My Buddy

Friday is fun, because it's music - so there's always a playlist or two. Today, a new-to-me music bio has me hooking in deep again with one of my all-time musical heroes...

I’ve just received my copy of the recent/ish Buddy Rich biography, Buddy Rich: One of A Kind – The Making of the World’s Greatest Drummer. I am super excited to finally get my hands on this (released in 2019). I’ve read other books about Buddy Rich. I’ve watched most of the footage that exists on YouTube (and there’s a lot!). I’ve owned DVDs, and had many of the records – still own quite a few. To me, there’s no question that he is the greatest drummer that ever lived. He was the first true superstar drummer. He elevated the instrument. He was the one that achieved the most with it at a crucial time in history. He did so as a child prodigy, learning by instinct. He was untrained in any technical sense, couldn’t read music. That didn’t stop him being a gruelling bandleader, responsible for precision playing from an elite few. He also took the microphone and crooned a few tunes, across three albums where he was a more than decent jazz singer.

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May 25, 2023

I was obsessed with Buddy Rich.

Was. You move on. You move through. You move past. You find new heroes, you get to other players through the ones you first love. I’m more of a Max Roach guy, truth be told. But Buddy was my first drum hero. And it was big. I fell hard.

I’m often listening to his music. Still. But I can sense another big binge is on the way…

My mum played me a Buddy Rich album when I was 10 years old.

It had been decided that it was a bit late for piano lessons and that the saxophone was too expensive. Drums were an option; particularly because my father had played bass in a couple of bands and his bestie, the drummer in those bands, still played, still made a decent crust from playing. I was loaned a snare drum (one of his spares) and dad bought me a pair of sticks.

Mum got me listening to The Beatles’ Abbey Road, told me to pay close attention to what Ringo was doing. (I still am!) And then for a bit of extra inspiration she dusted off an old Buddy Rich record she’d had since she was a kid.

I sat in awe as the vinyl of Big Swing Face circled underneath the needle. I was, quite literally, standing, mouth open, wondering how just one person made those sounds. So many drums, being hit so quickly, so often – how was it happening? – I needed to know. I devoured both sides of the album, several times over; figuring by the end of a side there might be an answer. When there wasn’t I flipped it. Same with side two. Same with side one (again). And then side two (again).

The thing that got me hooked was hearing the big band version of Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) – because I was already familiar with the original by The Beatles. From there it was Bugle Call Rag – a swinging tune that featured the first real drum solo I had heard. It floored me. 

The other track I loved was The Beat Goes On featuring his pre-teen daughter, Cathy Rich. Buddy even jokingly introduces her as being “drunk”.

This record opened so many worlds for me. It was the inspiration to play the drums – creating a lifelong love affair with the instrument and an annoying habit of tapping on desktops, clicking fingers and slapping at my legs. It was also my introduction to jazz, to the world of the big band. And – thinking about it now for the first time – it was likely my first real understanding of covers, The Beat Goes On and Norwegian Wood were songs I knew already; recognising them instantly. And that throwaway intro from Buddy – where he also jokes that they are recording both nights for the live album so if the audience doesn’t like what they did on the first night they can come back and fix it the following evening – made me just as curious to find out more about this man as his playing on the record did. It wasn’t quite my introduction to live records (that would have been Frampton Comes Alive and George Benson’s Weekend In LA, and pretty much a tie for first place, but Big Swing Face was right up there…)

It was all tapes back then – and I picked up whatever I could find. Then on to CDs – finding out about some of his enduring later works like his version of West Side Story and then I bought an album called The Greatest Drummer That Ever Lived…With The Best Band I Ever Had. On the version of Birdland Buddy is beating the hi-hat cymbals like they owe him money.

The thing that’s often levelled at Buddy – now, anyway – is the showy chops, the relentless drive to it all. But there was also a sensitivity to his playing. Listen to the early sessions where he’s in smaller combos, and using brushes, some of the work there is so utterly sublime. I sometimes think my all-time favourite Rich recording is the one where he was part of a trio with Lionel Hampton and Art Tatum. Utterly gorgeous set of tunes. Such winning performances from them all. But then I think about Big Swing Face again and how that was the gateway…

Buying Buddy Rich CDs introduced me to so many other great jazz players, great jazz tunes – and particularly to some of my favourite jazz drummers. Buddy’s battle CDs with Gene Krupa and especially with Max Roach were formative; even if I pick Roach over Rich as a player it all goes back to Buddy. It all goes back to discovering him. And how alert I was to what he was doing – at 10 years old I was obsessed. At 15 it was probably worse. And at 19 I thought I was a Buddy Rich encyclopedia.

If Buddy had a problem with the band he spoke out. Check it out (make sure you’re wearing headphones if you’re around anyone that offends easily – unless you don’t like that person. If that’s the case, turn the volume all the way up!)

As a wise drummer said recently, “Buddy never demanded anything out of people that he wouldn’t give himself”. That’s very true.

Rich hit the stage when he was 18 months old. He was known as “Baby Traps” – his vaudeville parents build a show around him as The Drum Wonder. By the time he was four he was the highest paid child entertainer in the word – drawing big money for his parents who then began competing for his love and attention. And fell out of love due to not paying attention to one another.

Buddy grew up to fit what used to be a novelty oversized bass drum. He worked the circuit, playing in the big bands of the 1940s, working with people like Tommy Dorsey – developing a very competitive relationship with Frank Sinatra. He and Frank were both suave, cocky and bursting with the twin juices of talent and ambition.

Yes, Buddy Rich often overplayed. Yes, he traded on his ability to perform tricks. But he was also the leader of some tight big bands; he developed some great players and worked hard, touring relentlessly, recording sides, collecting charts – putting it out there. Playing every gig like it was the one that matter. Because every gig mattered. He was precision-engineering. He didn’t ever fail and couldn’t stand failure in his musicians.

To this day listening to Buddy Rich still blows me away. His single-stroke rolls, his eclectic set lists, his gruff demeanour. That bullish approach, that gift that he was born with – the fact that he hit whatever got in his way, playing the instrument as an extension of himself – that is the stuff that I think of when I think about Buddy Rich. But I also think about his exquisite touch with a set of brushes. His ability to play for the heart of each song.

I still have the same copy of Big Swing Face on vinyl; originally part of the LP collection that mum and dad introduced me to at a young age. I still put it on. I still laugh when Buddy says his 12-year-old daughter is drunk and about to sing The Beat Goes On. I still marvel at parts of the solo on Bugle Call Rag. I still think – for those moments when the sticks are a blur and the energy of Buddy is pulsing through the band, everyone hanging on to him as he steers the ship hard – that Buddy Rich was the greatest. The showman. The life-force. The embodiment. The icon of the drum kit.

And one of my earliest musical heroes.

I’ve made up a YouTube folder full of nearly every album that is available. I’m going to be digging deep over the coming weeks.

I’ve made a sampler playlist too – if you’d like a cautious wee toe in the water rather than the big bellyflop.

And, hey, well, you know, it’s Friday. So, it’s also about sharing the regular playlist for the weekend. Vol 118. Hopefully there’s something in there for you.

And if you missed it earlier, I added an extra newsletter this week, saying a wee R.I.P. to the late great Tina Turner.

Happy weekend to you all. Thanks – as always – for reading. For listening.