The Official Web Site of Buddy Rich, featuring information about Buddy Rich, as well as shopping, downloads, message boards, links, and business inquiries.
Arguably the greatest jazz drummer of all time, the legendary Buddy Rich exhibited his love for music through the dedication of his life to the art. His was a career that spanned seven decades, beginning when Rich was 18 months old and continuing until his death in 1987. Immensely gifted, Rich could play with remarkable speed and dexterity despite the fact that he never received a formal lesson and refused to practice outside of his performances.
Born Bernard Rich to vaudevillians Robert and Bess Rich on September 30, 1917, the famed drummer was introduced to audiences at a very young age. By 1921, he was a seasoned solo performer with his vaudeville act, "Traps the Drum Wonder." With his natural sense of rhythm, Rich performed regularly on Broadway at the age of four. At the peak of Rich's early career, he was the second-highest paid child entertainer in the world.
Rich's jazz career began in 1937 when he began playing with Joe Marsala at New York's Hickory House. By 1939, he had joined Tommy Dorsey's band, and he later went on to play with such jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Ventura, Louis Armstrong and Gene Krupa. Rich was regularly featured in Jazz at the Philharmonic during the late 1940s. He also appeared in such Hollywood films as Symphony of Swing (1939), Ship Ahoy (1942) and How's About It (1943).
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Rich toured with his own bands and opened two nightclubs, Buddy's Place and Buddy's Place II. Both clubs were regularly filled to capacity by fans of the great master drummer. After opening Buddy's Place II, Rich introduced new tunes with elements of rock into his repertoire, demonstrating his ability to adapt to his audience's changing tastes and establishing himself as a great rock drummer.
Known for his caustic humor, Rich was a favorite on several television talk shows including the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, the Mike Douglas Show, the Dick Cavett Show and the Merv Griffin Show. During these appearances, audiences were entertained by Rich's constant sparring with the hosts and his slights of various pop singers ...
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Billy Ward is from Cincinnati Ohio. When he was nine, he began formal drum lessons with well-known local drummer, Jack Volk. "Mr. Volk was a stickler for holding the sticks properly, reading music and independence. He was a great teacher." While in the fifth grade, Billy began playing with local bands. Billy listened to, and tried to play, all kinds of music; from James Brown to Miles Davis; The Who to Charles Mingus.
At the age of fifteen, Billy got his first studio experience when he became the house drummer for a local Cincinnati gospel recording studio/label. While attending The Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Billy says: "I had a technical gig mixing the sound at a Thad Jones/ Mel Lewis concert in Cincinnati and I met Mel Lewis, who said I needed to go to New York (to Frank Ippolito's Drum Shop) to get a set of K. Zildjian (Istanbul) cymbals. This was during the early 70's. In New York, I selected a set of K's with assistance from Papa Jo Jones, who was just hangin' out at the shop that
day!!!"
"I also got an extremely influencial drum lesson with Elvin Jones that, due to his generosity, lasted six hours! I will always be indebted to Mr. Jones for the many gifts he shared that day." Billy quit the conservatory in the second year when he realized that he wanted to play jazz and rock. "Counting two hundred and ten measures to play a two measure chime part wasn't my thing." His symphonic career ended, it was off to North Texas State University; a jazz school that emphasized playing ...
Drummer and jazz icon Chico Hamilton's official website .
CHICO HAMILTON had his first brush with Hollywood in 1957. Riding high on the popularity of his adventurous quintet of the time reedist/flutist Paul Horn, bassist Carson Smith, cellist Fred Katz, guitarist John Pisano - he and the band were case in Sweet Smell of Success, a gritty black-and-white film about a ruthless Walter Winchell-style York City tabloid-gossip columnist, J.J. Hunsecker, played by a dour Burt Lancaster, who wields his power like a club. The plot of this sharp-edged media satire thickens when J.J.'s younger sister, played by Susan Harrison, begins dating the clean-cut young jazz guitarist in the Chico Hamilton Quintet, Steve Dallas, played by Martin Milner.
The film was a landmark for its time, a model of street-smart cinematic cynicism that preceded Network by almost 20 years. And in choosing the Chico Hamilton Quintet as its in-house group for the nightclub scenes, the filmmakers not only demonstrated unusually hip taste in music, they also proved to be quite progressive in depicting an interracial band on-screen. But then, the Chico Hamilton Quintet had always been progressive in that regard since its inception in 1955: the original lineup featured guitarist Jim Hall, reedist Buddy Collette, bassist Carson Smith and cellist Fred Katz.
"Being a mixed group was not too cool out there at that time," Hamilton says in his penthouse apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side. "We played our first gigs at a club on the boardwalk in Long Beach, which at that time was really redneck country. Plus the fact that the kind of music we played was so different made it a very unique, almost unheard of experience. But man, it worked."
As word of mouth spread about the new band playing a savvy brand of chamber-jazz on the boardwalk in Long Beach, the in-crowd soon followed. And gradually the nature of the club itself changed dramatically. "The first gig we had, man, you wouldn't believe. There was nothing but sailors and sawdust on the floor. You couldn't get no funkier than this joint. And can you imagine us going in there with a cello, flute, guitar, bass and drums? We had the gig for a week and that turned into two weeks and then went on into three weeks. Next thing we know, people were coming in from LA to check us out. Within a month, the whole thing changed around. They remodeled this place: and it looked great. The joint was packed every night" ...
Anthony Liberto, professional drummer.
Led Zeppelin is what got me interested in playing. Bonham’s big drum sound & great parts that fit every song, along with John Paul Jones laying down awesome bass lines is what it’s all about.
I took piano lessons in grade school. My father decided to get me a piano. One day he came home and saw me beating the shit out of the keys. He ran and told my mom: This son of a bitch don’t want to play the piano, he wants to play the drums. So out went the piano and in came the drum kit.
I like to listen to the classic bands like Yes, Aerosmith, Jethro Tull, Rush, Bad Company, the Ramones, and the Sex Pistols, 80’s hair bands, 60’s garage stuff and fusion music.
Some of the modern bands I listen to are: Puddle of Mudd, Hoobastank, Fuel, Disturbed, No Doubt & Incubus, Velvet Revolver, and Linkin Park .
I listen to Howard Stern in the morning. He is just out of his mind. If you listen to him and don’t laugh, you have no sense of humor and take yourself too serious. I do watch some TV shows, but not many. The shows I do watch are: Columbo, Seinfeld, The 3 Stooges, and The Munsters. I also like to watch the Spanish stations which are Telemundo & Univision. I don’t understand a word of what they are saying, but they have the hottest looking babes on their TV shows. You can also see good fist fights on their version of the Jerry Springer & Judge Judy type shows ...