 Ed
Thigpen
By Rick Mattingly
I'll never forget a late-night PASIC jam session
in the mid-'80s. As I en tered the room, I could
tell that something special was happening just
from the way everyone was crowded around the band--an
impression quickly confirmed by the intensity
of the music that was being created. I slowly
maneuvered my way to the front of the room where
I discovered Jack DeJohnette playing piano and
Ed Thigpen playing drums. Talk about a jazz drummers'
dream band!
"That was awesome," DeJohnette says,
recalling the night. "Ed was in great form.
When you play with musicians, it's always different
than just listening to them. I felt very comfortable
playing with Ed, and it was obvious why he's hired
and loved and respected by so many great musicians.
His time is right there, he listens really well,
he's very musical. It felt natural playing with
him, and it was also very inspiring."
One can certainly contend that Thigpen "gets
it honest." He was born in Chicago in 1930,
the son of jazz drummer Ben Thigpen, who was highly
regarded for his work with bandleader/bassist
Andy Kirk. "My father was a great man as
well as a great drummer, respected by his peers,"
Thigpen told Ed Soph in a 1985 Percussive Notes
interview. "He was known for having good,
swinging time. He was a great showman as well
as a drummer."
After his parents separated, Ed moved with his
mother to Los Angeles, where he studied piano,
sang in a church choir, took dancing lessons,
and played drums in his school band. "There
was so much music," Thigpen told Soph. "Even
in the third and fourth grades the teachers would
play music for us. It was a way of life, a part
of community activity. When you are raised in
an environment which includes the elements of
jazz music--this democratic music, as Max Roach
calls it; this music which at its best is individuality,
freedom with discipline--of course you are influenced
in how you play."
Thigpen's first professional gig was with Buddy
Collette when Ed was eighteen, and he soon joined
the Jackson Brothers show band. He then worked
with Cootie Williams at the Savoy Ballroom in
New York for several months before becoming a
drummer in the Army band for two years.
After his discharge from the service, Thigpen
returned to New York and began working with a
variety of artists, beginning with singer Dinah
Washington and including Johnny Hodges, Bud Powell,
Lennie Tristano, and Billy Taylor. During the
1950s he also recorded with Toshiko Akiyoshi,
Ira Sullivan, Mal Waldron, Mundell Lowe, Eddie
"Cleanhead" Vinson, Teddy Charles, and
Blossom Dearie.
During that time, Thigpen became highly regarded
for his brush playing and his strong sense of
swing. "Brush technique was very important
then," Ed commented recently. "I always
played brushes with the snares turned off to get
a more harmonic sound coming through the open
snare drum. I also learned that volume and intensity
were not the same thing. Jo Jones did a great
deal for me when I first came to New York, and
he used to tell me, `Make it sound as big as possible.
Not loud, but big, and as musical as possible.'"
In 1959 Thigpen joined the Oscar Peterson Trio,
which included bassist Ray Brown. "That trio
put me on the international map," Thigpen
says. "We put out so much material, and a
lot of that material still holds up. People come
up to me now and say, `I have some of your records,'
and they pull out the Oscar Peterson records."
In a 1982 Modern Drummer interview, Thigpen
said that Peterson set a very high standard. "We
had a philosophy that we were going to play so
good every night that even on a bad night we'd
be head and shoulders above everyone else.
"Working with the trio gave me an opportunity
to develop certain elements of my playing,"
he explained. "I had a chance to develop
a cymbal technique and a method of phrasing which
simulated a big band situation. I learned how
to listen to the melody and how to phrase with
the improvised line to give the feeling that other
things were happening. It was complementary, but
it was still time, which is what Oscar wanted.
I was there to play time and make it swing."
Thigpen recalled working specifically on time
playing with Brown. "Ray and I roomed together,"
Ed said. "When I first joined the group,
Ray said, `Okay, we're gonna practice time--just
the two of us.' And we did. I figured it would
last about a week or so. Well, a year later we
were still practicing time. We'd wake up in the
morning and practice time. We'd practice dynamics,
tempos, and singing the tunes we played. We got
to the point where we could recite our name and
address as we were playing time and know where
we were in the tune at all times."
Of the many recordings Thigpen made with the Peterson
Trio, he cites West Side Story as being
one of the best, and the most difficult. He also
recalls a drum fill on the tune "Judy"
from the album The Oscar Peterson Trio
and Nelson Riddle. "I played the best
two-beat solo you ever heard--or at least that
I ever heard," Ed says, laughing. "When
I finished, I yelled out, `Hey Buddy, did you
hear that?'"
After leaving Peterson in 1965, Thigpen worked
with singer Ella Fitzgerald for a year. "Working
with Ella, with Tommy Flanagan on piano, was one
of the highlights of my life," Ed says. "She
sounded like an orchestra, so you could draw on
everything with her. I would use cymbal shadings
and glissandos and swells--all of the percussive
effects you would use with a full orchestra."
After moving to Los Angeles and working freelance
for a year, Thigpen worked with Fitzgerald again
from 1968 to 1972, and then he moved to Copenhagen
after marrying a woman from Denmark. Ed became
very active in the European jazz scene, and he
recorded with a wide variety of artists, including
Toots Thielemans, Johnny Griffin, Horace Parlan,
Helen Humes, Clark Terry, Kai Winding, Thad Jones,
Benny Carter, Art Farmer, and Monty Alexander.
In addition, Thigpen has led his own groups over
the past two decades and released a number of
fine albums, including Mr. Taste, It's Entertainment,
and the recent Element of Swing, which
features saxophonist Joe Lovano.
Thigpen has also been active as an educator. His
book The Sound of Brushes is considered
a definitive resource on the art of brush playing,
and his Rhythm Analysis and Basic Coordination
for Drums has found favor with many teachers
and students. He has also taught extensively in
Copenhagen and given countless clinics around
the world.
In his clinics, Thigpen stresses the fundamentals
of drumset playing, such as maintaining a pulse
on the bass drum. "It's a misconception that
with the advent of bebop the bass drum was no
longer played with a steady pulse--that the time
moved up to the ride cymbal," Thigpen said
in his Percussive Notes interview. "Kenny
Clarke himself says that isn't so. This misinformation
has been given to a generation and a half and,
consequently, when you hear the band play you
don't hear or feel that bottom.
"Even in high school we argued about it.
Then I saw Max Roach in New York and he played
the bass drum, 1-2-3-4. I asked my father, and
Jo Jones, and Sid Catlett. They said you `feather'
the bass drum. You have a pulse that is felt.
You don't beat it; you just feather it. And when
you want a `bomb,' you just bring that beater
back and hit the drum with a big, loud stroke.
Then you get back to the pulse, because with that
you can hold the band together.
"Playing the bass drum is part of the heritage
and should be part of the training that goes into
learning how to play the set, because it is fundamental
to the instrument. Once these fundamental rules
have been mastered, then you can take liberties
and know how and why you are doing what you're
doing. The set has been taught in a wrong manner
because of this particular misconception of the
role of the bass drum. It's like going for the
roof before putting down the foundation. There
are certain basic truths about this instrument,
which are not being put into perspective."
But although Thigpen is firmly grounded in tradition,
he has always been one to adapt to the times.
"When Tony Williams came in with 4/4 on the
hi-hat, I had to work like a dog to learn how
to do that," Thigpen admits. "But guys
like Tony and Jack DeJohnette were always very
encouraging and helpful when I would ask them
about things they were doing."
DeJohnette considers Thigpen to be quite youthful
in his attitude. "Ed is always trying new
things," DeJohnette says. "He's never
afraid to ask questions, and he's always looking
for new ways to enhance his playing style, which
is quite masterful and tasteful. He's one of the
most beautiful human beings I know, and I'm glad
to see him being honored with the PAS Hall of
Fame award."
"I've always felt I've been a member of a
luxury profession," Thigpen told Modern
Drummer. "I'm thankful I've had the opportunity
to be a part of it. Just the idea of playing music--the
rapport between a group of musicians when that
magic happens, the gratification when it works.
You can't put a dollar sign on the love and joy
one receives out of being able to participate.
To my way of thinking, it's about as close to
heaven as one is going to get on this earth."
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