Original Memphis Five, 1923: left to right: Frank Signorelli, Phil Napoleon, Jimmy Lytell, Charles Panelli, Jack Roth. Photo courtesy of redhotjazz.com.
Jack Roth may have ended up with the most thankless job in jazz history.
Lord’s discography lists the drummer on nearly two-hundred record sessions, most of them with either the Original Memphis Five or members of that band. The OM5 left behind a mammoth discography that makes it difficult to cherry-pick Roth’s contributions, and the band is often neglected (or outright disparaged) in most academic jazz histories. Roth was also active on records at a time when technology could be difficult (or downright cruel) when recording percussion. Jack Roth’s drumming simply gets buried in it all.
Still, there he is on “Lonesome Mamma Blues,” immediately turning up the heat when his woodblocks enter the last chorus:
Drummers like Roth punctuated the ensemble, weaving under as well as into the band. This interactive approach would fall out of favor during the swing era (and in some ways was reincarnated in the post-bop era) but in its heyday created both contrapuntal variety and visceral drive. In this case, Roth adds texture and syncopated accents. Drummers from this era have been accused of “break[ing] up the rhythm instead of laying it down” yet, if anything, Roth gives the band some well-placed shoves. The rhythm is just fine in his hands.
Rather than laying down a beat in the sense of a steady groove, Roth’s ricocheting blocks on “Chicago” keeps the ground pulse and act as another line in the ensemble:
Roth’s playing and that of Anton Lada, Chauncey Morehouse, Tony Sbarbaro and other jazz drummers from the early twenties has elements of ragtime drumming and its derivation from marches. Variations on drum rudiments and the harder, tapping timbre of woodblocks, cowbells and rims could cut through a whole horn section. Roth’s “rat-a-tat-tat” works with the ensemble but doesn’t necessarily blend into it like the “chin-chank-a-ding” of later cymbal-based styles.
Close listening also reveals Roth achieving different colors by varying his kit, throwing in a tom-tom backbeat on “31st Street Blues” for the Emerson label or looking ahead to the swing era with riff-like backgrounds on the last chorus of “Big Boy” for the Plaza company. It’s no accident that Roth’s contributions are often stored up until the closing moments of the OM5’s three-minute musical smorgasbords. Perhaps the best example of the way the OM5 would deploy Roth’s drums at key points is “Gypsy Blues” on Arto, one of the OM5’s earliest sides.
Letting the percussion loose for the finale is at least as old as Rossini’s bass drum outbursts. Nonetheless, the difference is immediate upon Roth’s entry. Features for actually turn on multiple OM5 sides such as “Papa Blues, That Red Head Gal” and “Runnin’ Wild”:
A drummer getting solos on record during the twenties might perk up historians’ ears but, nearly a century after these records were produced, Roth might sound like he’s just playing a drum beat. Modern listeners are used to hearing drum beats (some of them even taking for granted the skill and feeling needed to play one well).
On its own terms, as music in the moment, the band frames Roth’s swishing cymbals as an event in itself, a pause in the phalanx of horns to highlight one of their own and build up tension before the ride-out. Count Basie knew the power of such simple pauses when his brass and saxes parted ways to let Walter Page’s walking bass get some spotlight. Many rhythm section players take pride in being felt rather than heard, but these brief rhythm section solos are like little peeks under the hood of the car: it’s refreshing to hear the engine purring underneath everything else. Buried underneath history, discography and the vagaries of shellac, it’s still possible to hear Jack Roth tapping, clacking, clicking and booming in true hot percussion style. Who needs a ride cymbal?
As for the man behind the drums, cursory internet research indicates Roth was born in 1898 and passed away in 1980. Between those dates, he played with and became close to Jimmy Durante, continuing to play drums for the singer/comedian and clowning around onstage with Durante long after he stopped drumming for the OM5. Roth even got to star in a motion picture, flexing his dramatic range in the part of a bandleader. It is likely Roth himself jumping up from the drums and yelling (with an accent that makes this writer homesick) behind Durante in this clip:
Photo from Timeless CD CBC 1-090 courtesy of @onlyapaprmoon
Like most early jazz drummers, Stan King was not well served by technology. He first appeared on hundreds of sessions with the California Ramblers, including the band’s numerous offshoots for different labels, starting in the early twenties. Acoustic recording techniques at that time limited the equipment that drummers could use, and the technology wasn’t kind to what remained of the kit. King does manage to burst out of the Five Birmingham Babies (a.k.a. the California Ramblers) on “Arkansas” and bang out some springy drum rudiments on Ray Kitchingham’s banjo:
Unfortunately, outbursts like this one were rare. King didn’t use the standard acoustically sanctioned percussion (like cymbals and blocks) as much as his contemporaries Zutty Singleton, Baby Dodds, and Chauncey Morehouse. So despite all the records, it’s hard to hear what or how King was playing early on his career. Either way, it got him plenty of work! He must have been doing something worth hearing.
Based on slightly later recordings, it involved plenty of snare drum. Jazz drumming now often tends to emphasize metal as the primary beat maker. Yet as “Broken Idol” with the Ramblers shows, King could move a band with “just” drum skins. It’s a pity he was so skilled with what amounted to kryptonite for most recording engineers of the twenties:
Aside from a few cymbal crashes, the “exotic” blocks, and tom-toms, King’s main rhythmic medium here is his snare and bass drum. He keeps up a simple but buoyant bounce alongside Tommy Felline’s banjo and then steps out behind Pete Pumiglio’s red hot alto sax solo. The brushes are pure momentum, more than compensating for Ward Lay’s slightly ponderous tuba. There’s none of the military-style heft that so many historians associate with prewar, snare-centric jazz drumming.
King’s work with Frank Trumbauer’s orchestra demonstrates his light but propulsive touch on drum heads while never drawing too much attention to the wheels moving the band. “Futuristic Rhythm” includes a head-bobbing rhythm in the first chorus and percolating accompaniment to the leader’s vocal and cymbals behind Bix Beiderbecke:
King’s airtight press rolls and last chorus backbeat on “I Like That” (a.k.a. “Loved One“) are simple, impeccably timed, and very effective:
Listening to King nearly 60 years later, renowned drummer Mel Lewis pointed to King’s “clean” style with definite praise. A crisp, precise, and utterly unobtrusive approach defines King’s style more than any part of the drum set. He was above all an ensemble player who rarely soloed but always made sure that the band was “well fed” (to paraphrase bass sage Walter Page describing the role of the rhythm section).
With the Charleston Chasers, King leaves most of the rhythmic heavy lifting on “Loveable and Sweet” and “Red Hair and Freckles” (what were these guys thinking about on this session?) to pianist Arthur Schutt and bassist Joe Tarto:
Dancers and jazz aficionados may not be listening for King’s sizzling brushes and tapping rims or how his drums click in with Tarto’s bass to produce a deliciously buzzy sonority or for his simple but firm beat. Listening to those touches reveals how subtly King could color and catalyze a band. It also points to an attention to detail and a knack for musical nuance that might not be heard could be felt. For example, while many drummers use press rolls, and King relied on them throughout his career, the way that he loosens his press rolls up behind Tommy Dorsey’s trumpet solo on “Hot Heels” with Eddie Lang makes a difference:
Audio wizard, historian, and trombonist David Sagerrecalls an “old-time drummer” he met at a gig in California “who nearly shouted when he said, ‘Stan King had the best press roll in the business!’” King’s press rolls with none other than Louis Armstrong on Seger Ellis’ “S’Posin” might not impress on their own, but Armstrong scholar Ricky Riccardiexplains that “Armstrong liked loud, emphatic drumming, and he obviously dug what King was putting down.”
[Listen to “S’Posin” via Riccardi’s outstanding blog here, and subscribe while you’re at it.]
According to Richard Sudhalter, King didn’t read music. His “natural drive and quick ear” were enough to make him one of the most in-demand drummers in New York during the twenties and thirties, performing with Paul Whiteman, Jean Goldkette, the Boswell Sisters, Ben Selvin, the Dorsey Brothers, and Benny Goodman among others. A session directed by bass saxophonist Adrian Rollini finds King with the cream of the New York jazz crop at that time on standards such as” Sugar” and “Davenport Blues”:
On “Somebody Loves Me,” King lays out behind George Van Eps’s solo, which allows the guitar to get heard and changes up the ensemble texture, but digs in behind Goodman’s clarinet and Arthur Rollini’s tenor saxophone while easing back behind trumpeter Mannie Klein and trombonist Jack Teagarden. It’s a model of sensitive, rhythmic jazz drumming (or “dance band” drumming, depending on one’s preferred pigeonhole):
King could also turn up the heat on his own. On “The Man From The South” with Rube Bloom, he locks in with Adrian Rollini, tossing out fast snappy fills and bearing down just a little harder behind Goodman before making room for Rollini’s solo:
On “Here Comes Emily Brown”—again with the Charleston Chasers but without Joe Tarto’s booming slap bass—King add a sizzle to his shuffle behind Tommy Dorsey’s trombone while his cowbell accents practically kick Benny Goodman from behind. Fills and backbeat on the out chorus also boot the ensemble:
King even gets some spotlight in a call and response episode with the ensemble on “Freeze and Melt” with Lang:
Occasionally, King would get away from a steady beat and toss out unexpected accents and syncopations, for example early on his career behind Bobby Davis’ alto solo on “That Certain Party” with the Goofus Five (a.k.a. the California Ramblers):
or his offbeat rim “bombs” behind Jimmy Dorsey’s alto on “You’re Lucky To Me”:
Yet it’s all within the context of the band. Record after record shows King to be a clean, precise, utterly musical drummer. His preferred instrumentation may have limited his recorded legacy, and his unflashy style may have hindered his historical one. Singer Helen Ward, speaking about King’s tenure with Benny Goodman’s band, said “we called him strictly a society type of musician. Everything he played was ‘boom-cha, boom-cha.’ There was no fire there.” Goodman described King as “merely adequate.”
The entry for King in the Encyclopedia of Popular Music describes “an exceptionally good dance band drummer with meticulous time [whose] jazz work always left something to be desired. Listening to, for example, Goodman’s recordings in late 1934 will reveal how King’s playing never lifts the band in the way Gene Krupa did when he took over as drummer…” John Chilton describes Louis Armstrong’s “I’m Putting All My Eggs In One Basket” as a “typical example of [King’s] somewhat foursquare playing:
King isn’t Krupa, Dodds, Sid Catlett (or for that matter Elvin Jones), but it’s easy to imagine any of those players taking the same approach that King does given the thin material, flimsy arrangement, and the fact that this is really Armstrong’s show. Riccardi astutely points out King’s “tasty” accents during Armstrong’s opening trumpet chorus and the fact that “relaxation is the key” here. There’s a difference between playing stiffly and playing appropriately, a difference King was more than experienced enough to understand.
In the stylistic wake of louder, better-recorded, and busier drummers, it is easy to overlook someone like King, who performed an essential role seamlessly and without drawing attention to his work. What some overlook, others celebrated. Drummer Chauncey Morehouse would praise King for his solid time years after his colleague’s death. When Morehouse led his own date playing his patented N’Goma drums, he chose King to handle traps duty. Fud Livingstonthought King was “the world’s greatest drummer!” Saxophonist and historian Loren Schoenberg noted how King continued to get work despite his well-known status as a “fall-down drunk.” It didn’t seem to matter: King got the job done.
Jazz historian Scott Yanow, who credited King for his “fresh” sound, explains that King’s alcoholism finally did get the best of him. King eventually took a low-key job with former California Ramblers sideman Chauncey Grey before fading from attention and passing away in 1949. King made his last recordings ten year earlier, with pianist (and fellow victim of alcoholism) Bob Zurke. “I’ve Found A New Baby” wasn’t the last thing King recorded but it provides explosive closure:
Fud Livingston’s arrangement gives King and the rest of the band plenty of room. King is a force of nature, crisp and light as always but distinctly forward in the mix, perhaps the influence of what Krupa and Chick Webb were bringing to the table at the time. King still remains his own man, with press rolls in first chorus and rim shots and backbeats egging on Zurke’s contrapuntal flurries and Sterling Bose’s trumpet. At a time when most drummers were emphasizing cymbals and a steady horizontal flow, King stuck to skins and a charging but tight vertical feel. He had something unique to contribute and put the needs of the band first. That certainly sounds like a jazz drummer, or maybe a just a good band drummer, but definitely a drummer worth hiring and hearing.
A good friend’s accolades for George Stafford recently got me re-listening to the drummer’s concise but powerful discography. Stafford’s steady beat and way with “the pocket,” even on his earliest sides from the mid-twenties, make him an unsung hero of jazz percussion. His temple blocks and snare ease back and then detonate on “I’m Gonna’ Stomp Mr. Henry Lee” with an Eddie Condon group featuring Jack Teagarden’s vocals and trombone. Yet it’s Stafford’s drums on “Walk That Thing” with the Charlie Johnson band that remain a personal favorite.
The Band’s Homebase
The Johnson band was one of the hottest bands of the twenties as well as a close rival of the early Duke Ellington orchestra. Arranger/tenor saxophonist Benny Waters glows with pride remembering his time with Johnson. Like Stafford, the band also left a tantalizingly short recorded legacy. Through some miracle of fate they were able to record three (!) takes of one of their hottest numbers, a Johnson composition arranged by Waters and deceptively titled “Walk That Thing.” They could have used a lot of other verbs to more accurately describe how they move on this tune.
Take one pumps from the start. The leader hammers away on piano, followed by a snappy introduction for the full band and Waters showing his clear appreciation for Coleman Hawkins:
Waters’ arrangement leaves plenty of room for soloists but includes the type of passages that jazz historians love to point out as some teleological predictor of the swing era. Riffs behind soloists, divided brass and reeds and a shouting final chorus would become standard issue for big bands a few years later. At the same time the rhythm team of banjoist Bobby Johnson, tuba player Cyrus St. Clair and Stafford are more rooted in twenties stomp than thirties swing. Waters also includes unique touches like a tenor sax lead alternating with the more standard alto in the first chorus, and space for wild collective improvisation. It’s easy to dismiss the use of brief solos for the rhythm section as “original for its time.” History lessons aside, they cook. Check out take two:
Waters chops and chugs on the second take like he’s using a cement saxophone. It’s not Basie-style swing but it does have its own percussive energy. Trumpeter Sidney de Paris strolls through his stop-time choruses, varying his solos from take to take but loving the same double-time figure. Jimmy Harrison’s hard, blistering trombone punches through in solo and ensemble, and his breaks resemble smartass quips from the kid at the back of the classroom. This take is effective if a little weighty. By the third and final take, the band is really into it:
That’s more like it! Even if someone hit a clam on the opening chord, a slightly quicker tempo and Waters pushing at the rhythm start things off strong. All of the soloists loosen up their phrases, dancing between the beats but with an intensity that defines the best twenties jazz. The rhythm section spots include a lot of the same notes and phrases, but the band’s energy elevates the familiar to a whole new experience.
The hits keep coming through all of these takes: Johnson cutting through to comp simply but spurringly; Stafford, a true band drummer who fills in between phrases, varies his patterns and plays with balance rather than volume; Ben Whitted (perhaps best known as the clarinetist Fats Waller saw fit to replace for his thirties small group sessions) wailing over and against the ensemble. Through an even stranger twist of fate, none of these takes appear on YouTube or apparently anywhere else on the web. Consider this a public service. What are friends for?
The Pop of Yestercentury 