[Dixielandjazz] Ride Cymbals

[john petters]

Fred said
>"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. 
Hi Fred - that makes sense. It is true that the ride cymbal really took over
post 1945 - to the detriment in drumming as far as I'm concerned. The Be Bop
beat was very different from the swing or New Orleans beat. The rhythm
became fragmented, many more bombs on the bass drum and snare against the
relentless top ride. Where things go wrong with OKOM drumming is where
players fail to understand the early styles and assume that the ride rhythm
is the right beat for traditional jazz. It can be - but not exclusively.
Steve rightly said that Sbarbaro, Dodds and Krupa moved on and adapted,
using ride cymbals - quite rightly, but you will also here Krupa playing
press rolls on the 1973 Goodman Quartet reunion on the first chorus of
Avalon. Steve is also right in saying you can't freeze the music, so at the
end of the day the choice is open to individual musicians to go the way they
want. A good example of an all round drummer operating today - and I've said
it before - is Hal Smith. He knows where the music comes from and in fact
fooled me into thinking that he was one of the originators when I heard a
recording on BBC radio a year or so back. The great thing about his playing
is that I could not identify who it was - I just knew it was good. He has
his own sound. 
John Petters
Amateur Radio Station G3YPZ
www.traditional-jazz.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Spencer [mailto:drjz at bealenet.com] 
Sent: 10 September 2004 02:09
To: john petters
Cc: Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Ride Cymbals

Dear John et al.,
. 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
>
>
>