Last Monday I went to a clinic featuring one of the world’s great drummers, Steve Gadd. This photo was taken by someone in his entourage — if you look very closely, over near the wall to Steve’s left, you still won’t be able to see my standing there. He’d just turned sixty a couple days before the clinic.
I knew it was going to be great to see him, but I didn’t expect him to be as warm and gracious with everyone. I didn’t expect him to be a jerk either, but he caught me off-guard with his talk of how all drummers are in this big family, how he let people get up onstage with him while showing everyone stuff, and how engaging he was with all the people he talked with.
He played for maybe ten or fifteen minutes at most before he started taking questions from the audience. People mostly asked him to talk about stuff from the many, many recordings he’s played on. Some of his most well-known stuff, like Paul Simon’s songs Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover and Late in the Evening, Eric Clapton’s recent records, and Chick Corea’s series of recordings from the 70s all came up as expected.
One of the things about Gadd is his incredible patience as a musician. At previous clinics I’ve attended, the artist will demonstrate something the audience asks about for maybe 30 seconds to a minute at most, usually playing it slow and fast in that time. Gadd will do a couple minutes of playing something slow, then another minute or two of the same thing played fast, at a minimum. That not only helps it sink in when everyone in the audience is patting their hands and feet trying to play along, but it demonstrates how important it is to have that patience, and the control, to be able to play stuff at all tempos for as long as you need to. Steve Gadd has made his career based on that foundation, and it was great to be able to see that right in front of me.
I found out, after it was all over, that this clinic tour he’s doing is his first in twenty years. Not only was this the first time I’d gone to see him, it was the first time it’s been possible in my entire life of playing drums. That goes a long way toward explaining the insane attendance — nearly 1,000 people were there — and the wide range of ages. It was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to working more on the stuff I learned there. Mostly, just trying to be more patient is the order of the day.