The great Louie Bellson (July 6,1924 - February 14, 2009) He broke barriers in life, music, race, style and class. The world was a better place when you were here....
Oh man, that open solo was so incredibly fierce! Wow, Louie was one of the all time greats. What technique, musicality and what a TOUCH on the drums. Having a touch on the drums seems to be very rare these days. Louie and all of the greats could pull incredible sounds out of the drums - any drums. Hard to describe, but it's this whole component to how these guys made music on this instrument. Amazing. RIP Louie! You are missed.
Great video. Thanks for patiently recording that clinic. There's a good reason why Bellson is regarded as one of the greatest and it is on display here. Brilliant opening solo - even more when you realise he is in his late-60's. I have the DVD of his appearance on the Super Drumming show made in the mid-1980's. He played Skin Deep and it looked to me like the band was just in awe - they knew they were in the company of a legend.
I remember when Louis was Interviewed in Modern Drummer. He spent most of his time talking about other drummers and very little about himself. I had the opportunity to see him and his band, along with Sarah Vaughn many years ago at Artpark. The sound of his drums was explosive during his solo. He was a great gentleman.
Back in the day, Buddy Rich and his band were booked to play in Australia. As their departure date drew near, Buddy became either very ill or suffered some sort of injury, preventing him from performing for a considerable time. Rather than canceling the band's Australian tour, he asked his close friend and drummer extraordinaire, Louis Bellson, to sit in for him. Talk about respect! Of course, the feeling was mutual. The other drummer for whom Buddy had great respect was the redoubtable Joe Morello. Purportedly, when the three of them would occasionally get together, usually at a N.Y.C. nightclub, they traded licks, using their hands on the table at which they were sitting. 🤩
Wow - I'm no longer a drummer, I got to see Louis I think sometime in the late 80's, in Brixton, London, UK - with Gary Mason, they were promoting Remo drums - Louis was like an athlete, when he finished his drum solo he was out of breath for several minutes, like he'd been on a marathon run...... Such an inclusive character, as long as you were a drummer, you belonged ! (unlike the great Buddy Rich whose attitude was so different during that era). Thank you so much for being there, video'ing and posting here on TH-cam.
I first saw LB play on the Nat King Cole Show, an old rerun not in color, on our local PBS station. Duke Ellington’s Uptown is one of my favorite albums with LB on it.
Fantastic clinic, and pure gold for somebody to get it on video. I had to manually ride the volume knob, turning up to hear the speaking and quickly back down during drumming to avoid straining my speakers. If somebody were to re-edit this and apply skillful use of compression to the audio, that would help that issue.
Amazing! Such a great talent and a nice human being. Every talk show and appearance I've seen him in he was gracious and articulate. Those Remo drums sure sounded great (of course he could make any drum set sound great). Carl Palmer used Remo drums for a while too.
Back then, video recording was frowned upon. Fortunately, no one stopped me. I also video taped Joe Morello's clinic during the same conference. I'll post Joe's clinic soon.
Louie Bellson telling these cats to study everyone, old, new, and to the internet's surprise; Neil Peart. I'm going to reference this every time I see someone bashing Neil on his jazz.
You're making the assumption that, because this took place at a jazz conference, he meant study Peart's jazz playing, which he did not say one way or the other. I would be very surprised if that's what he meant. 1991 was before Peart began studying with Freddie Gruber, which was when he became interested in jazz, and he never considered himself much of a jazz drummer to begin with. Similarly, he raved about Steve Gadd (and rightly so). But it wasn't exclusively for his jazz playing. It was for his creativity and musicianship, which he demonstrated with a Paul Simon song, not Chick Corea or any number of amazing jazz recordings Gadd played on. This is what I assume Bellson meant, not that Neil Peart was, as of January 1991, a good enough jazz drummer that people should study him.
@@jc3drums916 Well said. I don't think Louie Bellson was specifically referring to Neil's jazz playing by mentioning Neil's name. I took it as a general acknowledgment of Neil Peart as a drummer.
I thought i saw a video somewhere on youtube of Louie playing that gold accented kit with Sammy. And i also thought someone now has that drum set like maybe Steve Maxwell or some other collector.
Steve Bullard You're on the money! There is a video of Steve Maxwell and that kit. I saw Louie's orchestra with Tony Bennett in Columbus, Ohio late 60's I believe and Louie was using that gold plated kit. We went on stage after the show to say Hi to Louie and I was standing right next to the kit. The idea of the gold plating might sound gaudy, but it was anything but! Rims, tension casings, everything gold. And on each bass drum was a blank gold collet plate (no holes just the oval plate) with Louie Bellson's signature engraved in it! It was simply art. And the kit is Rogers and it was the most beautifully articulate kit you could find in those times!
I was able to actually set his drums up at SUNY college in 1993. I was asked by him to go on the bus for him to replace his roadie who left him at the opening of his arrival there - and I didn't go. I called him Mr. B. I was introduced to him as the "animal" from my band director and sax player for SUNY JAZZ John "Doc" Humphreys who was the jazz band musical director of 29 years then. I think of this and say what a mistake I made to politely refuse to go with him. I met his Beautiful wife and him as human beings and as a sort of apprentice - type of thing only I was too stoned and too hot nuts to go right - I met my first wife, me 23, and her, 18, at SUNY Morrisville that day before when we played the Friday night before his Saturday showcase in the Jazz band and was too in heat to stop doing the college chick - My God what I did for her! Mr. Bellson. Mr. B. God Bless you Sir from here- Memory Eternal Louis+
Folks when you catch magic in a bottle, as this show does, you want to share it with the world. Please share this show to every musician you know! BUDDY RICH / LOUIE BELLSON TRUE ROAD STORIES by protégé & personal valet Alan Dale Brent Holland th-cam.com/video/hMr5evBs7BA/w-d-xo.html&lc=z23bjhdybtiog1eqf04t1aokgv1jqnj4o24p13oa5gqerk0h00410
I just love the look of a cymbal set horizontal on it's stand like his crash there... And you can see the player much better through them that way too... I just can't play them set like that. :-/
67 years old at the time - wow! A legendary guy but, although he was the first (?) to use double-kick drums I feel he never really developed a lot of technique or innovative patterns with it. I mean it never seemed to add a lot to his playing? Ginger Baker was really the innovator with double-BD's later on.
Yikes! He's using my drumsticks - they are either Powertip AA or Rimshots. Original paten for the grooved sticks came from Kirkwoods in St Catharines, Ontario, Canada, then were sold to Powertip and Rimshot and are now Headhunters out of Toronto Ontario . I have been using them since 1971. Great, great sticks. Wonderful to see Louie using them!
Right? Haven't seen Headhunters in a long time! I am a second-generation student of Louis, but I never saw him use Headhunters near the end of his life, I do remember he had LONG sticks, like Rimshots.
Please stop massaging the facts. Clearly you’re suffering from an extreme form of “confirmation bias”. You’re grasping at straws to legitimize Peart’s inept Jazz drumming. Peart is a solid rock drummer for “Rush” type music, but that’s it. Bellson isn’t advising his audience to study Peart’s Jazz drumming, he simply referenced Peart. Listen to the people Bellson states influenced him; Papa Joe Jones, Joe Morello, Tony Williams, Max Roach, Chick Webb and others. Those are drummers, and particularly Jazz drummers to study. Peart’s Jazz drumming is laughable at best. He has no swing whatsoever. FYI, Peart started taking drum lessons from Freddie Gruber in 1992 (at the behest of Steve Smith of the band “Journey”) after he had his ass handed to him in a drum solo battle with Wil Calhoun of the band “Livin’ Colour” at the 1991 Buddy Rich Memorial Scholarship concert. It was embarrassing. It wasn’t even close. I was there. In fact it was extremely lopsided given that Calhoun is a honors graduate of the Berklee College Of Music (1986). Peart was, at that time, largely uneducated. Calhoun was voted “Best New Drummer Of 1988” and “Number One Progressive Drummer in 1989, 1991 & 1992” by Modern Drummer Magazine. Calhoun reads and writes standard drum notation, music and is a master of the drum rudiments. Why Peart agreed to a drum solo battle with a superior drummer is a mystery to me to this day. Possibly it was the “hubris of willful ignorance” as he was simply, utterly out of his depth. After Freddie Gruber, Peart took lessons from Peter Erskine (of Weather Report). I recommend that you watch the “Burning For Buddy” DVD paying particular attention to the performances of the other drummers (in comparison to Peart’s) and Peart’s interview about Buddy Rich. Celebrity doesn’t always equate with legitimacy .
The great Louie Bellson (July 6,1924 - February 14, 2009) He broke barriers in life, music, race, style and class. The world was a better place when you were here....
The true beginning of double bass. Forget anyone else that claims to be. This is the man!
This is priceless. Seriously. Met Louie in the 80's. Great, great man.
Гений!
this is probably one of the greatest drum posts I have ever seen
Dude, your name. It's making my eyes tear and my belly hungry.
Seeing this is so wonderful - even though I'm not a drummer, this man's humanity and warmth comer swinging through.
There’s just so much knowledge to be found even in just three minutes of discourse
One of the worlds best practitioners in the art of drumming doing what he does best .wonderful clinic . Thanks for posting
Louie is so fabulous, there aren't enough superlatives! One of the absolute greatest traps artists to ever pick up a pair of 7As!
Oh man, that open solo was so incredibly fierce! Wow, Louie was one of the all time greats. What technique, musicality and what a TOUCH on the drums. Having a touch on the drums seems to be very rare these days. Louie and all of the greats could pull incredible sounds out of the drums - any drums. Hard to describe, but it's this whole component to how these guys made music on this instrument. Amazing. RIP Louie! You are missed.
This is priceless❤️
One of the best solos I have ever heard by Louie
I'm blown away by this wonderful demonstration of drum playing by one of the best practicener
Not only a great drummer, but also an excellent communicator...
What a wonderful man, great drummer and great person. One of the best!
Awesome clinic. Glad to see LB mention the "new guys": Steve Gadd, Billy Cobham, Steve Smith, Neil Peart.
Great clinic, thank you for that. What a great man he was, RIP
A true pioneer for all drummers
Great video. Thanks for patiently recording that clinic. There's a good reason why Bellson is regarded as one of the greatest and it is on display here. Brilliant opening solo - even more when you realise he is in his late-60's. I have the DVD of his appearance on the Super Drumming show made in the mid-1980's. He played Skin Deep and it looked to me like the band was just in awe - they knew they were in the company of a legend.
Thank you' LB was at the top of the drumming world, loved and very well respected
This is so awesome! The more I see this man the more respect I have for him and admiration. Thanks so much for this post.
L&R Mars ,
What a great teacher, so much knowledge, skills that do not exist today in so many drummers.
I remember when Louis was Interviewed in Modern Drummer. He spent most of his time talking about other drummers and very little about himself. I had the opportunity to see him and his band, along with Sarah Vaughn many years ago at Artpark. The sound of his drums was explosive during his solo. He was a great gentleman.
Back in the day, Buddy Rich and his band were booked to play in Australia. As their departure date drew near,
Buddy became either very ill or suffered some sort of injury, preventing him from performing for a considerable time. Rather than canceling the band's Australian tour, he asked his close friend and drummer extraordinaire, Louis Bellson, to sit in for him. Talk about respect! Of course, the feeling was mutual. The other drummer for whom Buddy had great respect was the redoubtable Joe Morello. Purportedly, when the three of them would occasionally get together, usually at a N.Y.C. nightclub, they traded licks, using their hands on the table at which they were sitting.
🤩
good drumming😊😊😊😊😊
I met Louie in 1992 at a Jazz Festival in the U.K.A truly nice man and one of if not the greatest drummer in music
Louie, lovely Louie! Gladly would he teach; and *eagerly* would he learn. (His ego-strenghth was phenomenal.)
😍
Thank you very much for posting this!
Thank you for posting! God bless !
God bless his soul ..he advices so good... .Thanx Sir Bellson!
Wow - I'm no longer a drummer, I got to see Louis I think sometime in the late 80's, in Brixton, London, UK - with Gary Mason, they were promoting Remo drums - Louis was like an athlete, when he finished his drum solo he was out of breath for several minutes, like he'd been on a marathon run...... Such an inclusive character, as long as you were a drummer, you belonged ! (unlike the great Buddy Rich whose attitude was so different during that era).
Thank you so much for being there, video'ing and posting here on TH-cam.
I first saw LB play on the Nat King Cole Show, an old rerun not in color, on our local PBS station. Duke Ellington’s Uptown is one of my favorite albums with LB on it.
Fantastic clinic, and pure gold for somebody to get it on video. I had to manually ride the volume knob, turning up to hear the speaking and quickly back down during drumming to avoid straining my speakers. If somebody were to re-edit this and apply skillful use of compression to the audio, that would help that issue.
Murray Spivack technique was what boosted my playing to another level
Amazing! Such a great talent and a nice human being. Every talk show and appearance I've seen him in he was gracious and articulate. Those Remo drums sure sounded great (of course he could make any drum set sound great). Carl Palmer used Remo drums for a while too.
He literally "dances" on the kit. Marvelous !!
I Was Still In High School When This Was Done; What Gets Me Is The Clarification On That Snare-How Clean Those Rolls Are-P.R.I.H.P Mr.Bellson!!
Either Count Bassie or Duke Ellington said that Louie Bellson was the *greatest musician in the world*! Now, my friends, that's indeed high praise!
😲
Louie Bellson Greatest performer Drummer Band leader and Bigband Great Man American!!!
The double bass drums are a killer. Louis was one of the first to use them.
Thanks so much for sharing!!!
Incredible video!
Louie Bellson...always a gentleman...always a class act...RIP
All Time Greatest ! 🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁
An absolute Master! I miss him.
Whouahh!!! Amazing!!! Thanks John!!
Back then, video recording was frowned upon. Fortunately, no one stopped me. I also video taped Joe Morello's clinic during the same conference. I'll post Joe's clinic soon.
Whaouhh!! Joe Morello!!! great news!!
thx for these uploads!
love it!!
Louie Bellson telling these cats to study everyone, old, new, and to the internet's surprise; Neil Peart. I'm going to reference this every time I see someone bashing Neil on his jazz.
You're making the assumption that, because this took place at a jazz conference, he meant study Peart's jazz playing, which he did not say one way or the other. I would be very surprised if that's what he meant. 1991 was before Peart began studying with Freddie Gruber, which was when he became interested in jazz, and he never considered himself much of a jazz drummer to begin with.
Similarly, he raved about Steve Gadd (and rightly so). But it wasn't exclusively for his jazz playing. It was for his creativity and musicianship, which he demonstrated with a Paul Simon song, not Chick Corea or any number of amazing jazz recordings Gadd played on. This is what I assume Bellson meant, not that Neil Peart was, as of January 1991, a good enough jazz drummer that people should study him.
@@jc3drums916 Well said. I don't think Louie Bellson was specifically referring to Neil's jazz playing by mentioning Neil's name. I took it as a general acknowledgment of Neil Peart as a drummer.
A wonderful man and great drummer!
Pure talent and pure class.
I thought i saw a video somewhere on youtube of Louie playing that gold accented kit with Sammy. And i also thought someone now has that drum set like maybe Steve Maxwell or some other collector.
Steve Bullard You're on the money! There is a video of Steve Maxwell and that kit. I saw Louie's orchestra with Tony Bennett in Columbus, Ohio late 60's I believe and Louie was using that gold plated kit. We went on stage after the show to say Hi to Louie and I was standing right next to the kit. The idea of the gold plating might sound gaudy, but it was anything but! Rims, tension casings, everything gold. And on each bass drum was a blank gold collet plate (no holes just the oval plate) with Louie Bellson's signature engraved in it! It was simply art. And the kit is Rogers and it was the most beautifully articulate kit you could find in those times!
66yrs young here in '91😂❤
great sense of humor and excellent drummer . Ringo Starr is much like louie and also a excellent drummer . one played jazz one played rock. 🥁👤🥁👤
Big Louie was 66 here , and still SMOKIN' !
The man is a legend. AMAZING
Very much Like His drum clinic in Paris around 1978. All time favorite master Drummer, so much more sympa than his rival Buddy Rich.
Louie at 66yrs. young 😂❤
saw him in Philly 70s; Buddy didn't show as sched, but Louie was nothing short of thrilling.
@41:00 - haha .. it don't mean a thing if it got a bit o' ring ! :)
Remo drums here....A very small kit for him.
Louie played a lot of different brands over the years...usually with two bass drums.
Endorsement deals ?
43:45 "I'm Jo Jones now"
I was able to actually set his drums up at SUNY college in 1993.
I was asked by him to go on the bus for him to replace his roadie who left him at the opening of his arrival there - and I didn't go.
I called him Mr. B. I was introduced to him as the "animal" from my band director and sax player for SUNY JAZZ John "Doc" Humphreys who was the jazz band musical director of 29 years then.
I think of this and say what a mistake I made to politely refuse to go with him.
I met his Beautiful wife and him as human beings and as a sort of apprentice - type of thing only I was too stoned and too hot nuts to go right -
I met my first wife, me 23, and her, 18, at SUNY Morrisville that day before when we played the Friday night before his Saturday showcase in the Jazz band and was too in heat to stop doing the college chick -
My God what I did for her! Mr. Bellson. Mr. B. God Bless you Sir from here- Memory Eternal Louis+
Folks when you catch magic in a bottle, as this show does, you want to share it with the world. Please share this show to every musician you know! BUDDY RICH / LOUIE BELLSON TRUE ROAD STORIES by protégé & personal valet Alan Dale Brent Holland
th-cam.com/video/hMr5evBs7BA/w-d-xo.html&lc=z23bjhdybtiog1eqf04t1aokgv1jqnj4o24p13oa5gqerk0h00410
Sure dude
@4:45 don't mean a thing if it ain't got swing BABY.
Nasty buzzing in the audio, I might have to try to filter that out
I just love the look of a cymbal set horizontal on it's stand like his crash there... And you can see the player much better through them that way too... I just can't play them set like that. :-/
Now!!!!.........That's a drum Clinic!!!!
Great drummer what more can you say
67 years old at the time - wow! A legendary guy but, although he was the first (?) to use double-kick drums I feel he never really developed a lot of technique or innovative patterns with it. I mean it never seemed to add a lot to his playing? Ginger Baker was really the innovator with double-BD's later on.
Murray Spivack...the LA hand guy...Chuck Silverman and Chad Wackerman are the disciples of his today among many
Yikes! He's using my drumsticks - they are either Powertip AA or Rimshots. Original paten for the grooved sticks came from Kirkwoods in St Catharines, Ontario, Canada, then were sold to Powertip and Rimshot and are now Headhunters out of Toronto Ontario . I have been using them since 1971. Great, great sticks. Wonderful to see Louie using them!
Right? Haven't seen Headhunters in a long time! I am a second-generation student of Louis, but I never saw him use Headhunters near the end of his life, I do remember he had LONG sticks, like Rimshots.
I was wondering what those bad boys were.
45:00
00:10 , 41:10
00:10
41:10
Nice guy , Louie seems
swing the band > technical drum solo fireworks
Please stop massaging the facts. Clearly you’re suffering from an extreme form of “confirmation bias”. You’re grasping at straws to legitimize Peart’s inept Jazz drumming. Peart is a solid rock drummer for “Rush” type music, but that’s it. Bellson isn’t advising his audience to study Peart’s Jazz drumming, he simply referenced Peart.
Listen to the people Bellson states influenced him; Papa Joe Jones, Joe Morello, Tony Williams, Max Roach, Chick Webb and others. Those are drummers, and particularly Jazz drummers to study. Peart’s Jazz drumming is laughable at best. He has no swing whatsoever. FYI, Peart started taking drum lessons from Freddie Gruber in 1992 (at the behest of Steve Smith of the band “Journey”) after he had his ass handed to him in a drum solo battle with Wil Calhoun of the band “Livin’ Colour” at the 1991 Buddy Rich Memorial Scholarship concert. It was embarrassing. It wasn’t even close. I was there. In fact it was extremely lopsided given that Calhoun is a honors graduate of the Berklee College Of Music (1986). Peart was, at that time, largely uneducated. Calhoun was voted “Best New Drummer Of 1988” and “Number One Progressive Drummer in 1989, 1991 & 1992” by Modern Drummer Magazine. Calhoun reads and writes standard drum notation, music and is a master of the drum rudiments. Why Peart agreed to a drum solo battle with a superior drummer is a mystery to me to this day. Possibly it was the “hubris of willful ignorance” as he was simply, utterly out of his depth. After Freddie Gruber, Peart took lessons from Peter Erskine (of Weather Report). I recommend that you watch the “Burning For Buddy” DVD paying particular attention to the performances of the other drummers (in comparison to Peart’s) and Peart’s interview about Buddy Rich. Celebrity doesn’t always equate with legitimacy .
He is playing very well but it doesn't sound good.
@@JeffHogue-u.s.a. you could benefit from not being an clown.
And If he ever needed a rug for his drums he would just use the one on his head
45:00
00:10 , 41:10
00:10
41:10