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Warren "Baby" Dodds (1898-1959) : "...there was only one Baby Dodds. He was at Kelly's Stable with his brother Johnny, cornetist Natty Dominique and a piano player. Baby taught me more than all the others - not only drumming but drum philosophy. He did all that the others did, and more. He was the first great drum soloist. His concept went on from keeping time to making drums a melodic part of jazz. It was partly the way he tuned his drums - the intervals he used. I got that from him.  And it was partly his concept of tone. Baby could
play a tune on the drums, and if you listened carefully, you could tell the melody! I kept going back to hear Baby - though it sometimes was a hassle getting
into the place because of being underage. Not only was he a great showman, the man played with fantastic drive. Those press rolls! He could really get things moving." "I remember all the guys in the Dodds band wore white barber coats.
Baby was the band's central strength; the way he used the drums, the rims, the cymbals was just marvelous. He developed ideas and built excitement throuugh a tune, playing mostly on the snare drum in a somewhat military fashion. He was both a source of pulsation and
musical color. Right before going to the cymbal for the rideout, Baby would move into this press roll, dragging the sticks across the snare drum. Man, the place rocked!" "It soon became clear how
much I admired him, and we struck up a frienship that was only broken by his death in 1959. Until I got to New York a bit later and heard Chick Webb at the Dunbar Palace, a ballroom in Harlem, Baby was my biggest influence." William "Chick" Webb (1902-1939): "When I first heard Chick for the first time at the Dunbar Palace uptown he gave me an entirely different picture of jazz drums. I had admired Baby and Zutty(Singleton);  Cuba Austin, the drummer with McKinney's Cotton Pickers, had flash and some good ideas. Chick taught
me more than anyone. I learned practically everything from him. Before digging Chick, I was on the small-band kick, Chicago style, the offshoot of the New Orleans-Dixieland idea. Chick brought out a more modern tip. To begin with, he was a terrific high-hat man.
Indeed he was one of the first I ever heard use a high-hat. He worked those cymbals with great facility and freedom and taste. The sound he got from his drums was marvelous. His playing, so clean and fast and technical, had the kind of drive that is impossible to describe if you weren't there
to feel it. The records don't do him justice. Chick was the guy who made big band playing an art, a great craft. He introduced so many things. He showed us, by example, how to back sections, how to shade for the ensemble, how to play for soloists, how to structure drum solos and make breaks count. Talk about fast: he and the band
played "Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie" at a tempo that was out of sight. Up tempos never seemed a scuffle for him; he dealt with them without any strain; everything seemed to come out and what he played fit. Chick did everything by instinct; he was thoroughly natural. I'll never forget him." "For those who have never heard Chick, I feel no small amount
of compassion...Chick gassed me, but good, one one occasion at the Savoy, in a battle with Benny's band, and I repeat now what I said then, I was never cut by a better man."(Discussion Forum) (Interview & Music Audio Clips) (The Klauber Collection) (Drug Bust) (Drum & Cymbal Setups) (Recollections) (78 Labels) (Modern Drummer Tribute) (Credits) (Links) (Home) Copyright © 1997-1999, Shawn C. Martin. |