>A short, tasteful drum solo (no, that is not an oxymoron!) >in the hands of the right guy is thing of beauty. I guess I'm >thinking mostly about jazz and big band drummers, >rather than rock guys. I had the pleasure of watching Ed >Shaughnessy (sp?) from the Tonight Show band play at my >college, and my god, he was amazing. Ditto with Buddy Rich >solos. Or Louie Belson. Louie Bellson could play with wooden spoons and hockey pucks and he would sound like he invented drums. Same goes for Elvin Jones. Buddy Rich, on the other hand, I would disagree with (to an extent). Rich may have played solos like they were going out of style, but like Gene Krupa, he had an awful tendency of walking all over his bandmates toes. Both guys were phenomenal soloists, but so what? As far as I'm concerned, if you play an instrument with a band, and you're unable to integrate your musical expression with the rest of the band (i.e. you are masturbating/showing off) then I could care less how much training you had at Berklee. To switch from drums back to guitars, I think Lucinda's show at the HOB on Friday is instructive. Both of her guitar players--Ken Vaughan (sp?) and John Jackson--could probably strip the paint off a '69 Camaro with their git-playing. Instead, they used their playing to flesh out Lucinda's wonderful songs with appropriate amounts of gut-wrenching slide work (Jackson) or the aforementioned paint-strippage (some Jackson but usually Vaughan). I think "Joy" has become their workout song, where Lucinda lets both guys show us what they can really do, and it was about right. Too much soloing says to me, "We're not very good songwriters, but hey, watch what I can play!" And didn't Westerberg already cover the too-many-notes part <g>?? Don't even get me started on jam bands. Phish: The Beatles without a John Lennon or any sense that Chuck Berry might have existed. Dave Matthews Band: Little Feat without any sense that Lowell George might have existed. Widespread Panic: Wanking off without any sense that good taste has ever existed. Lance . . . PS: OK, I think G Love & the SS qualifies as a "jam band," but they drop science like Galileo dropped the orange. I'll keep them.
