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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Artt Frank

October 18, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

Stan Levey was two years younger than Kahn, but in 1944, at eighteen, was Dizzy Gillespie’s drummer and provided Kahn with lessons by example. Nearly a decade younger than Levey, Artt Frank was fifteen in 1948 when he frequented 52nd Street, convinced Levey that he was serious about learning to play and, for his sincerity, received instruction. Neither Levey, Kahn nor Frank had the almost supernatural technique of Max Roach, the reigning bop drum master. What they had in common was unerring time, intelligence, hearing keenly attuned to their bandmates and the flexibility to provide the contrasting rhythmic elements of steadiness and punctuation that bebop soloists needed for support and inspiration. Frank is not as well known as many modern drummers, but he is respected and admired by musicians as diverse as Dave Brubeck and Dave Liebman and has worked with a wide range of players. His longest association was with Chet Baker, who has often been quoted as saying that Frank was his favorite drummer.

Frank’s book, Essentials for the Bebop Drummer, is fundamentally an instruction book for drummers, but it has other values. Among them are his anecdotal story of evolving from a poor boy growing up in a little town in Maine into a drummer encouraged by Charlie Parker; explanations of bop rhythms that laymen can understand; and a CD in which he and fellow drummer Pete Swann illustrate the lessons. The CD also has tracks of Frank demonstrating the practical application of the patterns he teaches as he performs with colleagues in the Southwest. He makes his home in Tucson. On a couple of pieces, he also sings, an activity that he evidently intends to pursue further. I find the book entertaining and helpful. I think I’ll get out an old set of brushes that has been languishing in a drawer, sit down with a large piece of cardboard on my lap and see if I can master a couple of Frank’s basic left hand exercises.

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Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

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