Continuing this little series of thumbnail sketches of some important players. These are some people who came to my attention in the 90s, and/or were broadly influential then.
It was a really fertile time in music— fusion was pretty well spent, and the initial phase of the neo-classic Marsalis thing had played itself out, there was a distinct feeling of people looking for a new/different thing. Not so slick as fusion became, not so doctrinaire as Marsalis’s thing. There was a lot of interest in James Brown and The Meters, that really hadn’t been evident in the 80s. The Hammond B-3 had a big resurgence as a thing people wanted to hear. Stuff was moving in a really eclectic direction.
Hopefully this isn’t just a journal of my own tastes then— all of these people had the attention of all the drummers I knew, and seemed to be doing something significantly new and good.
Paul Motian
Obviously, the man had a professional career for 35+ years before this, but he became a very immediate influence on younger players like me in the 90s, mainly through his trio with Joe Lovano and Bill Frisell, who were two of the hippest players active then. Motian was the highest profile person doing the 60s free thing— there was so much slick drumming happening, his unpretension was very attractive. He and Joey Baron both had very big sounds, from the toms and the snare drum.
Five records:
Tethered Moon – Plays Kurt Weill
Paul Motian – Trioism, At The Village Vanguard
Paul Bley – Not Two, Not One
Bill Frisell – Rambler
Joey Baron
The guy of the 90s, from my perspective. While working a cruise ship gig I got a cassette of the album Before We Were Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and it was clearly a new thing, and with drumming I hadn’t heard before. Where In The World? opens with a very big bass drum sound, which became my sound for the decade, playing a wide open 20″ Gretsch drum. I mentioned that to Wayne Horvitz (who produced the album) later, and he agreed, it was a thing then. And again, the simple drum groove on that tune— that became doctrine to me— we’re going to use everything, and if we’re going play a lot of stuff, there’s going to be a reason for it.
He was playing a lot of big single notes for power then, with a distinctively punchy tom sound and big snare sound. His sound and playing on WITW? is more sensitive, drawing more sounds out of the drums, blending with the acoustic instruments.
A little later more things came up that were to me purely about blowing— This Land, Frisell’s live album, and a duo concert with Frisell. By that time I wasn’t wanting to see people be amazing drummers, and I was that interested.
Eight records:
Bill Frisell – Before We Were Born, Where In The World?, This Land
John Zorn – Naked City
Dave Douglas – Stargazer
Masada – Hei
Tim Berne – Fractured Fairy Tales
John Scofield – I Can See Your House From Here
Bill Stewart
He was a very fresh, distinctive voice when he came along, and still is— he just has a very bright, happy, creative sound to his playing. His drum sound has really come to dominate jazz drumming— very bright and tonal. Cute, almost. The first thing I heard was John Scofield’s Meant To Be. He plays some quarter notes on the drums at one point, that seemed very significant, I took it as a doctrinal statement. I felt that he was very Roy Haynes influenced— for his melodic quality, and I think because I was not hearing Elvin or Tony Williams. I felt Roy Haynes was my personal secret player at the time.
Five records:
John Scofield – Meant To Be, Hand Jive
John Scofield/Pat Metheny – I Can See Your House From Here
Joe Lovano – Landmarks
Pat Metheny – Trio 99
Brian Blade
I never had a huge Brian Blade phase, but his influence has been tremendous with my peers. Seeing him with Bill Frisell, what I felt with his playing was that he was always thinking in longer phrases, which I liked— I heard the same thing in Paul Motian’s playing, and Joey Baron’s, and Idris Muhammad’s, on seeing him play with Ahmad Jamal at that time— I felt that a lot of people were living in the fine subdivisions, and I wanted to get away from that. However much he’s improvising, I always feel his playing is pure time and pure music.
I’ve seen him play a number of times, including in a situation where he used my drums, and we got to hang for a minute afterwards. That would have been a time to get a picture with him, to flaunt as a tacit endorsement of everything I do, if I did that kind of thing.
Three records:
Wayne Shorter – Footprints Live!
Kenny Garrett – Triology, Pursuance – The Music Of John Coltrane
Other players
Jorge Rossy
Brad Mehldau’s Art Of The Trio albums were massively influential with young jazz musicians then, I’m afraid I consciously avoided them. I had heard plenty of overwhelming music by then, and wanted something different, I wanted to not be that deep in the subdivisions as what I heard from them.
Billy Martin
Medeski, Martin & Wood were touring a lot in the 90s. They were really the model of what I wanted to be doing musically— a lot of vamps, very deep into rhythm, almost an African rhythm concept, almost free jazz at times, with a very big sound. His influence with me was on the strength of their live appearances, which I saw three or four times, I didn’t have any records he played on. John Scofield’s record A Go Go got a lot of play.
Jim Black
Tim Berne was touring a lot, and made it to Eugene, Oregon a couple of times. I hoped and expected to see Joey Baron, instead I got Jim Black, a massively talented drummer about my age, originally from Seattle— my brother actually taught him at one point. There aren’t that many players that are musically magical to me, where I don’t know what they’re doing, and where it came from, but Jim Black is one. I was aware of his playing with Berne, and his group Human Feel, who came to Portland, and later his group AlasNoAxis.
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