Earl Palmer and the Backbeat: was : Rhythmic Randomness vs. Melodic Randomness

["Rick Walker" <looppool@cruzio.com>]

Thanks for the post and the heads up,  Dave, 

Man, oh man,  I didn't realize the Earl Palmer had passed away.
That makes me so sad.    I got to meet him and talk to him 
in New Orleans for the PASIC there, years ago.  He was a great guy 
and an inspiration to me.

When did he die and how old was he?

He started it all, man!!!

I studied with Dr. John's drummer,  Ricky Sebastion and have been a huge 
fan of 
Nahlins 2nd line music and other southern and early blues/rock/r&b/funk 
traditions 
all of my life.  

I once had a fantastic 2 hour drunken conversation/sharing of notes at one 
of the PASICs with 
Galactic's youngish New Orleans drummer,  Stanton Moore, who is considered 
an expert in New 
Orleans drumming history and the origin of the drumset.     I learned 
several things from him and I 
taught him a couple of things he didn't know himself.

I was blessed to be at the New Orleans PASIC when there was a three hour 
lecture on the history of 
New Orleans drums by Earl, Herman Riley and Johnny Vidocovich.

I heard things in those oral speeches that I had never read in the several 
histories of New Orleans 
music and the history of the drum set that I had read.

So much of that history is still orally passed on.  I have yet to read a 
book that is comprehensive on 
that history, but of one thing is certain............Earl Palmer can be 
credited with the introduction of 
the loud backbeat on snare in modern music....................may this 
legendary innovator long be 
remembered (though I think, regrettably that he may not be.)

At that clinic he talked about how he tried to reconcile the swung feel of 
the upright bass player 
and the 16th notes played (Jerry Lee Lewis styled) on the piano by playing 
a groove that was exactly 
in the middle between the triplet and the straight feel.

He said that if he played perfect 67%  swing (as in jazz and shuffles) 
that the music sounded horrible.
I sounded equally as bad if he played straight at 50% with his 8ths notes. 
    By playing somewhere in 
the middle  (probably between 56% and 58% swing on those early tracks)  
that it all grooved.
He called it the 'wiggly area'.

He said that after their incredible successes with Fats Domino and Little 
Richard at Cosimos Studio 
in New Orleans that people would rent the studio out to just to get some 
of that gold record juju.

He said the black musicians who came in were convinced that they had 
played regular shuffles (67% 
swing)  and the white musicians who came in were convinced that they had 
played 50% or straight 
8ths................He said they sat back and laughed that nobody could 
figure out what he had actually 
done.      

If you go back and listen to those early records,  there is a stunningly 
sophisticated and complex 
polyrhythmic feel that can either be heard as straight or swung.

I spent a couple of years playing every single percentage of swing using a 
drum machine as 
a template so taht I could play comfortably with even such a small amount 
of swing that most 
musicians would hear it as being straight.     

There's a lot of mojo in those grooves that aren't perfect.

If you want to hear someone nail that shit to the wall,   reference the 
drumming of 
Lean Mean WIllie Green with the Neville Brothers.   He has so many subtle 
variations on the 
swung feel and with the 2nd line simulations provided by all the members 
of the Neville Brothers 
playing 2nd line rhythms, freely on different cowbells  that is a 
murderously funky (and unusual 
rhythm section).

For anyone interested and I can highly recommend this set for non-drummers 
as well as drummers,  
you can refer to the three DVD set of the History of New Orleans drumming 
by 
the Drummers Collective.    It's fascinating stuff but I wish they had 
produced a video of that 
amazing PASIC clinic.

Long Live Earl Palmer!!!!!!

Joko mo fee na ney!

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