Get it while you can: Different Drummers

4/23 update: It's gone. You can try reaching Mr. Mintz through his website, to purchase a copy of the book, if he's selling it, and/or send him some money for the illegal download.

Now available to download from Scribd*: Different Drummers by Billy Mintz. I was aware of the book being available by mail for a little while in the 80s, and never saw it again. I could have used it— it would have occupied a similar place to the Dejohnette/Perry book in my library.  

It includes some short drum set studies and exercises on some finer points of rhythm and interpretation, mainly in jazz, and then multiple short profiles of well known players, with playing examples in their “styles”, referring to specific recordings. 

For awhile it was posted on Scribd, but it wasn't possible to download it; now you can download it, but don't count on that being the case forever. They do have a lot of good stuff under the documents tab— some bootlegged currently available books, and some out of print or non-commercial publications. You should buy the actual print books whenever possible.  

* - One of those wonderful new internet businesses that gives away everything in the world for next to nothing, while at least making sure they get paid, even if nobody else does. 

Motto: “That's our money!”

Things I learned at a Billy Mintz concert and clinic, and hanging at Revival Drums

Get it here.

I already knew this, but I was reminded of how great is the distance between things we can talk about and write about with drumming, and the actual music itself. The actual music is a living, instant process, and practicing it, and studying it, is just sort of nipping around the edges of understanding it. It's like science is to the natural world; it doesn't claim to be able to tell the whole truth about everything, just about things it can say kind of for sure based on its own method. So we talk about the things we can, given the limitations of our media— language, the Internet, the software, and an imperfect user, me— and we don't talk about the things we can't. And what we can't talk about is a lot of stuff. It's almost the whole real thing.

So I won't try to say a lot about the concert, except that there was significant music happening. The players' patience was striking. They were not always in a hurry to get to the next note, and certainly not to get to some big, obvious, emotional payoff; but the music was never boring, or especially long-winded. The tunes, I think all by Mintz, were beautiful— something Monk-like about them, which was reinforced by the playing of Roberta Piket, the pianist, without anyone being overly referential or obvious about it.

It made me realize that some other music which I had been immersing myself in for another post, is total f__ing jive bullshit. Suddenly it's about as admirable to me as someone delivering a truly impressive time-share sales pitch. I can't have the music be just about the players' talent, and how much stuff they know.

Other thoughts:

Billy had a funny cymbal set up with two 70s-vintage Paiste 2002 20" sizzle cymbals— maybe one was a ride and the other a “medium”, a crash-ride. I thought he picked them out of Revival's stock, but they were his. They're not light cymbals, and the sound is a little different than you normally hear in a jazz context, but they had a nice tonal thing going on between them.

Everyone needs to buy more CDs. Can we all agree to make it a habit? Go to a show > buy a CD. Here, go order a Billy record.

I finally found a budget (well, mid-range) cymbal that not only doesn't suck, but that is actually really good: Istanbul's Xist line. The quality of the sound is somewhere between an A and a K. Jose at Revival informs me that they're actually consistently good— unlike the Dream brand, which is in the same approximate price range, and is sometimes great, but mostly not.

Revival Drums is another reason why Portland rocks. Going there really makes me feel like I need to add about $1500 per annum to my gear budget. Highlights: the cymbals below, a really perfect early-80s Yamaha Recording Custom set for $1800, a yellow-sparkle Rogers double-bass set from the 60s, a rare Yamaha floor tom with a tensioning pedal for doing talking drum-like effects. Really surprised no one has snapped that up...

Another reason Portland rocks is the company Cymbal & Gong— Revival was carrying several of their— or his, I think the company is one guy— hand-hammered, K-type cymbals. I believe the cymbals are manufactured in Turkey, and C&G hand selects the ones that get their brand, and patinas them. They also have seconds that don't get patina-ed, and are cheaper. It sounds almost like a miniature version of the old Gretsch warehouse in New York here. Jose says Matt Chamberlain, the guy from Tortoise, and a bunch of other big rock people are buying these. I smell a CSD! feature here...

Anyone in Portland who missed the show can see John Gross and Mintz play a duo concert at Revival on Wednesday night, the 19th.

Billy Mintz clinic and concert in Portland TOMORROW

I don't know how many local readers I have, but if you're in Portland, you should go see Billy Mintz give a drum clinic, followed by a concert with his quartet tomorrow evening— follow the links for details. Billy is an amazing drummer somewhat in the Paul Motian vein, if there is such a thing: very free, very... painterly is a word you could use. He will often play like he doesn't know how to play the drums, but his stuff is actually very together. He's also the author of the drum book Different Drummers, which is an out-of-print legend, like Bob Moses's Drum Wisdom.