LP-676

Buddy Rich - Playtime

Released 1961

Recording and Session Information

Buddy Rich And His Buddies
Sam Most, flute, clarinet, alto saxophone; Mike Mainieri, vibes; Johnny Morris, piano; Wilbur Wynne, guitar; Richard Evans, bass; Buddy Rich, drums

Chicago, October 3, 1960

10463 Will you still be mine?
10464 Misty
10465 Lulu's back in town
10466 Cheek to cheek
10467 Makin' whoopee
10468 Fascinatin' rhythm

Dpn Goldie, trumpet; Sam Most, flute, clarinet, alto saxophone; Mike Mainieri, vibes; Johnny Morris, piano; Wilbur Wynne, guitar; Richard Evans, bass; Buddy Rich, drums

Chicago, October 4, 1960
10469 Playtime
10470 Marbles

Track Listing

Lulu's Back In Town	Dubin, Warren	October 3 & 4 1960
Playtime	Sam Most	October 3 & 4 1960
Will You Still Be Mine	Dennis, Adair	October 3 & 4 1960
Fascinating Rhythm	George & Ira Gershwin	October 3 & 4 1960
Making Whoopee	Kahn, Donaldson	October 3 & 4 1960
Marbles	John Morris, Sam Most	October 3 & 4 1960
Misty	Erroll Garner	October 3 & 4 1960
Cheek To Cheek	Irving Berlin	October 3 & 4 1960

Liner Notes

THERE is in jazz a certain elite — a cadre of musicians who, regardless of their moment-to-moment status with the layman, are universally admired Sv their competitors. One such is Dizzy Gillespie, who has for years been considered by trumpeters the unchallenged master of their instrument. Another is Ray Brown, the favorite bass player of almost every bassist in jazz.

A third is Buddy Rich, who has been called "the world's greatest snare drummer" by one of his awed competitors. So incontrovertible is Buddy's mastery of all the drums in le batterie, as the French call it, that he sails securely over all the wayward waves of fad and vogue. When he is playing a club date in New York, you'll see countless name drummers in the audience. They listen, grin, frown, chuckle appreciatively, shake their heads with an I-don't-believe-it air, and sometimes walk away mumbling.

"Rich is my drummer," Joe Morello has said. "I can sit for hours just watching his hands and feet."

Buddy does things that are unbelievable for any drummer," Philly Joe Jones has observed, And young Billy Higgins says simply, "The guy is fantastic."

Rich-s attributes include pair of hands which. whether handling sticks or brushes, are so fast and deft to be mystifying; incredible precision and superb touch and taste; and a rock-steady sense of time. When Rich is in a rhythm section, there is never for the listener that faintly insecure feeling that comes when the tempo is wandering: you know it's going to stay right where it's supposed to be.

These talcnts were almost lost to jazz in the fall of 1939. At that time, Rich, on tour in the South, Rich was stricken by a heart attack. He recovered, but doctors that he had better give up thinking about drumming: he would not be able to again for a long time, if ever.

They evidently didn't know Buddy very well. Scarcely six months later, he opened at Birdland with a brand new group. The group has been going strong ever since, and so has Buddy.

But Buddy is not the only remarkable musician in the new group. Another is Mike Manieri. If Buddy is a drummer's drummer, Mike bids fair to become the vibraharpist's vibraharpist. Buddy discovered him last spring.

Comment on Mainieri is best coming from Don DeMicheal, managing editor of Down Beat. De Micheal is unique among jazz critics in that he was a working jazz musician for 10 years before he became a writer. His instruments, as it happens, are drums and vibraharp. In consequence, he is pretty much the indisputable authority on vibes among jazz critics. In an article on Mike in the Oct. 27, 1960 Down Beat, DeMicheal indicated that in his view, Mike is the best technician yet to play jazz vibes. DeMicheal pointed out that a vibraharpist can speed by sacrificing volume and power — by keeping the mallets close to the instrument.

"Manieri," he wrote, "not only can match (Red) Norvo in speed and precision of attack, but plays at greater volume, even at breakneck tempos. He also comps like a pianist, as Red does. But he has carried this technique a degree further than the bearded one — Mike is more pianistic. He has developed the ability to produce moving-voiced tremolos with the two mallets in his left hand while the two in his right play variations.

"He uses this seldom-heard technique on up-tunes as well as ballads. But it is on the slow tunes that his mastery is most apparent. However, it's more than awe at his use of spread chords and the tremolo effect that rivets listeners' attention to his ballad work: his clean. nonfunky approach charms them with sweet-breathed innocence. Hard-eared audiences, callous to any jazz group, suddenly become silent when Maimcri plays a slow tune. Even the glasses stop rattling. When he is through, there sort of stunned silence, then applause comes like the roar of surf."

Buddy is enormously proud Of his protege, as you will notice in the exuberant backing he Manieri and the other members of the sestet on this, their first LP was a group. It was, in fact, a relaxed and happy date at which was made. So informal was it that when trumpeter Don Goldie, from the Jack Teagrden group. dropped in at Argo's Chicago studio to listen, Buddy suggested that he sit in. That's how it happens that you hear a trumpet on two two tracks of this disc. You can consider it a preview of Don Goldie: his own first Argo LP is due out shortly.

The Buddy Rich Sextet is a fresh and different group. Mainieri (who does much of the group's arranging) voices his vibes with Sam Most's excellent flute. The resulting sound is a curious mixture of strength and delicacy, of power and sheer loveliness.

We think this is a happy sound. Considering the talents involved, that's just what it should be.

Al Portch