History of cymbal manufacturing

An interesting article by Fritz Steger, author of A History Of Drums Made In Germany, written in German: Welches Becken passt zu meiner Musik und Spielweise? In English that's “Which cymbal suits my music and playing style?”— which is a little misleading, because before he gets to talking about which cymbals passt zu meiner Musik und Spielweise, he gives a pretty detailed history of cymbal manufacturing, mainly in Europe, mainly since the 1800s. 

For you non-German speakers, and myself, also a non-German speaker, here is the English translation (from Google translate) of the history portion. Thanks for DFO user type85 for sharing the link— he has a cool YouTube channel you'll want to subscribe to.

This article is intended to provide a basis for the development of drum cymbals and their various metal compounds from ancient times to the present day. After a historical introduction and presentation of the important manufacturers, the second part deals with the sound properties of cymbals and the various alloys with their advantages and disadvantages.

Part I: Where do cymbals actually come from?

Cymbals are of Asian origin and can be found on Assyrian monuments (2nd millennium BC). They were also part of Indonesian gamelan music in the form of tuned bronze gongs. According to Greek belief, they took away the power of demons, so they were beaten at funerals for the deceased. Western miniatures show them up until the 15th century; then they seem to have been forgotten, probably because the art of hammering them was lost. 200 years later, they reappeared in what is now Turkey and found their way into local military music with their Janissary music during the Turkish wars. Soon after, they also found their place in classical music.

In the 1913 Real-Lexikon der Musikinstrumente, cymbals are defined as “a percussion instrument made of two convex bronze plates, hammered to the same thickness, about 40 cm wide, made in all sizes, without a specific pitch, with leather handles threaded through the hump.” “For special effects, the edges are gently clinked together or one of the cymbals is struck with a timpani mallet. Art music makes sparing use of this instrument; but in military orchestras and lower-ranking bands, which of course attach one cymbal to the bass drum and thus coarsen the effect, it has become indispensable.”

Since then, hand-made cymbals have fascinated drummers and percussionists in Europe and the “new world” with their complex sounds, rich overtones and unique character. But what makes them so special? The starting point of every cymbal is its alloy – the metal mixture that gives it its basic sound properties.

It's long, the rest of it is below the fold: 

Kenny Clarke at 100

[Oh heck, this is from 2014— oh well. Just saw it on Famoudou Don Moye's Facebook feed today. Whatever.]

Good of NPR's Kevin Whitehead to take notice of Kenny Clarke's (“inventor of modern jazz drumming”) 100th birthday. He doesn't quite accurately describe the nature of Clarke's innovation:

Before him, jazz drummers kept time lightly on the bass drum. Kenny Clarke used bass drum sparingly, often tethered to his snare, for dramatic accents in odd places — what jazz folk call "dropping bombs." He drew on his playing for stage shows, where drummers punctuate the action with split-second timing. Clarke kicked a band along. 

With those twin innovations, Kenny Clarke invented modern jazz drumming. 

Before Clarke— I'm not going to call him “Klook”, like I knew him— drummers kept time often quite heavily on the bass drum, and the snare drum, too, with a swing-style march rhythm. They also played the familiar thing on the hihat— that was Papa Jo Jones's thing. You can get a more detailed idea of what he did in his Modern Drummer interview with Ed Thigpen— I've excerpted the relevant passages. This post about Charley Wilcoxon's Drum Method, as well as the Mel Lewis's history of jazz drumming interviews, and, hey, records, can give you an idea of what swing-era drumming was in the early part of Clarke's career, before Bebop.

All About Jazz interview: Alvin Fielder

Here are some extended excerpts of an Allaboutjazz.com interview by Clifford Allen with drummer Alvin Fielder. Fielder was a student of Ed Blackwell's, and a founding member of AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a 60's Chicago free jazz collective). He played with Muhal Richard Abrams, Sun Ra, Roscoe Mitchell, and likely everyone else associated with AACM at one point or another. He talks about influences, the history of the drums in jazz, his interactions with some great drummers, and his time in Chicago.

LINEAGES:
...Blackwell practiced all day... all the Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Max Roach tunes, all day.

[...]He used to sit down and play Max licks... and... it was strictly that. They weren't experimenting then as they would later on, and I never thought of Blackwell as a New Orleans drummer. I always thought he played very differently from the other drummers. He was a bebop drummer. [...] you didn't hear much of Blakey, Roy Haynes, or Kenny Clarke. Everything was Max Roach let me tell you...

AAJ: And all those other guys—Max, Roy, Klook—were playing melodically, which is different from what I think of with Blakey's style.

AF: Well... Blakey's a melodic drummer too. Blakey plays a lot of form, and Roy Haynes does too. My contention is—and sometimes I get a lot of arguments from it—modern drumming, and by modern drumming I mean bebop only, we aren't talking about swing drummers, or one foot in swing and one foot in bebop. We aren't talking about Big Sid Catlett or Shadow Wilson, even though they are modern drummers. I'm talking about from 1945 on up, every drummer, every modern drummer, and it's still true: Max Roach, Kenny Clarke, Art Blakey and Roy Haynes—every modern drummer is a combination of those four drummers. Whether they know it or not, drummers today really owe a big debt to Roy Haynes and he owed a big debt to Kenny Clarke and Papa Jo Jones.