By Bert Thompson On a completely different tack, there is the topic of “drummerless” traditional jazz bands, which I have alluded to before in CD reviews. Now one may, perhaps with some fairness, point out that I have a vested interest in this matter, being a drummer myself. But that is not all of it by a long chalk. To me a jazz band without a drummer is a bit of an anomaly. If we grant that jazz derived from a confluence of several musical cultures, as most commentators, historians, etc., have averred, and that one of the most elemental or central of these cultural ingredients was the African one, then it is passing strange that, given that the drum is so central to the African musical culture, a band should omit such a crucial component of that culture in performing that to which it helped give birth—jazz. Certainly if there is no decent drummer available, then, depending on how exhaustive the search for an acceptable drummer was, perhaps there is some justification for there being no drums in the rhythm section. But I can think of no other, not even the economic one (“a smaller group means fewer musicians to be paid…which means a smaller fee being charged…which makes for more employment opportunities”), that is justifiable or acceptable. As several fine bands have illustrated, smaller groups can consist of a three-person rhythm section (piano, bass, and drums) or even a two-piece one (piano and drums). A jazz band without a (good) drummer is like a creature without a pulse, or at best a weak one, as far as I am concerned. Among celebrated jazz bands that eschewed drummers was Turk Murphy’s, and I don’t for a moment suggest they were not a good band in any of their configurations. But they were a better one when they had Thad Vandon or Lloyd Byassee or Wayne Jones in the back line. It was no accident, I believe, that Murphy opted not to go drummerless (as he certainly could have) at one of the high points, if not the highest, of his career: the Carnegie Hall Concert.
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