DRUMS

As once again I heft the trapcase over one shoulder, cymbal bag over the other, pick up the tom tom case in my left hand, keeping my right hand free for opening and closing doors, with car keys clenched between my teeth, I reflect on a thirty year affair with drums. Holding the door with my foot and dashing through before it closes on me, I enter the club, instinctively looking for the corner where I will park all this paraphernalia. Thirty years, I'm thinking, and this stuff isn't getting any lighter. Still, I find comfort in the familiarity and ritual of it all, load in, set up, load out, most of all the playing itself of course. I try to imagine a life without it.

It all started when my Uncle Fred brought a practice pad and sticks on one of his drop-in Saturday morning visits. I must have been about 11. The pad was homemade, a substantial hunk of hardwood with a crude rubber slab glued to it, the sticks like Louisville Sluggers compared to the ones I'll be using tonight. Tonight...the thought brings me back to the task at hand, which I have been tending to, though on auto-pilot. the task is to turn this jumble of canvas bags and cases into a drum set without leaving this 4 by 5 space I've been allotted. Bass drum, floor tom, rack tom, snare drum, ride cymbal, crash cymbal, hi-hats, hardware; put it all together and get rid of the cases, we hit in fifteen minutes.

Uncle Fred knew a little about drums, enough to teach the long roll (right right left left right right left left ad infinitum) which could keep a a beginner busy for an eternity. I didn't have an eternity, so like so many other kids who almost got started as drummers, I lost interest for the time being. Except for the occasional inspired moment the pad and sticks were retired to the closet for the next few years. At about age fourteen the rock and roll bug bit me. Mom was an easy sell, she was fond of drum corps music and in favor of anything her brother Fred indorsed. My father, who approached everything with the meticulous reserve of the engineer, ultimately got behind the idea, his support taking the form of research and development. He found out what I needed and where to find it. He knew before I did for example, that Zildjian was the only cymbal worth buying. The Zildjian brothers, according to his sources were descendants of Avedis Zildjian, famous cymbal maker from Turkey. The family had been making cymbals for hundreds of years using a secret formula. In fact, he would add, the very name Zildjian means cymbalmaker in the Turkish language. Needless to say there would be no budget cymbals on my first drum set. He also discovered through his source, whomever they were, that Slingerland, Rogers, Ludwig and Gretsch were the great American drum makers, this in a time when "Made in Japan" was anathema. I pored over catalogues of the big four and dreamed of life beyond the practice pad.

So it was that on the Saturday morning when Dad took me to Cardello's House of Drums I could barely contain myself. As I remember it, Cardello's was a three decker house in Hartford that had used drums set up in every room; drums in Pink Champagne Sparkle,Blue Diamond, Black Pearl, Oyster Marine Pearl and more. I remember how exotic sounding those color names were to me, when in fact these same pearlescent finishes adorned many a toilet seat and clothes hamper of the Cold War era. nevertheless, I picked a set of Black Pearl Slingerland Radio Kings with Zildjians all around and a Speed King pedal. The mounted tom was a mismatch in Gold Sparkle, and the bass drum head featured ballroom dancers in silhouette, which to my dismay were not removable. Thirty years later these very same Radio Kings would be among the most sought after drums by vintage drum collectors and players, but in 1962 they were just a kid's first set. there would be many more.

The drum set is a uniquely American instrument. In the early 1900's when the New Orleans marching bands evolved into the first jazz orchestras, the trap set as it is sometimes called, was created out of a need for more space on indoor stages, hence fewer musicians on the bandstand and on the payroll. By assigning the role of bass drummer , snare drummer and cymbalist to a single person all these problems were solved. This turn of the century version of downsizing gave birth to a new art form, namely playing the "contraption" from which the name trap set or traps was derived. Since both hands are needed to play a snare drum, pedals had to be devised so the bass drum and sock cymbals could be operated with the feet. As I assemble my own modern day version of the contraption, I sometimes ponder the absurdity of a musical instrument that requires all four limbs, with each playing a different part; yet there is a hundred year tradition that demonstrates that it can be done, a tradition in which I have gratefully taken part.