Buddy Rich

[dontfeartheringo]

Buddy Fucking Rich

[Redline]

Dad took me to see him in 1972 at Washington High School in Milwaukee and it changed my life.

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Not Crap. Buddy Fucking Rich.

[154]

I can watch his solo clips all day but still can't vote Not Crap. That's sort of like voting NC for this:

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[zom-zom]

Well, that is crap. Unlike Buddy Rich.


I stood a few feet from him playing with his big band in 1984.. blew my mind.

[fredrock]

My parents first took me to Las Vegas in 1968 and to a show by this iteration of Buddy Rich Band.
Dad liked big band-Mom jazz, so it made sense. What a lucky lad!
I was quite simply blown away by the entire show.

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The sax solo @ 5:15 was my first encounter with circular breathing
Holy Cow!!!

[Mason]

"Crap" option needs to be "This guy ... this is not my kinda guy."

[Ptommydski]

Great drummer but perhaps his most enduring contribution is to the English language. For years I've shamelessly stolen great swathes of invective from transcripts of his rants. Some of them I use so often I forget where they came from. I say "I feel that's fairly much English" all the time. And "your deciding is wrong!" Not to mention "don't think that's not impossible, it's very fucking possible".

NC.

[Ptommydski]

Two fucking weeks to make up your mind whether you want a beard or you want a job.

[El Protoolio]

You wanna fuck with me on the bandstand?

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[Anthony Flack]

I would like to see Buddy Rich's level of skill applied to other kinds of music. Hell I would like to see it applied to ME. It would be fun to be so outrageously dextrous as that. To be able to do things with one hand that I can't fucking do with two. Talking about bands with two drummers recently; Buddy Rich had one on the end of each arm.

[djimbe]

got to see him twice in the early '80's. Once we were at some dinner club (not the Sabre Room, but something like it) and had a table right in front of the stage. Me and my friend were sitting there before the show with our feet on the stage, 'cause we're lazy teenagers. The show starts and is mind warping and we're on the edge of our seats watching him slay. Break in the sets comes up and Buddy grabs a cymbal/stand combo by his hat and "drives" it out from behind the kit, steering the cymbal like it's a wheel. Gonna come out and yak with his audience for a minute, but he pulls to screeching stop in front of the guy at the table next to ours. Guy has his feet on the stage.

"this your stage", asks Buddy. Dude says no. "then get your feet the fuck off MY stage". Good thing it wasn't us, my friend's dad was the MC that night.

Buddy's kit had the kick drum bolted to big piece of 3/4" plywood that everything else sat on. Hard as he hit that shit, nothing moved a bit.

[offal]

As a person, based on the "bus tapes" alone: Crap.

As a technical player: astounding and Not Crap.

As a soulful player and composer: To my ears, Crap.

So overall: "not for me".

Bombast only does so much for me. I'll take The Dirty Three's Jim White over Buddy ANY day, no contest.

[154]

As a soulful player and composer: To my ears, Crap.

That's probably my biggest point of contention: his music is kitschy, over-rehearsed crap.

[steelglam]

Buddy Rich seems to me to be one of those people for whom it would be hard to apply the "crap" tag. I can understand not liking his music, and for several of the reasons that people mention here. Which is why the change of the "crap" option to "this is not my kinda guy" seems appropriate on several levels. But I think it would be difficult to consider his playing crap.

Incredible left-hand technique, and unparalleled snare technique as a whole. I wish he would have incorporated more tom work into what he does, but on the snare and the cymbals especially, he was outstanding.

[Zorg]

over-rehearsed

I'm pretty sure an under-rehearsed big band might not be the revelation you're hoping for. Also, he claimed he didn't practice.

[Ptommydski]

I own this fucking band.

[Redline]

I love the part on the bus tapes where he's in the middle of his rant, and there's a big space, and he blurts out

"....Fuckers!..."

So perfect.

[Ptommydski]

Yes! I can actually hear that in my mind without listening to it.

Along with The Simpsons, Christopher Guest films and the recorded output of Lenny Bruce, those Buddy Rich tapes might have influence my personal lexicon more than any other media.

[DrAwkward]

You don't know how often in Milwaukee (or at PRF events, for that matter) i end up thinking to myself, no more fucking beards.

I never listen to him, but c'mon. Not Crap.

[dvockins]

Dude knew what he was doing, no doubt. Not Crap.

That said, name that song where Buddy Rich is an absolutely critical component. "The West Side Story" medley? Whatever. Every single one of his peers that he supposedly blew away somehow managed that. That's the point to me. Everything else is gravy.

and Joe Morello's left hand is better