From Flock to Shepherd: The Evolution of the Drummer-Led Ensemble in Jazz

On November 15th, 2017 at 8:30pm, the Jazz Standard in New York City had a line around the block. Starting from the dual entrance of the Jazz Standard jazz club and Blue Smoke restaurant in the direct middle of East 27th Street, the line of people stretched almost to Lexington Avenue, nearly 300 feet. Just after 9:00pm, audience members from the earlier set began to be released. The faces included some of the most prominent members of the New York Jazz Scene as well as members of house bands for every talk show in town. After another twenty minutes, the line of people slowly moved through the two glass doors, past the entrance of Blue Smoke, and down into the bowels of the Jazz Standard. At a wooden desk featuring a glass case of memorabilia, each audience member was greeted by a host and asked if they have a reservation. After confirmation, the audience was led into the club. A long bar, already busy and without an open seat, was first seen. Following the hostess to the right, each ticket holder saw that the bar is only part of a cordoned off section with small tables for two that sit almost a foot above the walkway. In front of those tables lay the main seating area for the Jazz Standard; a wide-open floor with long twenty-foot tables lined on both sides with chairs, creating a sea of listeners in front of the slight raised stage. The basement club is scattered with pillars holding up the building above, making clear sight-lines rare and highly coveted by the listeners. All 150 seats were sold for the occasion. Anticipation mounted while the audience placed their drink and dinner orders while waiters hurried to the bar and kitchen. The stage, sitting six inches high, was covered with instruments that are occasionally checked on by the musicians coming out of the green room. For the younger members of the audience, a hushed tone permeated the venue whenever someone touches the stage. This feeling only intensified when the audience checked their phones to see that the show, in standard New York form, was running ten minutes behind schedule. The house lights dimmed, making the stage the lone beacon of light inside the otherwise deep red walled basement club. After asking that audience members silence their phones and keep their talking to a minimum, the manager of the venue released the sentence that they had been waiting to hear all night: "Ladies and gentlemen, the Jazz Standard is proud to present the Brian Blade Fellowship."

Following his bandmates/sidemen, Blade walked from backstage and to his instrument. His Fellowship was groundbreaking when it debuted in 1998. Jazz Times called their debut recording "a sumptuous impressionistic recording... Far from your usual debut disc." The Fellowship had not been active since 2014 and was celebrating the release of a highly anticipated new album. In the past, such praise and anticipation were reserved for the normal bandleader (pianist, saxophonists and trumpeters). But that night, Brian Blade sat behind the drums.

Drummers have become centers of creative movements. In New York, Mark Guiliana's Beat Music was a stylistic innovation many tried to copy. Tyshawn Sorey, a regular at John Zorn's club The Stone, received the MacArthur Fellowship Grant, commonly known as the genius grant. Allison Miller's Tic Tic Boom is regularly featured in critics lists across the country and Jamison Ross' debut album garnered a Grammy nomination. From 2014 to 2019, 23 drummer led albums were featured in NPR's top 50 jazz albums list, eight of those being voted in the top 10 (16% of all albums chosen) despite only representing on 7.27% of all albums chosen. When Sorey's Verisimilitude was voted as the third best album of 2017, Frances Davis wrote, "To paraphrase one voter, who would have expected the year's best piano-trio album to be led by a drummer?" In their 2020 critics poll, Downbeat magazine awarded Jazz Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, Group of the Year, and Rising Star—Producer to drummers.

Traditionally, the drummer was the odd man out in a jazz ensemble. Due to this, drummer led ensembles were star vehicles that searched for arrangers or producers who could bring them music. Drummers such as Brian Blade, Mark Guiliana, Jamison Ross, and Tyshawn Sorey are towering influences among performers and composers alike, dominating the jazz scene and academia. While a part of a natural evolution in jazz music, the differences between the old and new generations of drummer/bandleaders in creative control, organization, and formal education have contributed to the rise of the drummer from the back of the band to the top of the marquee.

The Old System

Band leading was once a reward for the most prestigious sidemen. The move from the back of the album to the front rarely required the band leader to be a creative force. For the drummer, this meant that material was not as important as star power. Buddy Rich is the most prominent example. He had been a drumming star for decades while making regular television appearances with Jerry Lewis, Jackie Gleeson, Sammy Davis Jr. and Johnny Carson, even hosting his own one-off program which featured the multi-talented musician tap dancing and singing. Even the sidemen of less visible drummers were acutely aware of their band-leaders fame. "I had to pinch myself to really get with it," says Dave Liebman, echoing the sentiments of many of Elvin Jones' sidemen. "This guy is the guy I loved most of all. I'd seen him play a million times in the clubs as a teenager. He was on pivotal records... Having you in his band was a great honor." Gene Perla, who played with Jones regularly through most of the early 1970's, stated the matter more plainly:

"What did he achieve prior to me joining his band? He was John Coltrane's drummer. I mean, look at the music these guys created. So, all of the sudden, now you've got this drummer whose looked at like a god... I saw... Joe Chambers, Tony Williams... Art Blakey was his own man, Roy Haynes was also his own man, but these guys had tremendous respect and I saw it over and over again with these guys. Tony Williams was like a little kid with Elvin. Anyway, if you've got that kind of persona and you're a bandleader, people are going to come to you and that bandleader is going to be able to run it the way he wants." Likewise, bandleaders were keenly aware of their place in the jazz scene by the 1970's. Roach was lauded as one of the creators of modern jazz music. Billy Harper simply says about Max, "He created some of this stuff." Blakey was even more aware of his preeminence among the musicians who would audition for him. Harper, who also played with the Jazz Messengers, says "usually anybody who was going to play with him [Art Blakey] usually knew the songs anyway. You had to know them... And I think he assumed, because he played so much and recorded, you knew the tunes if you came in to play with him." Even Tony Williams was sensitive to his role as the drummer of the Second Great Quintet to his deep frustration according to pianist Tom Grant:

"He [Tony Williams} hated it when somebody would introduce him at length as part of the Miles Davis band. He would get mad. And he would ask them ahead of time, if he thought of it, he would ask them, you know, "Please don't dwell on me as Miles Davis' drummer," and that sort of thing. He really wanted to change his whole vibe, and everywhere we went people, you know, asked him why he didn't play any 'real jazz' and shit like that, you know, and it got really frustrating." Creatively, most of these band leaders were present even if they were only indirectly so. It was expected for all members of the Jazz Messengers to supply new music. Although Buddy Rich did not read music, he still was the final creative decision maker, even going as far as to dictate arrangements. As Pat Labarbara recalled:

"It came from a combination of (producer) Dick Bock, Buddy and I think (daughter) Cathy Rich pushing all these rock bands. Which was good for him because we ended playing at all of the big rock venue. For Buddy that was fantastic, we would get lots of exposure playing opposite the Crème and the Who and all of these different bands... [but] most of the decisions were his... there wasn't a musical director at all when I was with Buddy." It would be inaccurate to assume that these drummers never wrote music. Tony Williams was regularly the only featured writer on his albums and Max Roach studied composition at Manhattan School of Music. Roach not only wrote original compositions for his groups but famously wrote compositions for drum set. Both of their ensembles had prolonged periods of performing a wide spectrum of music. In Tom Grant's time with Tony Williams, the ensemble went from a fusion quintet to a trio, eventually recording the album Play Or Die which includes multiple layers of overdubbing. Williams frustration during the recording sessions of Play or Die and subsequent change in creative direction afterward is an example of the experimental quality the more organized bandleaders possessed as well as the role of the producer during that time period. After Williams walked out of the recording studio, producer and bassist Patrick Hearn began the process of piecing what material was recorded into an album.

Even if the prolific writing of Max Roach and Tony Williams are considered outliers, both Elvin Jones and Art Blakey had several credits as composers, though many came later in their careers. But it would be a mistake to assume that this control regularly extended into the notes and chords. Most musicians agreed that this was the nature of a traditional band leader. Dave Liebman said, "it was mostly learning on stage. He [Elvin Jones] didn't say play this chord or play that chord. He didn't say 'you solo first, you solo second,' he just let things happen," following a tradition of band leading from previous musicians. Even those who were more organized rarely spoke to musicians about specific notes or chords. With the exception of Max Roach, these band leaders were open to any piece of music. According to Gene Perla:

"He [Elvin Jones] was open to everything. It didn't matter what it was. Whether he would go for it or not would be another story, but he always was open about whatever. Politics or religion or, you know, certainly discussions about music or musicians. He wasn't a big talker, but he was open to everything, man." This indirect creative control didn't always extend past the bandstand, however. Apart from Elvin Jones, all the band leaders had a keen business instinct. Buddy Rich's foray into the rock and roll clubs expanded his audience and his cultivation of friendships made in the entertainment industry with Johnny Carson, and Frank Sinatra made him a household name. Billy Harper separated the bandleaders he worked with into organized and unorganized band leaders, relating the Max Roach was highly organized while Elvin Jones was unorganized:

"He [Elvin Jones] wasn't thinking about being an organized leader like that. You just followed him. We're gonna play something and that's it. Totally opposite from Max... Max was more organized. Elvin wasn't concerned with that. Max would get everything organized in his Capricorn type was." Organized leaders tended to have longer periods of searching for musical identity. Roach routinely played in dispirit musical environments, sometimes adding vocalists, choirs, large ensembles, duets (most famously with Cecil Taylor), and his percussion ensemble M'boom. After the end of the original Lifetime band, Tony Williams embarked on a ten-year period where he recorded four albums, one of which was never readily available in the United States. Philly Joe Jones, former star sideman with Miles Davis and John Coltrane, provides a unique illustration of the follies of each approach. Jones' lack of artistic control and creative indecisiveness lead his touring ensemble, Le Gran Prix, to never record, making the band a jazz musician myth. Dually described as a straight-ahead bebop group and as an avant-garde jazz-rock fusion project, Le Gran Prix was neither and changed its identity almost every night.

As with many band leaders of the era, rehearsals were rare and reserved for special events. As a big band leader, Buddy Rich is a notable exception but even his band rarely rehearsed in full as section leaders took it upon themselves to rehearse new and existing music for recording dates and television performances. For the small group leaders, rehearsals related only to the new music. Not even new members were guaranteed a rehearsal before their first performance, as Pat Labarbara explains:

"That was on the gig [too]. I called him [Elvin Jones] and he said, "come down early and we'll rehearse." He said, "come down on a Friday, we'll rehearse on a Saturday and a Sunday and Monday and then we'll open up the Vanguard on Tuesday." So, I flew into New York, they had arranged a hotel for me, and every day I called Elvin, he couldn't rehearse. So, I called him on Monday, and he said "ah, forget it. Just shows up at the village vanguard, you can play. Show up." So, I showed up on Tuesday night at the Village Vanguard not knowing any of the music except for the Coltrane tunes that he played. And he had Frank Foster there in the band, which was great because Frank taught me the tunes in the kitchen before each night." While Jones is an extreme example, his methods were not uncommon. Hiring musicians was a simple procedure that only required a musician to be proficient and available. Most musicians interviewed auditioned for their bandleaders by attending a rehearsal or sitting in during a performance. As Dave Liebman explains, this style of leadership was supported by the music scene at the time:

"In those days the jazz scene in New York was very... not as many people as involved now 'cause you didn't have all the colleges. There were no colleges, so the musicians, there may be 50 or 60 guys, mostly guys, who were on the scene and around and going to clubs, trying to play when they could and jamming and listening... In that period, there were still bands playing in clubs. Sometimes two sets sometimes three. And that means you had a lot of opportunity to learn because you're playing the same repertoire night after night." These musicians were uniquely intuitive which allowed rehearsals to be short, direct, and rare. Despite differences in personalities, band size, and complexity of arrangements, all these leaders were described as having astonishing intuition. Members of Elvin Jones' quartet marveled at Jones' ability to play a song after only one listen. Jeff Johnson remarked on the ability of Philly Joe Jones to play tunes in differing styles by ear in Le Gran Prix. Former Jazz Messengers were also amazed that Art Blakey could not only remember a new arrangement after one listen, but could create a drum part that both fit that composition and felt like an "Art Blakey" song. Buddy Rich was able to play through a big band arrangement after a single listen and could even play through new charts without hearing the music beforehand. Art Blakey recalled seeing this same method from Chick Webb, one of if not the first drummer leaders in jazz history. This is even more remarkable considering that Art Blakey and Buddy Rich didn't read music and Elvin Jones and Philly Joe Jones had limited musical education outside of the drum set.

The New Guard

Today's generation of drummer-leaders don't overtly credit the previous generation with influencing their decision to lead ensembles. While Mark Guiliana specifically includes Brian Blade Fellowship as an influence in deciding to lead bands, others did not express an overt knowledge of drummer specific bands. If anything, hyper awareness of band-leading in general influenced many of these new leaders. "I guess the unusual thing was leading anything," Blade states. "Drummer, bassist, oboist... are you capable from wherever you stand to offer something to everyone else and then have everyone... build something together." Composers had become the most overt influence among the new generation of leaders. Tyshawn Sorey knew of drummer led ensembles but the influence of those ensembles was limited to those drummers who were considerable composers such as Jack DeJohnette. As a unique drummer-singer, Jamison Ross cites the recording of Grady Tate, a successful jazz drummer-singer himself, as an influence on his approach but quickly minimized that influence in favor of pop and R&B drummer-singers such as Stevie Wonder. Whereas the past drummer-bandleaders were regarded as stars who took the next step into band-leading, today's drummers have been leading bands well before they became well-known. Band-leading has turned from a reward for outstanding service into a means of expression. Without a star, these bands have been forced to rise to prominence collectively rather than individually. Brian Blade is an outlier to this trend, as the Brian Blade Fellowship was founded after Blade had become a star sideman with Joshua Redman. But the Fellowship still stood as a creative outlet for the drummer, who only began composing in 1997.

Today's drummer bandleaders traverse a starkly different landscape than their predecessors. The advisory role of the producer in jazz music has all but disappeared. Between the modern drummers interviewed for this paper, only three albums had credited producers, and those records were either the first or second album released by that musician. As previously discussed, producers were a member of the creative team for the older generation of bandleaders. However, since hiring Daniel Lanois to producer their first album, Brian Blade and Jon Cowherd have produced the output of the Brian Blade Fellowship. Likewise, Tyshawn Sorey has self-produced all his recordings since his debut. In opting for more control, modern drummer-led ensembles also have a greater awareness of non-musical responsibilities. Multiple leaders discussed their heavy involvement in all aspects of the album cycle with most of the leaders making final decisions and all leaders creating a road map. Now the main musical force behind their albums, drummers have taken over many of the duties previously given to a producer. Leaders have become more thoughtful about album making, consciously trying to not repeat themselves. As each drummer has grown as a composer, they have corralled further creative control even about performance opportunities.

The album itself has grown in significance. Past leaders rarely planned albums in advance, as seen by the recording processes of Elvin Jones and Philly Joe Jones. However, today's bandleaders continually think about the next album as opportunities for creative departure. While not the main driver of composition, recording as grown in creative significance. Each bandleader is highly aware of their audience during both the album cycle and live performances, lending to planned shifts in musical direction. This has led to longer album cycles and less extensive touring, leaving only the most prolific composers of the modern generation to record near pace of past generations. From 1968 to 1975, Buddy Rich released 14 albums as a leader, according to All Music. Tyshawn Sorey, the most prolific modern band leader interviewed, has released 12 albums as a leader in his nearly two-decade career. Elvin Jones released 22 albums as a leader from 1971-1982 while Jamison Ross, Mark Guiliana, and Brian Blade have release 17 albums as leaders combined since 1998.

The University and the Street

The largest difference between the two eras of drummer-led ensembles is the disparity in the education of the bandleaders. Until the late 1970's, it was extremely rare for any jazz musicians to have a degree from any university. Among those interviewed for this study, only Max Roach had gone to college and even in that case, Roach didn't study percussion but composition instead and didn't officially graduate. Tony Williams could be considered highly educated as he studied under Alan Dawson for years before working with Miles Davis at the age of 1753. However, none of the older generation leaders had even considered school before playing and all had credited learning their craft on the stage rather than in the classroom, a method which was prominent in their band-leading. In comparison, none of the modern-day subjects interviewed lacked a bachelor's degree; Tyshawn Sorey has completed a doctorate in composition.

The effects of such disparities in education become readily clear when studying the differences between older generation leaders. The level of education coincided the level of organization in the band. While bands led by Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones, and Art Blakey were musically pliable and loosely run, Max Roach ran a highly organized group that he dominated creatively. Though not formally educated similarly to Roach, Tony Williams was far more organized and creatively dominant then either Jones (Elvin or Philly Joe) or Blakey. Compositionally, the comparison between the two groups is stark. Williams composed all or most of the original works on his albums. Max Roach was a similarly overwhelming creative force. Even though Roach's albums were mixes of standards and originals, Roach was the credited composer for all original works. Blakey only wrote a handful of pieces, most of which were solo drum pieces with chanting or other percussion and was never the majority composer on a Jazz Messengers' album. Elvin Jones was a leader for 26 years before releasing an album where he was the plurality composer. Even in that case, the 1993 release Going Home features only four Elvin Jones compositions out of eight. Whereas modern leaders tightly control the sound of their groups through thoughtfulness and awareness, the past generation relied heavily on their intuition informed by their experience and unique gifts.

With the prevalence of college education, today's bandleaders began their bandleading endeavors after meeting musicians at college. The core of the Brian Blade Fellowship formed at Loyola University, Mark Guiliana's bandmates have sprung from his time at William Paterson University, and most of Tyshawn Sorey's Oblique began playing together at William Paterson. The networking aspect of college has long been known by musicians, but as bandleaders now begin their careers in colleges, these associations have become invaluable for an entire career as most modern leaders began composing in their undergraduate program where they could evaluate the talent of those around them and even develop musicians who could understand their writing. While this would suggest that education has an outsized impact on the musical notions of bandleaders, musicians who span both generations are not convinced that an expanded education is the source of the new emphasis on self-generating musicians. Many suggests that jazz has a culture that places an importance on original music. The older generation of band leaders were aware of the importance of original material. Art Blakey eventually began to tell every new Messenger that they were expected to bring in material. Even though the material wasn't his own, Elvin Jones' albums were filled with original material from others. However, schools can be an accelerator of original composition, as Tyshawn Sorey explains:

I think it depends on the institution. Some are set up really well for a composer to explore things, but it isn't a given. . .A lot of it is the individual but there if a person is in the right environment... they can really grow but there aren't a lot of those places out there.

All of the subjects interviewed see original compositions as an outgrowth of their individuality and a part of the challenge posited to jazz musicians. "I think it's sort of like asking 'well, what are you made of?,'" Brian Blade says, "'What are you thinking about? 'it's that learning and absorption... it's funneling into you so that you can express your own ideas." While acknowledging that education plays a role in introducing new sounds to the individual, Blade also noted the role of experience, echoing several interviewees. "It all has an impact," Blade continues. "Whatever piece of knowledge or experience you can gather along the way. For me, just having gone to New Orleans to study, to live there already it changed and informed everything... Deep inside of it, I can acknowledge that experience of the Marigny."

In addition to access to formal education, the new generation of bandleaders have become highly organized. Bandleaders are more involved in all aspects of their careers than past generations which is also increasing their focus and clarity of their ideas. Surprisingly, the increase in education has led to more creative focus rather than less. The emphasis on recording and lag time between projects have removed the periods of searching that marked the work of Tony Williams or Max Roach, replacing them with deliberate, sometimes dramatic shifts in musical direction. In a single album cycle, Mark Guiliana shifted from a classic acoustic jazz quartet to an album of electronic music which also includes drum machines. Tyshawn Sorey consciously tries to write and record something different with each album, leading him to record and tour in groups ranging from a duo of piano and drums to full orchestras. Jamison Ross is (as of October 2020) consciously writing music requiring differing recording techniques for his next project, hoping to achieve a large-scale production. While the earlier generations of bandleaders were open to any piece or genre of music, none had the similar striking transformation from album to album. For all the composers who played with the Jazz Messengers, Art Blakey kept the same instrumental frontline (saxophone, trumpet, trombone) for more of his career. Even a leader as musically open as Elvin Jones didn't take the sharp creative turns that today's leaders do.

The influence of added competition isn't known yet. However, the influx of Jazz Studies majors across the nation is hard to ignore. During the 1970's, there were only a handful of universities that offered full-fledged jazz studies programs in the country, Berklee College of Music being the most prominent. No conservatory in New York offered a jazz studies degree until 1986 when the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Arts opened. Currently, an estimated 760 students are enrolled in a jazz studies degree program. Without the club scene to support the growing number of musicians, performances have become more specialized. This and the increased complexity of compositions have led to a lack of shared repertoire, hindering the ability of a musician to "sit-in" and the ability of a bandleader to draw from the music of other musicians.

Conclusion

On November 15th, 2017 at 10:30pm, the Jazz Standard in New York City turned its lights back on. The Brian Blade Fellowship has just left the stage after playing an encore that was enthusiastically requested by the audience. As people paid their bill and grab their coats, Brian Blade becomes stuck between his instrument and a line of people wishing to shake his hand and express deep pleasure with the music he presented. The album reviews of their new release Body and Shadow don't dwell on the instrument, but spend time praising the compositions. Six weeks earlier, Tyshawn Sorey received the MacArthur Genius Grant, the only musician chosen for the honor. In the previous September, Mark Guiliana released Jersey which was praised as "a surprising but reassuring work of art" with reviewers referencing the leader's compositions rather than his instrument. Six months after the Fellowship's performance at the Jazz Standard, Jamison Ross released All For One where reviewers singled out his voice and compositions rather than focusing on his drumming.

While a college education may be the most obvious difference between the past and current generation, it is hardly the only element of the modern jazz scene that has freed the drummer from the back of the band. Yet to be studied is how the demise of the music business has changed the responsibilities of the band leader or how the lack of "gatekeepers" in the music business has allowed those that were once considered outliers to be thrust into the mainstream of the jazz scene. The impact of the new generation remains to be seen. The modern jazz scene is no longer built for franchises such as The Jazz Messengers or Elvin Jones' Jazz Machine. The complexity of modern original music makes band personnel more stagnant and highly specific. Gone are the days of Pat LaBarbera learning Elvin Jones' entire set in the kitchen of the Village Vanguard, of Javon Jackson sitting in on a Jazz Messengers rehearsal and of bandleaders asking new bandmates to bring in original music for the next day's recording session. Not only were these men legends in the eyes of their sidemen, leaders like Buddy Rich, Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones, and Art Blakey were beloved by their musicians who were humbled and grateful for the opportunities given to them. Multiple musicians said plainly that they owe their careers to these bandleaders. Only time will tell if the new generation of drumming bandleaders achieves a similar aura.

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