The First Drumset
Several conversations I had recently began with a shared recognition of time moving faster AND slower since the pandemic. Four and a half years have passed since “March 2020,” but I still see its social and psychological ripples wherever I look. I was the parent of a seven-year-old and suddenly the primary teacher of a first-grader—every day. So I joined many parents thrust into a similar, unnerving circumstance, looking for tools to home-school: I subscribed to a website that provides curriculum based on subject and age, brainstormed games and activities we could do together—without anyone near us—and I bought a drumset…
I had been eyeing a Questlove pocket kit that Ludwig had just released, thinking it would be a slick addition to my small office/studio. I wanted to play more drums, and with kids and musicians flowing through my house, I knew I needed a kit standing ready with my Wurlitzer 140b electric piano, Hammond XK-3, and baby grand piano. And with my steadfast belief that music should be a cornerstone of early education suddenly being inadvertently tested, the time was right. Playing an instrument engages your brain's visual, auditory, and motor cortices simultaneously, requiring fine motor skills controlled by both hemispheres of your brain. Simple sticking rudiments played on a drum pad with a metronome became part of our daily groove. My daughter gained a solid rhythmic foundation and some essential musical coordination.
Before purchasing the Questlove kit, I checked to see if I could find an affordable used Eames drumset for sale. I have loved Eames drums since I first heard Bob Gullotti playing with the Fringe. And I still remember the delight of going to the factory south of Boston in 1995 with a good friend when he chose the dimensions for his first custom kit. They are handmade, beautifully crafted, and built to order—by Mark Kohler. Eames Drum Company was founded in 1950 when Ralph G. Eames purchased the drum-making equipment used since 1890 by the George B. Stone & Son Drum Company. Mark is the third master drum maker and owner of the company after Joe MacSweeney. I found a matching Eames bass drum and two mounted toms for sale without a snare drum. I already had a Tama snare, but my new kit began a months-long odyssey gear-nerding hardware and stands (converting the larger tom to a floor tom), cymbals, and ordering a custom 7” deep, 15-ply birch veneer snare from Mark. Funding for this percussive escapade came from selling the studio and saxophone gear that seemed essential when we moved from Los Angeles but was still sitting in my third basement eight years later. It was a good time on Reverb.com!
Edward “Dee Dee” Chandler (1866-1925) is remembered as the first drummer to attach a crude pedal to his bass drum, enabling him to play it with his foot. In the 1890s, he played bass and snare drum simultaneously as the sole drummer in John Robichaux’s orchestra. Not much is known about Dee Dee—he was born in New Orleans, was a drinker, and had a distinctive way of wearing his hat—but he’s hatless and looks sober in the 1896 photo of the band—the only known photo of him. However, you can see the pedal contraption he built attached to his bass drum in the image. At the end of the nineteenth century, he was an influential drummer in New Orleans and an “excellent showman and comic” who “played with the grace of a professional juggler.” Chandler tuned his snare to “make the drum roll sound like he was tearing a piece of cloth.” It’s funny that this testimony about his talent as a drummer mentions his comic abilities, too. At a time when this music told stories and provided laughter and a beat to dance to, it was customary for musicians to be versatile and personable.
“He (Dee Dee Chandler) was a parade as well as dance band drummer who played for some of the most respected and well-known early jazz groups, including the John Robichaux Orchestra, the Onward Brass Band, and possibly Buddy Bolden. Robichaux, who was considered one of the elite bandleaders pre-1900, is often credited with being the first to add “trap” drums to the dance orchestra. Supposedly encouraged by Robichaux, a drummer himself, Chandler built a crude, overhanging bass drum pedal using a Magnolia Milk Company carton, block of wood, chain, hinges, and springs.” - Samuel Charters, Jazz New Orleans (1885–1963)
The essential components assembled by New Orleans drummers, who imagined a singular “drumset” at the turn of the century, had been introduced into the military bands in the preceding decades. Music historian William Schafer states, “In the late eighteenth century, a fad for ‘Turkish music’ refined burgeoning military music patterns. The importation of Turkish (i.e., Middle-Eastern) percussion—snare drums, cymbals, large bass drums, triangles—and the formation of drum corps using these instruments established drumming centrally in military music.”
The brass bands affiliated with militias and clubs in New Orleans in the 1800s served a wide variety of social functions throughout the city and surrounding parishes: playing for funerals, weddings, political rallies, circuses, minstrel and medicine shows, carnivals, picnics, dances, athletic contests, reunions, parades, and holiday gatherings. While these bands may have been martial in origin, they sustained a city known for its love of dancing. “The popularity of the bands for dancing was clearly evident in 1840 when the Neptune Band advertised its availability for quadrilles, adding almost as an afterthought that it could also be a military or brass band if required.” (Times-Picayune)
Brass bands traditionally have at least two drummers—one playing bass drum (and cymbal) and one playing snare. The interplay between these two contributes to the unique sound—and, of course, the band’s mobility. The evolution of these bands towards the early jazz ensemble with front-line horns and backline rhythm section is closely tied to the development of the single drummer. Coordinating different rhythmic elements on a drumset played by one person meant that the rhythmic interpretation was codified in a single human body. One drummer now created the ensemble’s pulse, backbeat, syncopation, and percussive texture, opening possibilities for more dynamic and propulsive, linear grooves. This versatility and improvisation became a distinction of early jazz.
The invention of the foot pedal allowed a single drummer to play polyrhythms between their hands and feet. This is a colossal inflection point in the evolution of music. Other than a pipe organist, I don’t know another culture or style where polyrhythmic foot and hand polyphony existed in a performance setting before this. The only examples I can think of with simultaneous percussive hands and feet happen through dance and are not polyrhythmic. Can you think of something I’m missing?