“You’ve got to let the limbs fly-let ’em go just like rubber. Young drummers don’t get into the meat of the drums enough. They seem to be afraid of them. Especially the bass drum—they’re afraid of it. You’ve got to stand on that thing sometimes and they won’t do it. It seems like when they get with a rock group they just really get it on. Then they go to stage band rehearsal and they take an academic approach to the drums. No good. You’ve got to get in there tooth and nail just like you do with a rock band. Let those limbs fly.
I play the same fills a lot of times but they still feel good and they’re still exciting. As soon as they start losing their effectiveness then I have to change them. [T]he ideal way is that if you let your limbs fly they usually come up with something different all the time. It’s funny.
Mainly it gets back to letting your four limbs go. They usually come up with the right answer as long as you don’t impose too much on yourself from your head. You might think a great improviser is thinking of this or that when he’s blowing. But usually he’s not— he’s just letting it go. And that way it’s not a lie. Developing as a musician is really just getting into the now. What’s now going to be. And the next now is different.”
– Jon von Ohlen, Down Beat Magazine, March 1972, interview by Jim Szantor
Big thanks to Michael Griener for sharing his archive of drummer issues of Down Beat.
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