job 30 dollars a week My mom helped me buy the first set that I bought for 20 dollars a week Which I say from the 30 dollars I was making on this weekend gig So I bought my first set of Gretch, which was silver sparkle the same color the same sizes as Max Roach Basically, the only photo I've ever found of Tony before 1963 is the one we just saw of him as a little a little kid playing the radio King kid The next photos you see of him are from basically when he moved to New York he he came to New York just before Christmas of 62 and His first recording was in February of 63 His first gig was with the alto sax player Jackie McLean And he recorded with Jackie on a session that didn't come out until the 80s called vertigo But we have a photo from the vertigo recording session and you can't really see the drums yet But at this point he's still like well into 63 He's still playing the same silver sparkle kit that he got When he was now I don't I thought I had the year, but I actually don't I think it was around 57 or 58 That he bought this first the silver sparkle He would have been about 12. I think yeah, that would that would yeah, I mean he moved to New York when he was 16 Or maybe he had just turned 17 what December of 62. He would have just turned 17, right? Yeah, I mean he turned 17 December of 62 so he's still playing this kit and it's Likely I mean Gretchen in the late fifties were kind of transitioning between three ply drums and six ply drums It's it's all a bit sort of hazy. They they did this there wasn't like a point where they were like overnight Okay, we're throwing away all the three ply shells. We've got this whole storeroom of six ply shells Everything is going to be six ply from now on they didn't they didn't do it that way They they they kind of made this transition Where they they You know sometimes you'd have a kit where the rack tom would be three ply and the other drums would be six ply or vice versa So we don't transition old period kind of yeah, yeah Yeah, and it seems that you see kits like that for a couple of years They were really sort of getting rid of their old three ply shells for a while Now Tony's kit the silver sparkle kit had die cast hoops The hardware all looks to be kind of like late 50s style hardware. You don't see the what what's called the Kitchen faucet type t rods you see the more modern streamlined t rods that that leaves me to believe it's more like 58 You know rather than 57 57 you still sometimes see stick chopper hoops and things like that. So You see this kit on every photo you see of Tony from February 63 Well into July of 63 so he joins Miles in May of 63 And does some recording and some gigs and the first real photos of him playing with Miles They went to to France in July of 1963 and they played at the the Antibes Jazz Festival and they did multiple dates there. You can actually see photos of them There's different photos where they're wearing different clothes they did at least three nights there or three three concerts there and They were well photographed. So you can see a lot of different photos There's there's a great one. I found from a magazine called jazz hot, which is a French magazine I went to the Rutgers University jazz library A month or so ago to do some research for this pot and and found some really great photos that I think very few people have Seen but this this one from jazz hot from July of 63 great photo of Tony from the side playing this kit and What's really kind of interesting about this kit now? Remember Tony said that he got the same color silver sparkle as max and also the same sizes as max max was using from about 54 55 Until 60 or 61 was using a 12 14 20 kit Interestingly max although he had a snare drum named after him by Gretch, which is a 4 by 14 max always actually used every photo I'm hardly see photos of him ever playing the 4 by 14 max roach snare ironically he used the The model number is the Gretch 41 47 It's just their 5 and a half by 14 8 lug wooden snare. You can see that's what Tony's using and as I said Max's sizes in those days were 12 14 20. He didn't start using an 18. I'm pretty sure he got an 18 early in 1961 that's where I start to hear it on recordings and I'm almost positive Both from sound on recordings and also from looking at these photos that Tony's first kit here actually had a 20 inch bass drum So the very very famous probably his most famous recording from this early period where he's using this kit is on his drum solo on the tune seven steps for heaven from the album Miles's album with the same title and I think a lot of people assume I always assumed that was an 18 inch bass drum, but I'm I'm almost positive That's actually a 20 on that recording and on the miles in Europe recording from July 63 Is actually recorded at the same festival the Antibes festival In France, that's the same kit. It's 20 inch bass drum if you really listen to it. You can hear it's not as tight sounding It's not as sort of like a Focused a tone as you get from an 18. It's a little wilder. There's more overtones. It's a bit lower pitch than an 18 Me you can tune an 18 to this pitch, but it'll be kind of punchier Shorter less overtones than you hear from Tony Tony sound on these records to me is classic 20 inch bass drum But after this though, he did he did switch and then stick with an 18 for a long. Yeah, the next kid is an 18 The black kid which we which we'll get to Probably in about seven hours But there's no bottom head on the Tom is that I was just gonna I was just gonna point that out Yeah, it's that this kid every photo we see of this kid the photos that you see in the studio and the photos from The the jazz festival in July He doesn't have a bottom head on this kid and again when you listen to the recordings that he made everything he made up through July 63 so we're talking about Jackie McLean vertigo Jackie McLean What's this? What's it? Oh the second record you do with Jackie. I'm spacing on the name Kenny Dora Munoz Herbie Hancock my point of view Miles seven steps to heaven Miles in Europe if you really listen to the sound of the drums you listen to the 12 It sounds kind of twangy and weird. It actually kind of sounds like a pretty classic single-headed But kind of high-pitched jazz tuned Tom it almost is like I don't know It sounds almost slightly like Phil Collins higher Tom from ten years later You know when he's playing Gretch single-headed Tom's actually he didn't really use Gretch single-headed using premier single-headed But yeah, that's sort of like barking sound twangy sort of it's just a different sound You know when you start to hear it and you think about oh, that's a single-headed 12 It makes perfect sense this week's episode is proudly sponsored by GM designs custom symbols GM designs is far from your average symbol company as they specialize in creating one-of-a-kind symbols that are truly unique They're extensive product catalog features over a hundred symbols and they were recently featured in a very cool R. David R. 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So he has a rare round muffler Muffles muffler system that's pretty pretty wild. It does this kit Is this I mean this is the question that we should probably just plan on answering with each kit Is this kit still in existence and known it's it's you know, it's whereabouts. No idea No idea. I I I have heard that um Gretch So this is this is important to point out because this explains why he had so many kits in the in the 50s and 60s It's been documented a few places that gretch Um, if you had an endorsement with gretch their deal was they they wouldn't pay you they didn't pay endorsers like some other companies did like You know Buddy rich was famous for getting paid a fee to he started the whole thing. Yeah, right, right. Yeah Um, you covered that in one of your podcasts, didn't you? Yeah, that's the history of drum endorsement podcast. Yes. That was the word on the street was that buddy kind of Uh, muddied the waters. I guess you could say where He got well now he got paid and then again, it's setting the precedence of like, well, okay now this person everyone has to get Right. Yeah, exactly. So gretch had a strict policy. They did not pay any of their endorsers They would give you a free kit every year You could get free drums once a year that was sort of their deal and it was great if you lived in new york Because gretch's factory was in williamsburg new york in brooklyn. Um, not far from where I live It's actually you can see the building is still there. It's actually luxury condo lofts now, of course But it still says the gretch building on top. It's a big building right by the uh, williamsburg bridge and um If you were a local new york drummer, presumably you could maybe go I know drummers used to go and pick out k zilgen symbols because um Uh, gretch distributed k zilgen not a but k zilgen's made in turkey We'll talk about that when we get to the symbols in the next episode You know, you presumably if you were a drummer in new york, you could go and maybe pick up your drums yourself I don't know, but that's pretty awesome. That'd be really cool. Yeah, sure. Yeah Um, you know, I would love to be able to go to hamamatsu japan and pick out my yamaha drums every year But um, yeah, you know, that's not the most convenient factory for me to uh, it's not like going up to williamsburg No So anyway, this this explains why it as you'll see in this chronology that tony kind of is getting a new kit every year up until about 1970 71 Um, he slowed out slows down a bit, but um, I I think that in some cases to get a new kit They wanted you to give them your old kit back Which I don't know what they would do. Maybe they would try to repurpose some of it You know, maybe if some of the parts were still usable they put it on some new drums I don't know. I don't know why they did that and I don't know if that's true or not I just remember hearing that somewhere maybe in some interview from somebody somewhere I I'm sorry. I can't source anything more. No, that's okay than that and I'm trying not to include You know theories and you know things that I think are this or that You know, I I will try to very clearly state when I don't know For sure that something is is the case and that's the case with this but it could explain why Um, I don't think any of these kits are accounted for the symbols are but but not the kits and again, we'll get to that Um, another interesting thing to notice about this kit and this is something you see on I think pretty much all of his gretch kits that have rail mounts. Um, is he used the extended rail mount Which means um, he had a little extra longer sort of point that the like the little bar that the uh, That the tom actually fits on Generally, there was a gear and then there was the clip right after the gear So the tom didn't really it couldn't really go very high off of the bass drum But um, tony liked the tom a little higher. So they actually made it's in the catalogs They made a little extension piece that that got the tom up about three or four inches higher Um off the bass drum. So he always had that you'll see that in all of these kits Makes sense because otherwise you have to have it like it's it's too low or it's far out or it's rubbing the bass drum And I love hearing about the little unique gear and like pieces of hardware at each, you know, yeah. Yeah, cool. Well, yeah um So I don't think I have anything else specific about that kit except to say that he used it the last known use of it Um is uh, well basically at this july um festival and and um in france and the next date I actually that way they were in in um At the at the um antique festival july 26 through 28th and um the next known gig that I have anyway or recording session or anything is september 20th At the monoray jazz festival, which is over. I guess that's two, you know, nearly two months And by this point we can um, we actually see him using a new kit The one thing I want to point out before I get to the discussion of this black drum set the uh, the the black Nitron kit that he used in 63 64 late 63 starting september at least if not slightly earlier um is that um There is There's a rumor or there's suggestions or something. I had heard From various sources that the black kit That tony used that you'll see in all these photos actually belonged to myles davis and didn't belong to tony um Now I think it's possible. Maybe myles did have a kit and maybe it was black nitron I think myles had talked about like, you know, the band leader should have their own kit for their drummer to use um, but every photo we see if tony in this era he's using the same kit And you also see him using this kit at recording sessions that had nothing to do with myles sideman recording sessions He did for blue note records. Um, he's using the same kit. He's also featured in gretch ads Photographed playing this kit to me. This was his kit again. Maybe myles had a kit Maybe myles had the same kit. I you know, I honestly don't know I I um You know, but but I'm pretty sure that this kit that you see in these photos is is tony's kit This is a gretch black nitron Again, he started using it in september of 63 or at least summer of 63. So that would be when it dates from more or less 8 by 12 inch rack tom 14 by 14 inch floor tom This is when he starts using a 14 by 18 bass drum and I think tony Yeah, I probably argue. I mean max used one max and and and art blakie started using 18 inch bass drums a little earlier They were using them in 61 ish time period elvin got his first kit with a uh an 18 inch bass drum in early 1962 But I kind of feel like tony Maybe even more than elvin. I think really popularized the 18 inch bass drum. Oh, roy haines also used one early on And all of those guys contributed to the popularity of an 18 But I don't know there's something about tony and there's something about the sound of the gear the sound of the cymbals that the 18 inch bass drum It's just so iconic to me I don't think a lot of people really I mean, I've done this research I've listened to recordings of max and you can hear a significant change in the bass drum sound at a certain point where it sounds like Oh, he just got an 18 same thing with blakie But I don't think people think about that as much as like I'm talking about drummers jazz drummers or jazz drum fans I think they think of you know, oh tony 18 inch bass drum 18 inch bass drum tony You know, I mean that that's again, this is my opinion But but popularity if an 18 has a lot to do with tony williams Yeah, absolutely So these are cool. These are cool-looking drums too. It looks like we have different color like a hoop The hoop is a different color than the yeah, so when gretch For black nitron drums black nitron. I should point out is a black wrap. It's just a covering. Um, they're not lacquered drums It's just a black wrap Gretch didn't really do You know, they did like ducco finishes and stuff like that early on and they had Like Cadillac green was actually a painted wrap It's the whole thing you should do gretch episode at some point talking about these finishes because there's actually cool history with that stuff But nitron is just a black wrap But gretch to kind of spice up black nitron. They would actually do um black Hoops on the bass drum with silver sparkle inlay Which is a great look. Uh, Ludwig did the same thing. Um, I think some of the other companies did as well But that's why that that it gives the bass drum a little more pizzazz I should also make note of the snare drum Because I mentioned that he used the standard five and a half wood snare drum with the silver sparkle kit like max roach used But with this black kit, we see the start of tony's association with the gretch 41 60 the 41 60 is a famous Drum that gretch made um starting in the early 60s. Uh, it's a chrome over brass It's five by 14 not five and a half but five by 14 chrome over brass It's a pretty heavy brass shell And um, it's a really cool sounding drum. I've I've been a fan of the 41 60 for a long time It was when I was a gretch player that was my My favorite gretch snare to play by far and tony was a fan too because he kind of uses it He he has some other snares some some wood snares pop in and out But for the most part he's using a 41 60 until you start seeing him play the big kit in the mid 70s So he clearly was a fan of this drum as well and there's some session photos that um, you can see from around uh 63 you can also see the same kit, you know while we're just talking about the snare it's it's it's you know He's he's very much in some photos. It looks like more than others, but the angle of the snare I mean, he's really leaning into it in certain photos of yeah setup It varies um, it it changes actually he seemed to be somebody who experimented a bit with with his setup You see the angle kind of sometimes it's it's really very deep um, particularly around, um, you'll see some photos from the, um, autumn 1964 tour of europe Yes, also playing this kit the the the angle of the snare is very very tilted and there's a video from that tour There's a great video from malan Um in I believe it's october Of um, yeah, october 11th 1964 You can see the whole concert on uh on youtube and he's got the snare pretty angled and he you know It's it's so that when you're playing traditional grip the angle of the stick Kind of being like this and you know with the snare that angle you just get a get a direct sort of contact with the snare Like how guys used to march it would be on their hips a little bit at an angle and that's the yeah That's how it works and and tony also sometimes During this era would actually and even later would actually have his hi-hat kind of below the snare Um, so that he would actually have to play He actually see pictures of buddy rich doing this in like the 30s Or he would play the hi-hat and actually have the left hand over His right hand to play the snare Which is interesting. It's very it's very awkward if you try to do brain. Yeah, brain melting. Yeah Another fun series of photos is to look at this gretch ad that came out around this this time This was done around 64s, you know, maybe early 65. This is tony's like first gretch ad tony williams and that great gretch sound We actually have the sizes listed and they specifically mentioned the the 18 by 14 bass drum In the type, you know in the copy and you know, they have the uh, they actually call it jet black It's technically, you know in the catalog would be black nitron, but they call it jet black 14 18 by 14 bass drum 12 by 8 14 by 14 toms um 14 by 5 gretch metal snare drum So yeah, I mean that's basically the kit as I described you can see some nice detail there one funny thing that tony liked to do was um A lot of the time not all the time but a lot of the time he'd like to actually mount the the rack tom What we would consider upside down the the way that you see it mounted on You know in like gretch catalogs and promo photos Generally, the badge would be facing out on the rack tom And he liked to put it the other way so that the mufflers faced out the two round Metal knobs that controlled the upper and lower mufflers, and I think maybe he just liked the way that looked It looks cool. I'm noticing that now. It does look really cool. Yeah, and tony consistently did that with his gretch toms um a lot and you know throughout his career actually that's kind of one of his trademark looks and I think it looks really cool so and I think it it goes without saying that again visually Uh, you know if you're if you're listening to this I think everyone has a picture of young tony williams and really anyone in miles davis's band of just being So sharp and well-dressed and I was recently watching the wane shorter kind of mini series that was on amazon, which is really really good I have to highly recommend it, but I think he talked about that In that about you know that they're they're like uniform. They would wear which is these like amazing suits The with that mixed with the black drum set is just like very very sharp. It looks great on stage Absolutely. Yeah, and and miles was very very fashion conscious and he was a fashion icon a really big time fashion icon throughout his career who's exceptionally well-dressed guy and really cared about that and One thing I actually always notice actually is a little side note if you watch the If you watch the video from malon that I was talking about they're all wearing tuxes Um, but you can kind of tell actually sorry I think miles is wearing a suit and the rest of the band are wearing tuxes and they all look really sharp But if you look really closely you can see that miles's suit fits them a little better than the rest of the band Like the rest of the band like sometimes like, you know the jacket kind of comes up a little bit Like they're just kind of off the rack Tuxes whereas miles a suit was almost certainly custom made for him You know, so he's the leader. He's got more bread to spend on on this kind of thing um, but um Yeah, I I should also point out that um, some of these photos You may hear me reference some photos that we're not actually going to see and that's because um, uh, I was able to um A long time ago. I I I made an association in the 90s with a couple of gentlemen who ran The um mosaic record label mosaic records is a reissue label that was kind of associated with balloonote It was charlie lori and michael cascuna michael cascuna is still there it still operates mosaic records, but michael was also Basically almost single-handedly responsible for all of the blue note reissues of Things that were coming out in the 70s and 80s and 90s and all these different reissue series He's done incredible work going through the blue note vaults and finding all these old sessions He also for a very long time was the the guy who Sort of looked over he was sort of the the basically the owner mosaic records owned the complete photo archive Of a gentleman named francis wolf and francis wolf was one of the owners and producers the blue note label um until the 70s when they they uh You know ended up sort of getting swallowed well actually was in 66 I think they were sold to liberty records, which became party united artists and so on and so forth but basically he took The classic photos that you see at blue note recording sessions these classic black and white photos of the musicians in recording sessions were all taken by francis wolf and He took thousands and thousands of photos Every session not every session, but but probably two-thirds or three-quarters the sessions were documented on photographs by francis wolf and He for every one photo that's been published In a book or online or something. They're probably 10 or 15 other photos that were never published and because I knew charlie lorry and still know michael cascuna. I was lucky enough to be able to Visit their archive of photos a lot like a number of times and take careful notes and things of The the things that I saw that about the drummers basically I was interested in seeing these photos because I wanted to see more detail Of the drum sets that that my favorite drummers were using including tony And there's some good published photos Now we do thanks to michael cascuna. We do have permission to use those for this um for this video So things like the out-to-launch session point of departure evolution these things, you know There's some published photos, but there are also a lot of photos that i've been lucky enough to see that no one else has seen So there are some things that I was able to learn about tony's gear Um, particularly things like the sticks he was using and some of the hardware and things like that um That you know no one else really has access to because people haven't seen these photos And there are photos where you see things like the type of sticks he's using that Again these photos for whatever reason haven't been published So Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah, that's something I may I may bring up from time to time But you know if I say something unfortunately, we can't use In this in this series. We can't use photos that are not published But we are allowed to use the published photos And you can you're like you said your knowledge of looking at those photos First hand We can trust you that It's it's legit. So that's that's awesome. Wow. Yeah, thank you. Uh, so the next kit We start to see now. This is not a well documented kit Um, but we see he actually got a second black nitron kit in the same size as 12 14 18 Although this kit actually you often see him playing a uh matching wood snare So you got another 41 47 with this kit the the five and a half by 14 Wood snare now I never knew That this was a different kit I'd seen photos of him and like I've seen these exact photos published before But I didn't actually know it was a different kit But what I the reason that I realized suddenly that it was Is because of an interesting quirk about gretch drums In the mid 60s They went through a period of time now gretch Used two different size lugs for tom tom's and bass drums. They had a small lug and they had a big lug So 12 and 13 inch toms, which are the only rack toms they made in like say that, you know, we're talking about the mid 60s You see the only sizes they made Had Small lugs they used the small sized lugs on those um 14 inch floor toms also had small lugs But 16s and then all the bass drum sizes used big lugs And there's only a difference of you know, I I don't know what the measurements are Maybe the small lugs are two inches long. Yeah big lugs are three inches long, but they're kind of distinctive now Occasionally in the 50s There are a couple of instances where I've seen kits where they must have been running low On small lugs because I've seen a couple of kits with 13s that had Big lugs on them. In fact mel lewis had a Cadillac green kit between 56 and 57 Gretch kit that had a 9 by 13 rack tom with large lugs on it And it's very distinctive because lugs are pretty close to to one another You can really kind of tell it looks very different than a 9 by 13 with small lugs I also saw a picture once of um Ed blackwell actually playing a kit with a 12 that had long lugs So they're out there, but that's very very very rare. However Between 65 and 66 and this information comes from my friend bill melie who used to be One of the major vintage drum dealers. He ran a store called a classic vintage drums dot com Really great guy got a ton of info from him Um, he was one of the first people to notice this trend that Drums that are dated from about 65 66 a lot of the time you find 14 inch floor toms with big lugs I'd say maybe half of the 14 inch floor toms made in that era have big lugs instead of small lugs Just 14s The 12s and the 13s you never see with big lugs in this era, but the 14s you very often do And tony's kit that we looked at before From 63 64 Every photo of that kit from that from those verifiable dates Every photo you see of the kit from 63 64. These are like verifiable dates Always has small lugs on the floor top And then you see these other photos some of which I actually have specific dates on where you see the big lugs So You can see for example Really great photo. I have it dated as uh, or I have it listed as 1965 to 66 us 2 the black and white photo kind of a Dark sort of low light photo It's a little hard to see but tony's playing his regular kit here and his regular symbols But you can see one distinctive thing about the the gretch floor toms the 14s with long lugs is Not only they have long lugs, but they mounted them low and used long tension rods Yeah, I was going to say the tension rods are very clearly long. So take a look also at the photo 1965 st. Louis That's the same kit with those long lugs on the floor toms and long tension rods Um, there's this great photo of tony and elvin together 1966 november japan Same kit same see the wooden snare You see the matching wooden snare and then you also see The long lugs and long tension rods on the floor toms Yes, and and all of this is to say obviously just to kind of put this in perspective This is to prove that it is a different set than the previous Yeah, yeah, and there isn't really any other way. I mean that floor toms is the distinctive way There there really isn't any other way to definitively say this is a different kit But this is what makes me quite positive. That's a different kit I also I want to address this photo specifically 1966 november japan the photo of tony and elvin together and tony's playing and elvin is Telling him off, which is a cool photo. Now. I remember I only recently this photo was posted on facebook a couple of years ago um, it only kind of recently surfaced and Immediately it was posted on like a tony williams fan page that i'm a member of And immediately all of these people commented. Oh, that's a fake photo. That's such bad photoshop Oh, that's so, you know like the all everybody just kind of dumped all over this photo Saying that it was a fake photo was like some sort of photoshop Some somebody's idea of having tony Having elvin towel tony's face, you know while he's drumming now Okay, so to address this We we look at tony's um, so If you look at tony's chronology and you do some research, um, both tony and elvin um There's discussion of this event in 1966 in november They went to japan with art blakey So tony williams elvin jones and art blakey did a tour of japan As like kind of like the gretch drum nights. It was basically i don't think it was sponsored by gretch But it was basically like this sort of drum extravaganza um, and i actually found a program um On i actually just googled it. I think i googled like 1966 You know tony williams art blakey and and this thing came up. It's on a japanese auction site um I don't know if it was ever on ebay, but it's basically a program From this event and i'm just kind of pointing this out to tell you what this event was it's a program That says the sensational drum battle and it's got information It's all in japanese so i can't read what it says other than the title Says the sensational drum battle it has those three guys listed And presumably it has information about the dates of this You know the dates of the tour and things like that, but this is an event that happened elvin talked about it in an interview um I don't know if tony ever talked about it, but they did go to japan and tour together doing a drum battle kind of a thing and i think what this photo is Is a photo of this drum battle of one of these events And tony was soloing and elvin went over and you know tony was so killing That elvin went over and you know the the tal thing. Yeah, you know, and you also notice That tony um has a mustache elvin doesn't have a mustache elvin often had a mustache in these days and I also sent you a couple of photos These are not drum related But a couple of photos of the three of them outside of the hotel nagoya This is absolutely from that tour There's no other time that the three of them were in japan together when they were all you know When tony is obviously, you know very young. He's 20 or 20. I guess he's 20 at this time. No 21. Sorry 1966 holding an apple elvin's got his guitar um So notice that tony has a mustache and notice that elvin does not have a mustache Now there may have up been other times were tone when elvin didn't have a mustache But it was a bit unusual in the 60s. He usually sported a mustache For whatever reason on this tour. He was clean shaven and that's consistent with the photo of him Toweling tony off. He doesn't have his mustache So that to me is a little further proof that this is actually from that tour But the most important thing in relation to this gear is that that is the second black nitron kit with the big floor Tom lugs. You can see it clearly there Yeah, whether or not and I just I have about 10 or 12 mustache related questions to ask Oh, yeah, that's very you know, we should do an entire podcast on tony's mustache I think part three the mustache no, but but I do want to say that I googled it Kind of looking for what while we're talking looking for that program and it took me to read it and right away There's uh comments that say this looks photoshopped. They're not even looking at each other So it's interesting that like but they're like they're in japan. They're looking at like Things in a different to me Oh, you mean the photo the photo of them outside of the hotel Someone said that was photoshopped so the photo of them at the hotel when it was posted on That that photo also was posted on the same facebook page and the guy who took the photo A japanese gentleman. I forget his name But a japanese gentleman commented and said oh, this is a photo I took of the three of them On that tour when I was young Okay, there you go the actual photographer Took you know It claims to have taken that photo has has you know commented on it Um, yeah, they're you know, who knows what's going on. They're they're sitting around. Yeah, they're not looking at each other Maybe who knows what's going on. They're leaving the hotel to go to the gig. They could be Yeah, yeah, it's just a very interesting conspiracy and it's it's odd that elvin has a bag that says ohio as someone in ohio, I'm like What's going on with that who knows maybe maybe the entire state of ohio is in that bag If anybody that makes sense if anybody was powerful enough to hold the entire state of ohio It was elvin jones. So as far as unpublished photos There are some photos that were taken by francis wolf of tony in september of 65 at the village vanguard They're great photos the ones that are published. I sent you and um, you can see the symbol You can kind of make out on the photo number two that he's got the wooden snare But I have seen other photos outtakes from this same Session the same it was actually a gig. Tony was playing as a leader at the village vanguard Um, what I wouldn't do to be in attendance at that gig man. Yeah, yeah September 1965 tony trio gig at the vanguard. Yes, please. I will yeah, I will be there Um, but in in the uh, in the outtakes that I've seen, um, I can verify that the floor tom has the big lugs big tension rods Um, I can also verify that the snare drum is the the wooden uh, 4147 five and a half by 14 wooden snare not the uh, 4160 so Cool. Yes. So that's black nitron two two. Yeah. Yeah now I think we should talk about there's a lot to discuss about backline kits Um, but I think we should save that for the next one because okay, you know, let's try to get through His various kits that we know were his and not look at the backline kits But there were a lot of backline kits used in 1967 because they did a tour Of europe where tony was not able to bring his own drums So almost every night he's using different kits and there are a lot of photographs But we're gonna skip that stuff and we're gonna go on to the next kit that we know tony owned Which is another silver sparkle kit and this was used from You know around 67 until at least early 68 It's another 12 14 18 set up another kit with a 41 60 snare drum the the corolla brass snare There are a really nice series of photos that a gentleman took in seattle From a gig um actually a couple of gigs because you see them wearing different clothes A couple of gigs in uh 67 in seattle And if you google like miles davis seattle You'll probably be able to find this whole series of photos, but there's great photos of this kit Now what's interesting about this gig in seattle is that um, you can actually see tony is Got a second floor tom on his left What actually looks to me a bit like a slingerland floor tom, but i'm not sure maybe it's a gretch Maybe I am actually seeing a gretch diamond plate Um floor tom bracket the closer I look but this is a different color It's like not a matching drum. It's almost as though There was maybe some drums at the venue and he was like, oh, I want to try using a floor tom on my left or something It's fun. I mean, yeah, but on the left thing too. That's very unique. But yeah, that's definitely an experiment kind of thing Yeah, and and it it reminds me of an interview that you can watch with um There's there's a great interview with mike clark the fantastic drummer mike clark Who's a very influential drummer himself? Who played with herby hand cock in the 70s and lots of other people? He did an interview that you can see on youtube where he talks about Going to see tony for the first time. He said he saw tony in 1968 At the both and club in san francisco and he remembers that tony had two ride symbols He actually had a second ride symbol set up on his left kind of under the hi-hat and he was doing all of this sort of like stuff This is kind of how how mike describes it. I think yeah, so Tony was experimenting. I think at this point. He's like, I mean if you think about it It's like, you know, tony could kind of do anything at this point He's already like, you know in his early 20s. He's already just like completely changed jazz drumming massively influential and You know, he can do anything on the drums He's I think he was like, I don't want to say he was getting bored with what he could do But he just wanted to like try new things and wanted to experiment and you know break down more barriers And he started experimenting with it very cool. So you see this floor tom on his left um, you see the things like mike clark mentioned the um The the ride symbol on the left. There's another photo from 68 I'll show you in a minute where he's got a big chinese symbol on his left But um, yeah, so you get some a bit of experimenting here One of the photos that we should look at is one that says 67 zilgen photo Now this is kind of a well-known photo because it it actually hangs in the zilgen factory that the zilgen factory all all of the walls at the zilgen factory throughout the Throughout the complex there sort of adorned with all of these amazing photos of the family um, all the different generations of the zilgens and a lot of sort of Letters that famous drummers sent them and all kinds of cool memorabilia like that And then there are also walls and walls of photos of famous zilgen artists um, they're they're so um, the zilgens are so proud of the Legendary drummers that they've played zilgen over the years and they've got all of these great photos of them and This photo is up of tony a young tony and It says it's it's actually marked as you can see that this label that's on it is actually the paper label That's on the literal photo hanging on the wall. It says tony williams 1964 I'm actually pretty sure that this photo is a little bit later because i'm pretty sure he's playing on the silver sparkle 12 14 18 kit that 67. Yeah, I think this is a 67 photo um But the sparkle is popping in that it is right? Well, I think gretch actually there's sparkles in the 60s. Weren't they um, actually a Broken glass not not technically a sparkle, right? I'm sure maybe a glass glitter I'm not sure but that definitely captures the light more because you see these sparkles that are cheaper and I have a Japanese one that's behind me a gold sparkle. That's like it's not it's flat You can tell the flatness of some sparkles versus the broken glass and that is catching the light and looks Awesome. Yeah, so another this is a really minor things We were talking about these guys being really well dressed But I think another thing that points to this photo being a little bit later than 64 is tony suit has uh It's got a very high up lapels and the lapels are peaked lapels Which is a little bit more of a mid 60s fashion thing than like a 64 Could be wrong about that. He was a forward thinking guy. Maybe he was very hip in his fashion choice There's one last photo of this kit from um It's it's from a series of photos dated march of 1968 And they're taken at shelly man's club shelly man owned at the great drummer shelly man owned a jazz club in la for a number of years called the manhole and All of the great jazz artists played there in the 60s and there's this photo of miles playing there in march of 1968 It's a photo of miles, but he's sort of framed by tony symbols and drums. So it's actually a great Tony photo even though he doesn't appear in the photo same kit that silver sparkle kit Um, but we also see a floor tom on the left And it kind of looks like it could be a darker finish. I'm not really sure But maybe he actually was touring with that second floor tom over there at this point I'm not really sure but kind of interesting, but there's definitely another tom there, right? I mean you see that to the I mean, it's kind of far out like it's kind of far away from him in a way But that's sort of a weird you got to have it far enough to get past your hi-hat and stuff Or maybe I'm seeing something with a perspective there, but it could be perspective It could be that it's a bit of a wide-angle lens, which would bring the the floor tom closer I'd make it look closer. I'm not really sure but I'm not tony williams But I've I've had that where I put a floor tom over here and I just for me it was like I just never used it, you know, it's cool to experiment because you see people doing it again He's tony williams, but do you like have you experimented with that? I'm sure you're having your life at some point I I mean, you know going I I think when I first got into Dave Weckel in the 80s He was doing the left hand floor tom thing I think I might have experimented with that a little bit in those days But you know, honestly, I don't really think I've done the left hand floor tom thing Most of my kits have I don't know if I've ever really owned a kit that had a second floor tom So I'm not sure I even had the option to do that most of my kits have just had a single 14-inch floor tom Sure It's probably just end up I'd put my cell phone on it And like some water Well, Keith moon had you know a floor tom that was just dedicated to sticks and you know He had another one that's dedicated to drinks and towels Buddy buddy rich's second floor tom was just for towels, you know, he never played the second floor tom, right? Lars I'm speaking again from just doing that was his second floor tom was known as the coffee table So what's important to hydrate man? Yeah. Yeah, exactly Okay, the next kit we have is 1968 And again, this is a very poorly documented kit although there are a couple of great photos there's really only a couple and There's two photos from the same club that I mentioned the both and Which is a club in san francisco in these days? And you see the band playing and you see tony playing this kit And this would actually possibly be from the same run at the both and that um that mike clark talked about seeing But I don't actually see there isn't a ride symbol on his left. Although well You tell me rivets maybe there's rivets and to me it almost looks like a chinese symbol because it sort of looks like it's It's got like kind of you know the flange edges. Yeah. Yeah, but maybe it's a normal ride symbol Maybe it's a normal ride symbol with rivets You know and that would actually it could be because that would really support exactly what mike clark was talking about Yes, and and just as a reminder, we're going to talk about symbols More in the next part. Just as a reminder that someone's commenting. Why are you not talking about symbols? That's there's That's part two. This this that's part two or three Yeah, so am I seeing am I seeing two flortons here? Sure are So that's the interesting thing about this kit this kit At least this day when they took these photos this kit had a second flortom. It looks like a 16 Past the 14 and what you can see there is the very clear distinction between the small lugs on the 14 inch flortom And the big lugs on the 16 inch flortom is exactly what I was talking about before and you can also see the 16 With the big lugs has longer tension rods And that's exactly what I was talking about with the Two kits ago where he had the big lugs on the 14 inch flortom So everything else about this kit specced out the same 12 14 and 18 inch bass drum a 41 60 snare again He's got the the muffler knobs facing front You know the only difference with this kit is the Is the second flortom We'll talk about this when we talk about heads, but you see he started using a black front bass drum head with this kit Which is pretty pretty cool Now what's funny about this kit is these only photos that I have of this kit that I know are this kit are black and white So I can't tell if this is like a natural maple kit Or if it was white or if it was possibly the first yellow kit that he had But one thing I do know is in 19 sorry in 2005 There was an auction of a lot of jazz memorabilia It was a the Guernsey Jazz auction and there were a lot of things like one of charlie parker's saxophones was sold And I think maybe like one of dizzy gillespie's trumpets and all these really important bits of jazz memorabilia And if you zoom in on this photo and you look to the left One of tony's kits sold So he had what we're gonna get to this in 1970 he had a 12 14 18 yellow kit Now this could be that 12 14 18 yellow kit because that also he used a black front head on that But this in this photo the the the color of it. It looks a little more like it could be a natural maple Yeah, yeah, it does like it to you It's almost like that that ringo kind of like that Ludwig like thermo or whatever kind of yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's it's that style of like right natural now I have to study this a little closer, but you know the the the 1970 Yellow kit which we'll get to in a minute Definitely had at least on the floor tom we can see it had a stop sign badge Which is you know period correct for that time, of course Unfortunately in the Guernsey jazz auction photo We don't see any badges on this kit because the the others, you know the muffler knob side Is facing front. So we can't really tell I just don't know if there's any way we can differentiate whether this is the 1968 kit or if this is the uh, the 1970 kit I'm leaning towards this being the 1968 kit and that Thus being that the 68 kit was actually a maple finish kit But until we see a color photo from 1968, we just won't know for sure Maybe I have to ask Mike Clark Maybe Mike Clark will remember what color those drums were because that's when he said he said he saw them in 68 for the first time So maybe he remembers And it raises the question of if this went on an auction in 2005 this kit is clearly this one still exists Someone has a collection, but it would be the question of backdating it to connect it to these black and white photos To tell or I don't know. Maybe there's better pictures of that person's collection who bought it I hope so. Yeah cancel it out that it's not yet the yellow one If the person who bought that kit um is watching Please get in touch with us. Let us know as much as you feel like you want to let us know about that kit I'd love to know what kind of badges are on the kit What the color is Is there an extra floor tom, etc anything you want to tell us please where we want the info we don't we don't know So speaking of I I want to remind me to talk about the auction because this next kit I think Possibly was owned by somebody else later and auctioned off, but the next kit we get to is in 1969 So in february 69 Tony makes his last recordings with miles and leaves the band And starts his own band called um the tony williams lifetime Which was an organ trio with john mcgloughlin on guitar and larry young on organ and enormously important band um Generally like credited by most people to have sort of been the real start of fusion um You know miles was experimenting with fusion and there were other things that were sort of you know It was bubbling it was happening in these days, but this album is like. Oh my god. This is fusion This is a true fusion of jazz and rock music jazz and rock sensibilities and Really great band really important And for this era for this record and the tours that they did initially Uh, tony got a new kit the same size as 12 14 18. There's no second floor tom. He's using the 41 60 snare This kit though appears to be A walnut finish kit, which would have been also like the maple would have been a new finish for gretch You see a really nice sort of detail of it if you zoom in on the 1969 gretch add You see the kit, you know, this is this is the kit as set up by tony. Yeah, it is it is beautiful The same size is he's got the muffler knobs facing out on the rack tom One difference is I haven't seen any of the other kits so far I've not noticed that they none of them have had the pratt muffler Which is the bass drum muffling system that gretch invented that jimmy pratt invented for gretch But this kit does have that knob you can actually see it in the um in some of these photos Yeah, which that goes back. I remember in the john densmore gear episode that goes back to the 50s I'm not mistaken. That's right. That's right. Yeah. I think it was around 54 that that was sort of pioneered And it was kind of standard. I mean I think you could request to get a kit that didn't have it I think it came standard on a gretch kit in those days You can request it without but also I think arbitrarily they'd sometimes just ship without them I don't know if you know whether you requested it or not I think it was like if they had some they put them on it, but sometimes they ran out Now there's another there are a couple good photos from so they're they're the debut album of this band was called emergency And everybody should listen to this record. It's amazing. It's mind-blowing There's a nice sort of photo of the three of them together And then there's a second sort of a montage of photos And in the upper left you see a photo of tony on his kit and you can see it Looks like he's got the black bass drum head on the kit again Which is interesting and you don't see that in the gretch ad and the gretch ad He's got a white head on the front No logo either way, which is pretty interesting It's interesting for the gretch Like ad they didn't just slap the head with a logo on I know right well, you know, there are a lot of gretch ads actually There's I know there's one with max roach and I think maybe even one of the ones with tony where They showed up at the photo shoot without a logo head and they actually sort of they didn't have photoshop in the day Of course, but they they used, you know, whatever technology they had to touch up photos at the time They actually put a gretch logo on the front bass drum head and you can sometimes tell it's pretty Is kind of haphazardly put on you can you can kind of tell looking at some of those photos that like That's not really on there. They probably cut it out of paper and laid it on. Yes, exactly That's how they would do that in those days There's some good photos this band playing it. Uh the monoray jazz festival in 1969, which is amazing to think about like You know 1963 we looked at the photos of tony playing with miles as a 17 year old And and now here he is, you know, it's really not very long later What seven years later or something six years later. Unbelievable. He's headlining monoray as a as a band leader and has just come So incredibly far as a musician as a drummer and as an influencer Yeah, we've got the badge facing out and on this photo. That's right. Yeah on this photo as opposed to the ruffling so an interesting thing that popped up um A few years ago was that um, I remember I think it was on drum forum dot or somebody posted Like, oh one of mitch mitchell's gretch kits is on is on the auction block Um, so I looked at the link. It's like, okay. That's pretty interesting mitch mitchell. I'm not a mitch mitchell I I like mitch mitchell, but I haven't really followed his his kits. I know he had blood wig and um, maybe a premier two and and he had a big gretch kit with two bass drums but So if there's an auction and if you google mitch mitchell gretch drums, you'll you'll find this auction site You'll find the listing. It's you know, if the kit sold um, but the listing is still active And it's one of those things where like sadly whoever auctioned this kit didn't really know that much about drums and didn't do a whole lot of research because Now it was a kit that mitch mitchell owned But it um, I'm gonna look at the listing actually and what they say about it um of mitch mitchell Drum kit used in the studio and in rehearsals d mitchell mitch's wife explained that this kit was a favorite of mitch's It was given to him in 1968 by american drummer, tony williams. Oh, wow With this kit mitchell performed with williams and miles davis So I don't know about mitch mitchell playing with either tony or with miles davis, but maybe Maybe he did. Um, what's interesting about this is that the photos in the auction Of the actual kit are of a 1214 18 walnut gretch kit And I think it's possible. This might be tony's You know 1969 emergency kit. Oh, wow that he gifted to mitch mitchell Yeah, which it looks like it was used on the rolling stones rock and roll circus So take a if you look at the photo Of mitch mitchell playing what they think is this kit. This is where you know, sadly somebody didn't really know a whole lot about drums because Most people who are drum nerds will know that that's mitch mitchell playing charlie watt's gretch black nitron kit That's that's that's that's that's black. That's 13 16 22 You know the rolling stones are the host of the rock and roll circus and charlie's drums. It's charlie's drums Yeah, that's not the same kit That's this is you know, this walnut kit that we're looking at definitely was owned by mitch mitchell But it's not the same kit that's in the photo with the you know with the rock and roll circus photo Yes, but you know interesting people make it sold for $28,000. It's pretty wild It is well, I gotta mention the the mitch mitchell fan club on facebook kevin simon great guy Does an awesome job of displaying mitch mitchell kits at drum shows and stuff So yeah go there and and people can start a conversation about this this there because that's you know Yeah, and we could you know, I would love it if anybody wanted to comment on this kit specifically if anybody knows more about it I I don't know I just I see a black bass drum front head that could have been something that was put on later We don't know The hoops don't match but you know a lot of the time Vintage kits the hoops get beat up and they get replaced The only thing that it doesn't match with the photos of tony's kit from this era now tony's kit has a A pratt muffler which this kit does but but this kit also has the gretch Diamond plate symbol holder mounted on the bass drum, which tony's kit did not have So if this was indeed tony's 69 emergency kit Somebody put the gretch Symbol mount on the bass drum at a later point. So that's the only thing that doesn't really line up Um, yeah, I think one tell is the fact that if you look at mitch's kit here You can see the round badge on the floor tom is a little bit high of center It's kind of like north of center. Whereas in the 60s, it would be a little more centered Um, I couldn't find any photos of tony's kit in 69 where you see the uh Where you see the round badge on the floor tom. So I can't verify like oh, it's the same height or it's centered the way It would normally be so I don't really know that method of using I think brooks tagler calls it the fingerprint method where you you look at The photos and you judge the height and the all that stuff is very valid And yeah, I don't I can't you know If another photo emerges that has that in it, that'd be a great tell if anybody has a photo What you could see, you know the walnut kit of tony's with the you know, where you can see the uh the badge Then that would be great send it along. Um, so yeah, the next kit is the yellow kit This is the first verifiably yellow kit as I said the 68 kit. Maybe it was yellow This kit we know for sure. This is a this is a this is a yellow kit and yeah, that's yellow This is the kit that he got. Um, he started using it in 1970 um around the time that um The tony williams lifetime did their second album, which is called turn it over and jack bruce It joined the band it expanded from an organ trio And this is another 12 14 18 kit Now there are some photos you can see a bunch of photos from newport They played the newport jazz festival with this group. You see him with a matching wood snare Uh five and a half wood snare There are other photos from new york that I think are from a club called count bases Taken um in 1970 and you can see him playing the same kit But with a uh 41 60 chrome over brass snare. So that snare is still kind of in the mix Which is cool. And again, we got the uh the black front bass drum head. That's still the look he's rocking at that point Was he inspired by someone else that you know of to go yellow like like obviously You know, he he early on wanted to look like um max roach or was this just This is his because he you know, I think everyone knows this if you're this far into this tony williams Equals yellow drum set. That's kind of what we think I know I know but but as we've just noticed, you know, his whole career from you know, he started recording in 63 Um and moved to new york started recording touring from 63 to 69. He does not have yellow drums yet No, exactly, but i'm saying it became one for it later But you think he he just they they released the color and I don't know I mean, it's not in the catalog, you know, this color this color is not in the gretch catalog until I mean actually it's not officially in the gretch catalog until the poster catalog which came out. I think in 83 So more than 10 years after this, you know, tony's Started to use this color did it actually appear officially in the catalog now They're definitely yellow drums floating out there, you know from the 70s besides ones that tony owned So it was obviously a finish you could get But it wasn't really advertised by gretch officially until Um 83 I think is when the poster catalog came out. They call it that because it's a it's a catalog But it's actually also a big poster that you unfold. Yeah, it's a great. It's a really cool catalog Um, yeah, but this this is a this is a really I mean, I love this kid I just think that that yellow is so beautiful and and I I always wanted to own a yellow Gretch kid. I I I mentioned in um the neil podcast that neil also owned a yellow gretch kid that he kept at home um, elvin jones had a yellow gretch kit and um My fellow uh, professor jazz drums at juliard billy drum and how he plays a yellow gretch kid and Well, cahoone plays a yellow gretch kid now. It's just a cool. Yeah, I mean, it's just cool. It's so cool um, I don't know if there's a really, you know, like Tony like cars Um Ferrari were famous for having a really cool yellow finish, you know, like Ferrari are most famous for red But probably their second most famous finish is is a very similar yellow to this this sort of like bright yellow It's sort of bright but mellow at the same time. I just I just love it. It is mel. It's exactly how I describe it. Yeah So the next kit after that however Is one that I cannot for the life of me tell if it's yellow or natural maple And I'm pretty sure it's natural maple and again, they're not a ton of color photos But there's some good video of this kit But this kit that he used from 71 to 72 And this is where we see the first change and this is where we get kind of like I mean, he had that second floor tom briefly in 68, right? But to me, this is the first kit that starts to hint at what was to come Because he's got two rack toms with this kit and There's a great video from 72 where he's playing with stanley clark and Jean-Luc Ponti In france and he does a long solo And he does a lot of the stuff that he becomes associated with in the later 70s and into the 80s and 90s where he do these long sort of beautiful roles around Like open snare and around the toms kind of going and playing these beautiful long sustained almost like a like a violin Just playing a note, you know and just sustaining like that. I mean it's it's strikingly great drumming and You know, that's that's kind of like I think he was inspired by having even just one more tom to kind of get into this different language and This kit, uh, again also gretch. Um, I should have mentioned that the The yellow kit the 70 kit is the first kit that we verifiably see Uh, the stop sign badge which gretch switched the soft sign badge around 69 And the his 69, uh, the walnut kit has round badges, but that uh, yellow kit's the first one with stop sign so this is another stop sign badge kit and this This this is this un positive is a kit with two 12 inch toms. It's not a 12 and a 13 But two 12s and then a 14 inch floor tom And this is one where I've never been able to quite be positive whether the bass drum is an 18 or a 20 I think it's an 18 It looks like an 18 and it definitely sounds like an 18 There are a couple photos where it looks like it could maybe be bigger But it's probably an 18. There's there there interviews where he talks specifically about Going from an 18 to a 24 And he doesn't make mention of you know anything in between so I I think this is you know It looks 18 to me because the height of the toms in comparison to the the length of the tom mount Looking at your first couple photos in berlin. So what's up with the finish and the like The drawing all over the shell the funny thing about that Is unless the dates are wrong There are photos of him and video that are dated 1971 Where you see the kit with all of this sort of like psychedelic design Like all these like it looks like somebody painted the drums for him Or even maybe just like magic marker on them and almost like like a little kid drew on them It looks like a kid. Yeah, yeah The color photo from berlin where he's got the red shirt is kind of where you really see this quite Quite well and quite vividly and and also in this photo. It looks like a natural maple kit The finish looks like maple to me, but again, it's sometimes hard to tell with stage lighting um But then there's video and photos of this exact same kit from 1972 Where it looks like it's the same kit, but there's no design or anything on it And it looks yellow and it looks yeah, I mean, maybe it's another more yellowy to me You might be right. Maybe it's a whole another kit. Maybe that's that's a that's another kit in the exact same sizes You know, man He maybe got me on that because I hadn't really thought about the fact that that could just be a whole another kit and these Same, you know 12 12 14 20 or 14 18. Sorry, but yeah, yeah Wow Now I got to do some more research and see if there's anything that can Give that away as being a different kit like something different about the the badge placement or something like that Well, they would either have to like rewrap it or something But then sometimes that comes up with these gear episodes where it's like Was it this and then did they take it back and rewrap it? But you wonder like why would they rewrap it and not just give him a new kit because right what's easy I would think they just give him a new one But you know, it's possible. He didn't like what you know, he got sick of the psychedelic sort of finish Um, and and you know, he just wanted it, you know, but they weren't doing as far as I know They weren't doing yellow wrap yet, you know, they started doing a yellow Nitron, which is a wrap version of the yellow, but I believe through the 70s It was always a lacquer and they didn't start doing the the the wrap version until The 80s I did get verification from The guy that sold neal his yellow gretch kit told me that neals kit was indeed a wrap It was yellow nitron and not yellow lacquer, which is kind of fun I also got confirmation of the sizes 8 by 12 9 by 13 14 by 14 14 by 20 and a 5 by 14 wood snare Neals kit Anyway, sorry little little side note. No, that's cool. And it's pretty neat though to see In the 72 live photo where it clearly is either it looks like it's been it's a different kid or whatever the fives set behind him Billy Cobham I was gonna say that looks like Billy Cobham. It's definitely Billy Cobham's kit So whatever band Tony was playing with appears to be opening from Mahavishnu Orchestra. Yes, very definitely Billy's Clear fives kit you can see the ride and the china on the left of the kit You know, yeah, when I look at this color photo that that looks much more like yellow to me than than maple So I think I think you were onto something. I think he got me on this. I think that's a new kit I think that could be a completely different kit than the one with the psychedelic Drawings on it There are a lot of photos taken in 1971 in Copenhagen by a great photographer named yon person Who actually took a lot of the great photos of tony in 1964 in europe As well, but these photos are are fantastic these these great photos from 71 And you can see some nice detail and the one called Copenhagen side one. There's some really nice detail of the Of the of the kit. Yeah, see look at this That looks like natural maple that's painted on right that does that's not yellow and check it out of the the second rack tom The badge is upside down. You notice that. Oh, yeah See the gray it says gretch on the bottom and yeah, exactly turned upside down for some reason sometimes in those days like Guys would they would break ahead and they just flipped the drum around because when it was on a rail mount You could just take the drum off around and it fit the same way on the rail I should actually since I mentioned that if you look at one of the Copenhagen front photos Tony was using the gretch double tom holder of the day, which I actually have the catalog Number it's the um 49 36. That's the gretch catalog number if they're their original double tom mount was basically a double rail mount You know, it's it's sort of like you Yeah, you'd slip it on and it had sort of like adjustment where you could kind of like turn them this way But you couldn't angle them that way or that way just like sort of front or back and that was it. It was very limited Um, but that's what he had on on that kit. Okay. That's that's super cool. Then where do we go from there? Were it 73? Yeah, basically so there's this funny period where Tony There are actually a couple periods in his career where he didn't do a lot of music and he talked about this a little bit in some interviews where he It was kind of burnt out and um, he had actually bought a house. He had bought a brownstone in Harlem And he actually he turned it into a rental property And was able to make enough income from this rental property that he owned that he didn't have to work he didn't have to play music if he didn't want to and he There was some periods of time where he wasn't inspired to do anything or not Consistently inspired and and there's sort of these down periods where he didn't record much or he didn't appear So this is sort of one of these periods And interestingly it's where he kind of transitions into what we know famously as the big Tony kit Which is the you know two rack toms three floor toms the big 24 inch bass drum the deep snare Which he used consistently through the rest of his career But there's this brief transitional period and some of these things actually just kind of popped up Very recently because this sort of unknown film was released Tony made a trip to Africa. He went to Senegal To uh, basically to play drums and I think to kind of Play with master drummers in Africa and to sort of absorb that music I sadly haven't seen the film and I had very limited screening in New York Um a year or so ago, but I was out of the country touring and I wasn't able to see it So I still haven't seen it, but there's some interesting sort of stills and promo things Um, yeah, it looks awesome. Yeah, so this is again, definitely a yellow kit now It's possible. This is the same kit that we saw in 72 But this is definitely a bigger bass drum Now this could be a 24. It could be a 22. I'm not really sure There's this great picture. It's labeled 73 in Africa 2 Where he's playing just a bass drum a snare drum and one cymbal That looks cool. It's something very cool about that setup. Now if we zoom in on the cymbal I'm not sure but that looks like it could be a feisty 2002 logo Very brilliant very very shiny, but it doesn't look like a feisty. It's it's too shiny. It looks like a brilliant zilgen Yeah, but that logo doesn't look like a zilgen logo So what we have is a five and a half by 14 snare and what's interesting is the snare has a camco strainer on it um For whatever reason actually I should have mentioned this in 1972 the video that I pointed out where that I mentioned Where he's doing it's does a solo with the rolls around the toms. He Is is using a snare with the same snare. Maybe it's the same drum But it a gretch five and a half by 14 with a camco strainer on that video too. This is possible It's the same drum, but that's a bigger bass drum for sure. I mean, I that's not a that's definitely not an 18 It doesn't look like a 20 to me. It looks like a 22 So this bass drum we can see in the photo number one The bass drum has a prat muffler on it Although he looks like he has some other Muffling on it. There's I see a little felt something or other sticking out of the the side of the drum It also looks like two 12s and a 14s. That's why I think it could be that Possibly the same toms from the previous kit, but with a bigger bass drum And then there's this one final photo of him playing outdoors playing the same setup Which is super cool But this is sort of the transitional kit and I think I'll kind of stop here because the next time we see him So tony williams in africa was filmed in 1973 And then we don't really see him again until 1975 when he starts an all-new band And starts using the famous big kit and um, we'll pick that up in the next episode. I think Yeah, what we'll do is we'll do part two. We'll likely talk about, uh, tony's drums Including, you know, his famous yellow monster drum set here up through Basically when garrison will take over into the 90s, uh with the dw stuff But I think the order will go part one what we just did part two up through 90s, I guess yeah part three will cover the cymbals With paul but part two we'll talk about uh through the 90s probably his backline kits Maybe some hardware if we have time But you and I know that we run out of time pretty quickly but um And then part three will be the cymbals and uh, whatever else we want to cover Then maybe part four will have garrison on to cover that part of tony's life. And uh, I think it's awesome. I mean, I think it it it to have the like definitive, you know, um, uh, kind of I don't know examples and and here is what the gear is is is a really cool thing Yeah, well, I think it makes sense. I'm trying to be I mean, I hope I can be some something approaching definitive I I mean, there's no there's really no way of being definitive because there's just there's there's so much that unfortunately It's been lost time. We don't know where most of these kits are anymore and You know, there's only so much you could I try to do my best picking up information from photos But there's still things that you can miss and I I do, you know, encourage anybody to please contact us Leave messages send send us, you know, social media messages if you want, you know, just You know, if you have information on this stuff If you know if you have some of these drums or you know somebody who does or or you saw him, you know On a gig in 1965 and you can tell me about the big lugs on the floor toms or something like that Feel free. I'm so into getting this information and I I don't claim to know all of this stuff definitively I'm trying my best, but I want more info. So so bring it on Before I I wrap up though, I do want to thank a couple of people even though we didn't there There's there's some of the stuff we didn't even really get to but you know, I I mentioned Michael Cascuna Who gave us permission to use the francis wolf photos? Um, I want to thank bill maily, uh, who gave me a lot of information on um vintage drums in general Uh, jess birch at good hands drum shop and steve maxwell, of course of steve maxwell's drum shop Help me track down some great information on tony symbols, which we'll get to later and some other drums that he owned Um, a gentleman named peter lawson who runs a website. Um, a miles davis website that has incredible chronology of basically every Known gig that the the 60s band with tony did, you know, for example, like I was able to Piece together, you know the dates of when he did certain gigs that I found photographs of so I could tell you Oh, this kit was 63 to 64 or this kit was 68 or whatever that that a lot of that Information comes from peter lawson's website. Um, I want to thank john to christopher, too Who gave me some great information on tony sticks, which we'll get to probably, you know in part 12 of the episode But but john was incredibly gracious with information and really helpful. So um, thanks to all of those Wonderful people Absolutely And then dave goodman for he did the previous one on and rob hart for doing the other stuff and it's just Anybody interested in this stuff should really listen to those two episodes as well because they're they're really amazing valuable sources of info and and dave's rundown of tony's life is is I mean, you know, the drums are one thing I mean the life that this guy lived was just Absolutely extraordinary and yeah, he's a remarkable person way too short It's just so tragically short and and um Yeah, dave's info is wonderful. So, um, please listen to those episodes, too Yes, okay. Well, uh, I just want to say paul. Thank you for doing this. This is not our first rodeo here This is our you know, we've done this before but yeah You you were doing this kind of out of the love of tony and and and and just the quest for knowledge and uh, I think everyone appreciates you doing this to learn this info and It's just incredible that you've compiled all these photos and everything and giving me and and our listeners so much time So, uh, appreciate it. Do you want to plug anything as we end here like albums your youtube channel anything kind of I mean if you're interested in what I do, I mean, I have a website paulwells drums.com Um, I'm paul wells drums on instagram. Um, god, I don't post that much But I do try to keep my website up to date with gigs if anybody's In the new york area wants to see me play. I usually have uh, everything's up to date So if you look at my schedule on my website, you can see when those gigs are one of them is actually tomorrow night Uh, wednesday, uh, september 6th, although this will air well after that. Yeah, like january or something Oh, yeah, right, right. Well, anyway, check paul's website. Yeah, but that's it. I'm not a big plugger Unfortunately, which is you know, I should be better at that but No, that's all right. I think I think the knowledge and everything you're dropping here people can uh, Your phenomenal drummer and everything so people can check your website out But uh, all right paul, well then we will figure out how to have a tackle the rest of this And we can uh, people can look forward to watching part two Yes, maybe someone will be lucky enough to find this like two years down the road and can watch all four parts But uh, that's the dream. That's the dream. So okay paul. Well, thank you for being here my friend And I will see you in part two. Thank you bart. Looking forward to it