[Dixielandjazz] Ride Cymbals

[Fred Spencer]

Dear John et al.,
"Mea culpa" not Hugo Pinksterboer's. In my desire for brevity I apparently
gave the impression that a ride cymbal was not used until after 1945.You are
correct in saying the method was known by then, in fact probably before
1939. If
you reread what I wrote, I intended the word "practically" to indicate that
the ride cymbal was not used "in common practice" until after 1945. To quote
from The Cymbal Book"--"Gene Krupa and Dave Tough were two influential
drummers who, in the late twenties, debuted doing full justice to the sound
of their cymbals; they let the sound die out, instead of choking them after
the stroke. The choked cymbal started to lose ground. Slowly cymbals,
especially the hi-hat, which had reached its maturity by now--began to grow
more important to timekeeping." There is much more than this but I have
neither the ability nor inclination to elaborate.
Denny Brown, in  "The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz" (2 ed, 2002), says "The
large Turkish cymbal (46 to 66 cm in diameter) known as the top or ride
cymbal was made from the late 1930s to accomodate the particular needs of
the big band and bop drummers." If you are interested, which you obviously
are, I suggest you obtain a copy of "The Cymbal Book" from a bookseller or
through the Inter Library Loan (ILL) service of your local library. If not,
I shall be happy to mail you a copy of the
relevant material if you send me your address off line.It is still
an"extraordinary book"! With best wishes.
Fred

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "john petters" <johnpetters at tiscali.co.uk>
To: "'Fred Spencer'" <drjz at bealenet.com>; "'Steve barbone'"
<barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
Cc: <Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2004 4:43 PM
Subject: RE: [Dixielandjazz] Ride Cymbals


>
> Fred said
> >"The Cymbals
> Book" by Hugo Pinksterboer contains two pages of a ten page chapter on
> "History", about ride cymbals, and says that Dave Tough and Gene Krupa
> played a distinct part in its use, which practically did not occur until
> after 1945. This is an extraordinary book.
>
> It is extraordinarily wrong on this matter. It occurred way before '45.
I'm
> listening to Dave Tough  with Bud Freemans Famous Chicagoans from 1940 and
> he is certainly riding. Similarly, Zutty 1940 with Morton on the out
chorus
> of Good Old New York. Nick Fatool was riding with the Goodman Sextet at
> Carnegie Hall (Spirituals to Swing Concert) in 1939. There are many other
> examples - it fun rediscovering this music
> Keep swinging
> John Petters
> Amateur Radio Station G3YPZ
> www.traditional-jazz.com
>
>
>