Mel Lewis Modern Drummer, February 85

More and more young students are coming to me listen and to find out whats going on. The
first thing you have to ask them is, Who did you listen to? What do you really know? And
the reading thing-they learn to read, but I notice that when I see the concerts, theyre still
reading. I ask them, Why are you still reading? Youve had dozens of rehearsals. The
drummer should be sitting up there knowing that music inside out. There is no reason to be
sitting there reading anything. The reading should have been done at the first rehearsal, maybe
the second or the third rehearsal, maybe even the fourth rehearsal. After that they shouldnt
even be looking at the music. They should know the part, and they should be just listening and
finding the inside of everything. Nobodys doing that.
I think theres a shortage of good instruction in the school systems in the rhythm section, and
that goes for bass to. The drummer have been relegated to playing with electric bass players
instead of upright bass players. They never learn to use their bass drum properly because of
that. They never learn to control it because they have a tendency to use rock tuning. They
cant leave their bass drums open and get a nice, big deep ringing sound, which is very
important to the sound of the band. The tendency is to play the bass drum hard, and have it
stuffed with a dozen pillows. It sounds good with the rock arrangements, but for the straight
4/4-One OClock Jump or something of that ilk-it sounds terrible, because theres no
fullness to the sound. Theres no musical tone coming from the drums-the sound that
complements the brass and the saxophones. And, of course, drummers are also missing that
upright wooden bass that blends with the bass drum-a blend that they cannot get when their
drums are tuned to rock tuning.
Young big band drummers.
What is the first thing you would tell them to be aware of in playing with a big band?
Id start them out by showing them how to keep time, how to hold sections together, and how
to control three different lead players who have different conceptions of where the time
should be and get them to put the time where the drummer wants it. In other words, the
drummer should be working along with the lead trumpet player to set a whole concept for the
rest of the sections, so that they will all follow that lead trumpet, who is following the
drummer. I would work out that first. They should just keep time, listen and not worry about
the fills and setups until they really know the music. If we had 40 drummers sitting here going
into 40 different bands, they would all be going in to play 40 different books and stock fills
wont work. I think drummers should create their own fills based on what they are hearing,
instead of the old standard fill before a dotted quarter. Everybody plays baa, data, data, data,
bop. I never play baa, data, data, data, bop. It works, but its stock. Its something that
everybody writes, everybody does, its predetermined, and you dont really think about it. It is
used 20 times in every arrangement, because that particular figure shows up so much. But
drummers can create their own fills based on the music itself-based on what will follow or
what preceded.
Also, in many cases, at the point where they would put a drum fill, there is something musical
going on underneath, which is a written fill for another section. So the drum fill should,
perhaps, reinforce whats already written. I would tell them to forget everything theyve
learned from books and to forget everything they have heard someone else do, because what
that drummer did only worked at that point, at that moment for that particular thing.
Drummers are going to have to start becoming more musicians, rather than fillers. Just
because there are a few beats, or beat, or an eighth of a beat, they dont have to play a fill
there. Space is beautiful too-silence, or just a time figure. So Id work on the time first, and on

learning to sew the unit together, so that the band can work as one. As a drummer, you have to
build the bands confidence in you, so that you can try anything and it wont bother them.
Dont get them in a habit of waiting for a specific thing that youre going to do so that they
dont have to count. Be unpredictable, but make them have a lot of confidence in you, so that
they wont worry about it, because they know that no matter what you play, it will be right.
I find that all the cymbals should be dark. If you want a high-pitched splash cymbal or crash
cymbal, fine. Thats to your own taste. But darker cymbals are more complementary to horns
than any other kind of cymbal. High-pitched cymbals have a tendency to obliterate high
sounds. So when you hit a high crash cymbal with the brass section while theyre up in that
high register, you will knock out half their sound. But if you hit a cymbal that will blend with
that section-in other words, if there are four trumpets and the fourth is playing the lowest part,
you should be the fifth trumpet, which is lower yet. Now of course, we cant that low all the
time, but thats the way Im thinking musically. Trombones, of course, can go lower than my
cymbals can, so I want to be somewhere in the middle register where I dont obliterate the
lead and I dont destroy the bottom. With the saxophones, you want a roaring sound to
envelop, because reeds dont have the power that the brass has. Thats why I believe that
during a sax soli-where you have five saxophone players standing up playing together-nothing
sounds better behind them than a Chinese ride cymbal, because theres a blend. Bass violin
players love Chinese cymbals because the low sound and the Oriental type of roar make the
bass sound spring forward. Thats why, when we play big ensembles, Ill go to that cymbal,
and you can hear the bass just singing trough everything. When youve got a whole ensemble,
you want a strong, enveloping, low sound with a lot of clarity as far as the beat is concerned.
Its like a picture with a beautiful metal frame around it. It gives tremendous fullness to the
sound of the band. Thats why I prefer the darker sounding cymbals and that is why I tell
every drummer, Every cymbal you have should be a ride cymbal, because you should treat
the different sections with a different ride behind it. There is nothing worse than the
monotony of one cymbal going on behind everything. When the band is playing along and
they keep hearing the same cymbal sound, it just disappears in their minds. But when you
make a change to another ride cymbal, it wakes them up again. Even in my dark sounds there
is still a higher sound, a medium sound, and a lower sound. Ill always save my Chinese for
the hardest blowing soloist. I dont work it out; its just automatic-which cymbal suits which
soloist. I want to have a low cymbal behind a soloist who has a harsh, high sound. With a
subdued type of player who has a softer edge, I dont want something that strong, so I go to a
lighter, higher sound to complement it. When the band is roaring, for main ensemble work, I
would stick with my 21 ride or I would use my hi-hats and really lay into them, which was
the norm in the old days anyway. If its an ensemble that keeps building, then when I hit the
final loudest point, Ill go to the Chinese. So I might play three cymbals in the course of an
ensemble. If you have three choruses of ensemble-which is rare-the first chorus is not going to
be that shouting. Its going to build to that. The second one is going to be stronger so you
change cymbals. Then you go to the roarer for your last one.
The more high-pitched cymbals you have, the more trouble youre going to give a band. Also
for riding in a big band, I think that the pingier a cymbal is and the less overtone and spread it
has, the more empty everything will be. Its important that you have a good, full, fat-sounding
cymbal. Finding cymbals like that today seems to be a problem. They are all too heavy.
Definition is one thing, but those pings do not cut through. There has to be a little more sound
to a cymbal than theyre creating right now. Theyve forgotten how to make ride cymbals with
color. They dont know what dark sound is. Thats why I still like the old K.s. Theyre hard to
find, but it seems like they are the only cymbal that was made for music.
The old As were too-the old ones. But today, theyre thinking in terms of loudness and
durability rather than musicality. I know what Im talking about because I hear the complaints
from everybody. I see it in your magazine here. Everybodys complaining about the cymbals-

that theyre all too heavy. Even the famous rock players are complaining that they cant find
enough colors in their cymbals, but that they would really like to find some. And everybody
wants to have an old K. Theres a reason for that. Ive been playing original K. Zildjian
cymbals practically all my life. The early hand-me-downs from my father were all K.s,
because thats what he used. Then I bought my first A., which I still have to this day. Thats
the famous one with the pieces cut out. Buddy Rich says its probably the greatest ride of all
time. I feel the same way about it. Everybody seems to know that cymbal. Of course, its
reached a point in its life where I can only use it occasionally, so just use it for small-group
recordings now, because its starting to crack again, but it still has its flavor. That would have
been considered a bad A. in its time and it would be considered a horrible A. today because it
was low pitch and a real medium weight, but that came from my K. ears. Later on, when I
came to New York, I used A.s for a while. All my A.s were really considered by most people
as not very good. They were all low pitched, but they had definition. Bandleaders I worked
for were always complaining about them-that they spread too much and so on-but that was
what I liked. You either took me as I was or that was that. When I joined the Kenton band, I
needed to use A.s because they are louder and I needed the volume. So I stayed with the A.s
there for a while. One of my ride cymbals was that famous one, with two rivets in it, which is
my trademark. To this day, Ive been using two rivets in my ride cymbal. Of course, as soon
as I left the Kenton band I switched to K.s completely. That was the end of 56. With my
small-group playing, actually, I was using K.s all along, but I became a permanent K. player
from 56 on. Now, theyve become collectors items. I have a fine collection, although some
of my best ones have been stolen. Things like that happen, but I still have some great K.s. I
thought, Well, I hope these are going to last me for the rest of my life. Im very happy to
find out now that this new Istanbul Cymbal Company are the makers of the old cymbal. I
found them up at Barry Greensporns Drummers World. I tried some of them and said, My
God, theyre back. These are the cymbals. Im now using them and endorsing them. So I
think my problems are over for the rest of my life. I now have access to what Ive always
lived with.
Big band does not mean big drums, and big band does not mean loud drums. Big band means
full-sounding drums. Thats achieved just by smart tuning and having a good drum. I played
Gretsch for 35 years and I tried a lot of other brands. When I was a kid, I started out with an
old set of Leedy. They had a wonderful sound. The shells were thin, and in those days, Leedy
used reinforcing ring. When I went to Gretsch, Phil Grant proved to me what a beautiful
musical instrument a Gretsch drum was.
Im now playing Pearl drums-the Nashville Pearl, as I call them. These shells are 8-ply and
are only a quarter of an inch thick. Thats great. Ive heard everything else and Ive played on
all these drums that are concentrating on thickness. I think theyve all forgotten how to make
drum-shells. But Al Duffy over at Pearl, who was a drum maker himself, knew what it really
had to be. You need a thin shell and you need good hardware, but not hardware that stifles the
drum. The Pearl setup is perfect. I used Pearl hardware with Gretsch drums. As far as Im
concerned, playing Pearl now is like playing the old Gretsch. I get exactly the same sound as I
had before. Ive gone back to using calfskin timpani head on the batter side and calf on the
front. If you really want to get that sound, you have to use calf, especially on the bass drum.
On tom-toms it doesnt matter so much. Im using calf on the tops of all my drums. I use a 6
snare drum maple shells. With a metal snare drum there is a metallic sound, and you have
enough metal in the band as it is. All the horns are made out of metal. You need some wood in
there, so you have your acoustic bass and wooden drums.
An engineer will do six sessions in one day, with six different drummers, and theyll all end
up sounding the same because thats the only sound that engineer knows.