Can anybody self-identify as a "jazz drummer"?
In this age when people are including the excellent Travis Barker, and the drumming/songwriting genius Phil Collins in lists of "jazz drummers", I thought it was worth asking:
If we wouldn't be afraid to say Mel Lewis should not replace Matt Halpern in Periphery, why are we so afraid to say there are some excellent drummers, who are not jazz drummers? (Not yet, anyway.)
I posted an open-ended question about it on my Facebook page, and several drummers took me to task, saying it was a waste-of-time to worry about.
They may be right.
But it's still worth arguing, in my humble opinion.
As I wrote there, there are two primary reasons it may be important to exclude some people from the descriptor "jazz drummer".
The first is the Dues Paying argument. The idea that you can't just identify as a military veteran or martial arts black belt because you feel like it. Members of those communities have gone through shared crucibles which impersonators would be "disrespecting".
I'm *certainly* not claiming the "first world crucible" fledgling jazz musicians face on their way to getting forged into...just jazz musicians...are anything on the order of what soldiers/sailors/marines or fighters face. It's a tricky analogy to make without disrespecting those groups, but I think it's still an important one.
When jazz oldsters talk about "dues paying", that's what they're talking about.
(Some take it a little too far, in my opinion. If somebody can play and sound great at 18, why not respect him or her?)
The second is the Thai Food argument. This is the idea that once a word can mean anything, it's no longer useful as language.
Just as "Authentic Thai Food" now gives you zero information about whether a Thai meal in Brooklyn is likely to be "authentic" in the way we *used* to understand that word, so too would "jazz drummer" cease to describe any useful difference if the canon included Travis Barker, Vinnie Paul, and Phil Collins.
See if you agree/disagree, and leave a constructive comment!
See you in the next one!