Textual Poaching - Buddy Rich vs. Butch Miles

http://soundcloud.com/scott-raia/buddy-rich-vs-butch-miles

(00:00 – 00:13) Night in Tunisia

(00:13 – 00:26) Channel One Suite

(00:26 – 00:48) Night in Tunisia

(00:48 – 01:30) Channel One Suite

(01:30 – 02:04) Night in Tunisia

(02:04 – 03:20) Channel One Suite

Artist’s Statement

This piece juxtaposes segments of “Channel One Suite” (recorded 1968) by the Buddy Rich Big Band against segments of “Night in Tunisia” (recorded 1977) by Count Basie and His Orchestra. The two songs have much in common. Apart from the fact that they are played in identical keys and at identical tempos, they also have both become essential jazz standards and are both performed by magnificent jazz drumming virtuosos –  Channel One Suite by Buddy Rich and Night in Tunisia by Butch Miles. But these two pieces are percussion masterpieces for different reasons: one exemplifies the extravagant display of technical mastery, while the other exemplifies tasteful collaboration with an ensemble.

Buddy Rich is widely considered the most skilled jazz drummer in history, and the speed at which he played is among the fastest ever recorded. The lengthy solo at the end of this piece (which has been greatly curtailed for the sake of brevity) illustrates his legendary chops. Channel One Suite is one of the many numbers wherein Rich showcased his prowess in the form of an extended solo section (again omitted) of nearly two full minutes at blistering speeds and machine-like precision. This kind of show-off drumming represents every drummer’s impulse to demonstrate his or her technical skill. However, if one never actively suppressed this propensity, musicality would inevitably fall by the wayside, making one a leper in the musical world.

Conversely, Butch Miles’s performance of Night in Tunisia is a demonstration of a different kind of skill, namely, tactful restraint. Whereas Rich did not hesitate to take prolonged drum solos, Miles established a simple, yet flavorful groove over which Dizzy Gillespie could lay down a trumpet solo. Butch Miles sacrificed his own ego for the sake of music, resulting in a divine masterwork.

Being an enthusiastic drummer myself, I understand that this dichotomy represents the two competing forces that face every improv drummer at every moment of performance. I spend hours perfecting dexterity exercises and honing my improvisation, speed and endurance, and when I sit down to play with an ensemble, I naturally want to exhibit my new skills. But I always seek to balance that urge with the equally important skills of artful musicianship.

As I spliced together these two incredible songs, I was pained as if I were violating them both. I wished I could have played each song in its entirety one after the other, but that would be to miss the point of the assignment. However, as Jenkins emphasized so eloquently, this juxtaposition indicates “not the deterioration of the original, but rather the new meanings that get attached to it and the relationship into which it is inserted” (Jenkins 50). Soviet film theorist and montage filmmaker Lev Kuleshov observed this principle in an experiment that demonstrated what is now known as the Kuleshov effect. He interspersed the same shot of a man’s neutrally expressive face between shots of various images that would elicit clear and obvious emotions. Viewers then praised the man’s subtle and masterful acting abilities, even though his expression never changed at all. Kuleshov appealed to the psychological concept of closure to suggest meaning; the juxtaposition of the shots created between them relationships that did not exist otherwise.