[Dixielandjazz] drummer Ed Shaughnessy dies-- NYTimes 5-26-2013

[Norman Vickers]

To:  Musicians and Jazzfans list';DJML

From: Norman Vickers, Jazz Society of Pensacola

 

>From NY Times  5/26-2013

 




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May 26, 2013


Ed Shaughnessy, 'Tonight' Drummer, Is Dead at 84


By PETER KEEPNEWS


Ed Shaughnessy, whose deft drumming anchored the "Tonight Show" orchestra
for 29 years, died on Friday at his home in Calabasas, Calif. He was 84. 

The cause was a heart attack, said his son Dan. 

Mr. Shaughnessy was a well-traveled and highly regarded jazz drummer when he
was offered the "Tonight" job in 1963, shortly after Johnny Carson had taken
over as the show's host. He had performed or recorded with Benny Goodman,
Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Billie Holiday and numerous
others. He had also worked for four years as a staff musician at CBS
Television, and, remembering the tedium of that studio job, he was not sure
he wanted another. 

He agreed to take the "Tonight" gig for two weeks and see how he liked it.
"When I got up there," he recalled in a 2004 interview for the Percussive
Arts Society <http://www.pas.org/experience/halloffame/ShaughnessyEd.aspx> ,
"and Doc Severinsen was the lead trumpet player, Clark Terry was sitting
next to me in the jazz trumpet chair, and there were all these great
players, I said, 'My God, this is not your ordinary studio situation.' " 

Mr. Shaughnessy took the job and never left. He remained when Mr. Severinsen
replaced Skitch Henderson as the bandleader in 1967 and when "The Tonight
Show" moved from New York City to Burbank, Calif., in 1972. When Jay Leno
became the host in 1992 and brought in his own band, Mr. Severinsen kept his
ensemble together for concert appearances, with Mr. Shaughnessy still in the
drum chair. 

Being the house drummer for "Tonight" meant being flexible enough to support
all manner of performers - rock stars, opera singers, even comedians. It
also meant mostly staying in the background. But among Mr. Shaughnessy's
fondest memories of his years on the show were two moments in the spotlight:
accompanying Jimi Hendrix in 1969
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZyO_qU6QH4>  and engaging in a high-energy
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QXdi25469U> "drum battle" with Buddy Rich
in 1978. 

Edwin Thomas Shaughnessy was born in Jersey City on Jan. 29, 1929, the only
child of Tom Shaughnessy, a longshoreman, and the former Theresa Geetlein, a
garment worker. He took piano lessons for two years without much enthusiasm,
then switched his focus at age 14 when his father gave him a rudimentary
drum kit. 

"My dad brought me home those drums, and my attention could not stay on the
piano," Mr. Shaughnessy wrote in his autobiography, "Lucky Drummer,"
published last year. "As soon as the drums came into the house, I got fired
up." 

He practiced fervently, participated in Manhattan jam sessions as a teenager
and was a full-time professional by the time he graduated from high school.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s he recorded prolifically as a sideman. 

Shortly after moving to the West Coast, Mr. Shaughnessy formed his own big
band, Energy Force, which performed locally in the late '70s and early '80s.
His first and only recording as a leader, the quintet album
<http://www.allmusic.com/album/jazz-in-the-pocket-mw0000188408> "Jazz in the
Pocket," was released in 1990. 

In addition to his son Dan, Mr. Shaughnessy is survived by three
grandchildren. Another son, Jim, died in 1984. His wife of 47 years, the
singer Ilene Woods, who was the voice of the title character in the Walt
Disney animated film "Cinderella," died in 2010.