Buddy Rich: In a Zone of His Own

[RSS Feed Guy]

One of the channels that came with my Dish Network package is Classic Arts Showcase, which is a treasure trove of film clips documenting classical, ballet, folk, pop and other forms of music that one is unlikely to see anywhere else (although some footage is presumably available on YouTube, which more and more seems to encompass almost everything musical and beyond). When there is nothing else of interest to watch (which, alas, is much of the time), I sometimes press the remote control buttons for Classic Arts and can usually count on seeing something that is at least historic and educational if not spellbinding. Case in point: once upon a time, when Hollywood produced "film shorts" that showcased various aspects of American culture, music was one of the staples that helped lure audiences into theatres. Strange as it may seem to today's generation, a number of bandleaders were well-known celebrities in those days, and so it was that some of them could be seen leading their ensembles in slickly produced (and cleverly stage-managed) film shorts designed to heighten interest in their particular brand of music. A few days ago I came across one such narrative from 1939, "The Art of Swing," starring clarinetist m: Artie Shaw and his orchestra. As the film opened my gaze was drawn immediately to Artie's drummer, who looked to be in his late teens. He was of course the incomparable m: Buddy Rich, whose extraordinary technique, even then, affirmed the promise of larger worlds to conquer. Buddy was actually around twenty-one when the short was made. Watching it now, almost three-quarters of a century on, the thought endures that if anyone was ever born to be "the world's greatest drummer," it was Buddy Rich. He started drumming at age three (as part of his parents' vaudeville act) and continued doing so until shortly before his death in April 1987. In fact, he taped a BBC documentary in February of that year, and appeared to be in the best of health. During his long and storied career, Rich led a number of big bands including several from the mid-1960s onward that are widely considered to be among the finest ever assembled. Yes, Buddy was demanding, and a perfectionist, but that insistence on never taking one's foot off the accelerator and always doing things the right way was one of the qualities that raised his bands to a higher level than their contemporaries. Another was his unrivaled talent as a drummer, one who, in my opinion, was and is in a class by himself. Every performance by Buddy Rich epitomizes a textbook lesson in how to vanquish the impossible and make it look improbably easy. Among his ardent admirers is the British drummer m: Steve Taylor, whose DVD tribute to Buddy is appraised below, under "Sight and Sound...

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