Short Is Sweet

It's almost too good to be true... a drum battle between Art Blakey, Max Roach and Elvin Jones captured on video. Three giants who were not only a huge influence on the development of jazz, but who indirectly also helped change the course of rock drumming, thanks to the awe in which they were rightly held by some of rock's finest players.

But the video has a salutary moment for all drummers. While all manner of percussive ingenuity is being unleashed on stage, the camera pans across the audience and there, centre screen, is the face of a woman... who looks bored witless.

Someone once told me that people usually applaud at the end of a jazz solo because they're so relieved it's over. And that may apply even more to drum solos — of any kind.

Perhaps the best advice for drummers is: Keep calm and don't carry on.

To Solo Or Not To Solo

The Shark Dentists' guitarist, Russ Payne (www.russpayneguitar.co.uk), asked me the other night if I'd be interested in introducing a drum solo into the act. I told him I've never been that keen, because the very idea is kind of scary. The only time I remember playing one was at a particularly rowdy Sky Pirates gig in London where the management cut off the electricity and I was left with the stage to myself. Because I had no idea it was going to happen, it was fun.

The day after Russ made his suggestion, I played a jazz gig with Funky Johnny P's Quintet, where once more a solo was suddenly thrust upon me without warning. I just about got away with it, but it wasn't great.

Suddenly everybody wants me to play a drum solo. Everyone, that is, except Mez, the Sharks' bass player. Drum solos, he says, have no place in the modern age. That's not what the jazzers think. But then Mez doesn't have a lot of time for jazz either...