I wrote the following on March 12, 2011
A Rare Gift
Today Joe Morello passed away. He is without a doubt one of the most influential drummers in history. He taught me everything I know about drumming and I am honored to say, he was my teacher for 2 years. We didn’t stay in touch after working together. Had I contacted him, he probably wouldn’t have remembered me. I was just a kid and Joe had so many students. It doesn’t matter. His influence was so powerful that it changed my playing and my life forever. I will never forget how he shared his gift with me and today not only do I benefit from it but my student's do as well.
In 1996 I
was a freshman in high school. At
the time my most important musical goal was to enter the DCI circuit and march
in drum corps. I knew very little
about music and a lot about chops. Today, many people know me as
a marimbist. What a lot of people
don’t know is that I couldn’t even read treble clef until the end of my sophomore
year of high school. My original
goal was to become a drummer.
At the time I had a
subscription to Modern Drummer. I
remember Joe’s agent placed a personal ad stating that Joe Morello was looking
to take on a few private students.
I was totally surprised.
It seemed too good to be true that such a legend would be so
accessible. I talked to my father and
got permission to contact him. It was true. Joe
Morello was teaching lessons above The Glen Weber Drum Shop in West Orange, NJ
about 2 hours away from where I lived in Hillsborough.
After speaking with Jean (Joe’s wife who did all of the scheduling) Joe agreed to meet with me for a trial
lesson. He was very skeptical that
such a young kid like myself would benefit from his instruction. It didn’t matter, we set up the first
lesson and my dad drove me out to The Glen Weber Drum Shop. Next to the shop was a door with a long
staircase leading up to the second floor.
We walked up and entered the door at the top. We had entered Joe Morello’s drum
studio. It was really empty. There were a couple of posters up in
what appeared to be a large waiting room.
There was this dude practicing pad in the corner. Joe wasn’t there. I had only seen pictures of him so I
didn’t know what to expect anyway.
There was a room that had a set of drums in it, a few "quiet tone" drum
mute pads, and a few chairs. There
was also a huge ashtray. The whole
place smelled like cigarettes. It
must have been where Joe taught. A
guy walked into the waiting room.
I had seen pictures of him before in Modern Drummer. It was Danny Gottlieb. It was at that point I realized I was
in way over my head. Here I was 15
years old. I didn’t really know
anything. There was someone
probably twice my age playing pad in the corner and a famous drummer had just
walked in the room. I figured that famous
drummers must hang out at Morello’s studio and many of his regular student's were adults. Danny actually came over and
talked to us. He told
us that Joe always runs late and he is on his way. Finally I heard him. Joe had arrived. He came in on the ground floor and started walking up the stairs. Then I saw him. This guy was old. I had no idea. He had to be 70. When he got to the top of the stairs Danny greeted him and I think he may have introduced us. It turned out Danny was just kind of
hanging out and a liaison. To tell
you the truth I can’t really remember. I just remember he was there kind of
chilling, not taking lessons or anything, just like a pro hanging with another
pro kind of thing.
Joe was powerful but it was an unfamiliar sensation to me and I was
too young to make sense of it.
Most of the cats I had been hanging out and playing with were young guys from drum
corps and we were a loud bunch! Joe was
different. For someone who had influenced so many he was actually quite normal, genuine, and approachable. Being older now I
would call it true presence. He
had trouble seeing but you wouldn’t notice. He talked with a lot of sincerity but at the
same time he had a clear energy. He was real. The first
thing he did was ask my father in the most polite way to go pick him up a
pack of smokes. I think it was Marlboro Reds. (This would begin an odyssey in which Joe would either smoke a
whole pack each lesson and send my dad out for more or he wouldn't be smoking and would tell us he
quit. It was different every week.) He was so nice it was crazy. He also knew my cousin Stan Getz so it was kind of like
there was something to talk about right away.
We went into his studio and
the first thing he told me was that I was probably too young to study with
him. He was willing to give it a
try but he really didn’t want to waste my money. He told me he would agree to 3 lessons over a 3 week
period. If I did ok he would keep
me as a student. I practiced a lot and did everything he told me to do. After 3 lessons he told me he would take me as a student.
Joe was old but he played
circles around me. He often did it with one hand. I
am being totally literal here. The guy could out play me and everyone I knew with one hand. He was constantly drumming. He loved it so much.
He loved just coming into the lessons and talking for like an hour before we played a note. He would tell stories and then we would
drum for like 2 hours. He was
always behind schedule because his lessons would go on for so long. It you had a lesson
at 5 you knew your lesson would start around 7 or 8 because he always kept his
students for 2 to 3 hours. You also knew you wouldn't leave until 10. Since I was still in high school and my dad was driving so far we would try and get the first lesson slot every Friday. Jean graciously helped us schedule that.
One of the most important
things to know about how Joe influenced me is that we only touched the drum kit
maybe twice in the whole 2 year period I worked with him. Everything we did was about basics. He gave me about 3 hours of drum pad
work to do per night. He would
have me working on everything from the most basic rebound stroke (Joe called it
a full stroke) to accents and flams.
He took me through what his teacher George Lawrence Stone showed him in
his famous standard books "Stick Control" and "Accents and Rebounds." We also worked out of Joe’s book “Master Studies.” We would do all the exercises and Joe
would play with me note per note.
Sometimes he would go twice as fast with one hand just to prove his
technique. He was all about building
unlimited stamina in the most relaxed and deliberately natural way. In fact if you get his book “Master
Studies” he explains it all in the beginning. It’s all so simple yet so revelatory and true. To this day everything I do is an
outgrowth of this powerful foundation. He
would assign me an exercise at 55 bpm and my assignment would be to bring it in
at 60 bpm the following week by increasing the tempo one metronome marking per
day. I would write my lesson
assignments all over the inside of my copy of “Master Studies.” I still have
it. Each exercise would take about
20 minutes to complete and my goal was to get through them without feeling any tension. We would then do all of them in the lessons no matter how many of them he had assigned. Given the simplicity of what we were doing Joe was remarkably thorough.
Sometimes I would ask if we could work on drum set. He told me I needed to
have a foundation first.
Truthfully, foundation was everything in his approach. As for drum set he explained to me that
kids my age wanted to play rock in straight 8ths and he came from a time when
swing was hip. He would get on the
kit, play a rock beat, and tell me it wasn’t his thing. Then he would start to swing and the
drums would melt like butter. He
said to study drums with him I would need to practice swing time on a cymbal
for like 2 hours a day only after first building my hands and stamina. He said the feel was everything and he
couldn’t (and wouldn’t) help me with coordination unless I learned to
swing. I only took 2 drum set
lessons and we worked on the ride cymbal the entire time. He was right. I
was a young kid who didn’t understand jazz.
I wanted to rock out. We
stayed on the pad and he continued to build my hands.
At the time this was all
happening my hands were changing very fast. After my first lesson I could play a single stroke roll for
the first time without tensing up.
After a few lessons tension in my playing was completely a thing of the
past. After about 2 months I had
sheer speed and finesse. Most
people who knew me and saw the changes occur in such a short period of time thought it was magic.
I felt like through Joe I had discovered the drumming equivalent to the
fountain of eternal youth. It was
all about fundamentals and learning to relax. Up until I met Joe I was relying on tension in my playing
like a crutch. Joe taught me how
to do the opposite. Many people note that one of my strong points as a player is my speed and agility. They often attribute this to my time in drum corps. In reality this actually comes from what Joe taught me about energy and physics. I applied it to everything.
Joe loved teaching. What's amazing is that he did the same
thing with every student but he never got sick of it. He would drum, smoke, and tell stories. Sometimes he would tell the same
stories but I didn’t care because he was so into it and I was having so much fun. I was truly in the presence of
greatness but I was really too young
to fully understand that. I just
wanted information. Looking back I
see it all now. This guy was a
great teacher and a great person. He was treating me with a lot of kindness and making sure I
absorbed his approach. He was such a gentleman to my father too. I am
extremely lucky to have crossed paths with him.
I studied with Joe for about
a year. I then went off for the
summer to march in drum corps, came back, and studied with him for another few
months. Toward the end of my
sophomore year of high school I began to set my sights on new conquests. I wanted to learn mallet percussion. I decided I would
audition for Juilliard Pre-College.
My time with Joe was coming to an end. I remember in one of our last lessons, I told him I was
trying to learn about mallet percussion.
He told me a story about a guy from Eastman School of Music who played a
lot of mallets and had studied with him a long time ago when he wanted to get
good at snare drum. The guy’s name
was Leigh. It was Leigh Howard
Stevens. Leigh has a section in
his book “The Method of Movement” dedicated to Joe Morello’s influence on
him. As I myself explored marimba playing further, I would also find that so much of what Joe taught me on the drums applied to my marimba playing. It just
shows the sheer universality of Joe’s concepts and the fluidity of his approach.
Post Morello I went on to
spend a decade at Juilliard as both a student and a faculty member. I was blessed with many wonderful teachers along the way who helped me and I learned from all of them. However, so much of my path
can be traced back to my short period working with Joe Morello. He built my hands but more than that he
taught me how powerful sharing one's gifts as a teacher could be. Time was never considered in my lessons. He would lose himself in the moment and the smile never left
his face. Hours would go by and we
would drum. Joe was passionate about drumming and as a teacher and he was the definition of dedicated. Had I not had this
period I would not be the player or the teacher I am today. Joe changed my life. To me and to so many others he will
always be a GIANT. His legacy will
last forever through his music and his students. He will always be here reminding us that the love of our
craft is what sustains us and as drummers we are the luckiest people on earth.
God Bless you Joe Morello.
Thank you for everything. May you
Rest In Peace…
- Simon Boyar 3/12/11
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