Megalife

The Autobiography of Nick Menza

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£10.99

J. Marshall “I spent a year living with late, great, heavy metal drummer Nick Menza  ( the son of the great sax player Don Menza ) at his home in Studio City, California, trying to get the enormously private and proud man to open up and let me write his story. A story of the heights of rock and roll stardom, dreams come true and dreams shattered. We spent a lot of time talking, listening to music, playing music, and even began filming a drum-clinic video that comprises the final chapter of his book.

Nick’s book is as stated above a very personal account of his time with Nick, he takes the reader through a series of interviews as if you were there in the room, the highs the lows, the happiness and the sadness such is the atmosphere of his book.

As any drummer who enjoys reading about his fellow musicians, I found Nick’s sincerity and love of his instrument, throughout the book.  I cannot imagine how J Marshall must have felt when Nick passed as he was about to finish the final chapter of his book, all credit is due to him completing the book and making it such an interesting read, I applaud his courage and determination.  It deserves a place in every drummer’s library as it shows the true determination Nick had to succeed despite life’s upset’s along the way, I hope that the reader will get a real insight into the life of a professional musician.  JMC you have done Nick proud I am sure he will be applauding your work.

Bobby Morris

My Las Vegas

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£19.99

My Las Vegas is the incredible life story of Bobby Morris, who arrived in the U.S. from Poland at age ten, where he shined shoes and dreamed of being a drummer, and rose to become a music legend both behind the drums and in the Vegas entertainment industry. Leaving home as a teenager during the height of the Great Depression, Morris witnessed the birth of bebop coming from Harlem, and is himself credited with laying down some of the very first beats of rock n roll. Hearing about a little town out west called Las Vegas, Morris arrived there in 1950 and proceeded to carve out a niche for himself in the music and entertainment management worlds, ascending to accompanist to the greatest stars of all time: Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, Bobby Darin, Frank Sinatra, Eddie Fisher and dozens of others. Achieving fame as the drummer for Louis Prima's Witnesses during a golden age in Vegas, Morris eventually became the conductor and friend of Elvis Presley. He rubbed elbows with American presidents, playing the Kennedy Inauguration and befriending a young actor named Ronald Reagan. Also an important figure on the business side of the industry, Morris ran the successful Bobby Morris Agency, Inc. from his own building in downtown Las Vegas and was involved in management, booking and entertainment direction of many of the major hotels and venues on the Strip. This, his autobiography, is the inspiring and nearly unbelievable story of one man achieving his dreams and rubbing elbows with the greatest personalities of the twentieth century in the process. Also included are Bobby's tips on success in the music business, preparing for an audition, business negotiations and more.

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                                                               Timeless Drum Books

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I have compiled a short list with the assistance of information gathered from several sources, internet research, drum teachers, drummers and music colleges.  I have had the pleasure to interview some of the author’s to explain how their books began and the concepts behind them.

Stick Control for the Modern Drummer – George Lawrence Stone

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Master Studies – Joe Morello

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Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer – Ted Reed

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New Breed – Gary Chester

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Future Sounds - David Garibaldi

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I always wanted to be a teacher as well as a player, and I’ve idolized my favorite teachers in the same way I’ve idolized my favorite drummers. 

The original manuscript for Future Sounds was much larger and encompasses everything I thought about the drums. When I took it to Sandy Feldstein at Alfred Publishing, he loved the ideas but said I needed a subject. I’m thinking, “what!? The subject is the drums!”...he went on to explain that a great drum book has a focused subject and that I can save the rest for another book or books. He gave me a couple weeks to come up with something. I went home and racked my brain for something and finally it hit me that the whole focus of my playing was beats, HH, SD and BD. To me those are basic drum set components that I was trying to master, so there was my subject. I went back to him and from there we started working. The book was never designed to be any progression from A to Z, but more a presentation of the basic concepts I use in beat making and a presentation of ideas. of ideas 

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Advanced Funk Studies – Rick Latham

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Art of Bop Drumming – John Riley

The Art of Bop Drumming was written at the suggestion of a student named Dan Thress. At that time Dan was working at the Drummer’s Collective and they has just begun making videos and books from those videos. I assisted with about 20 for those books by proofreading or transcribing. 

Dan liked our lessons and suggested that there wasn’t a book like my teaching and he suggested that if I wrote a book he would propose it the Rob Wallis and Paul Seigel, the principals at the Collective.

My original manuscript included all of the Art of Bop and all of Beyond Bop Drumming plus a large section on chart reading but Dan and I soon realized that the book needed to be pared down so I focus on the Art of Bop first. Needless to say, the chart reading book never came out because of the expense of recording an entire big band. 

The Art of Bop Drumming has been embraced by drummers around the world in a way that is much more than I could ever anticipate. It’s currently in print in Japanese, Korean, French and Italian.  Beyond Bop is also in print in several languages. I am so honoured and flattered that so many players, of all levels and not just drummers, have found the books of value to them.  Thank you all and keep swinging. 

John

Bass Drum Control – Colin Bailey

Bass Drum Control is a kind of good story. While I was still in SF in 1962, I came up with my BD Technique by accident when I was practicing one day. I moved to LA in Jan of 1963 and I was playing with Victor Feldman in Hollywood, and some of the LA Drummers were coming to hear me play with Victor, and by then I had my BD technique down to where I could use in soloing on the gig, and they were going to Pro Drum (Hollywood Drum Shop) and saying to Bob Yeager the owner, and saying have you heard the new kid in town he’s got a great BD technique. So Bob said to me, why don’t you write a book for the Hands and the right foot, so I did, and that’s how that happened. That simple It didn’t take me long to do it.

I have made some changes in it a couple of times to make it better. It was published in 1964, and on the 50th anniversary I got a new cover to celebrate. It’s all over the World, even Russia. It’s still selling well.  I have two other good Drum books out. I don’t know if you’ve seen my website: www.colinbailey.com  there are some tracks from my BD technique DVD. It’s hard to get anymore, but there is  quite a lot of me playing, with Trio and exercises from the DVD.

Colin

Realistic Rock – Carmine Appice

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Steve Gadd Up Close – Bob Cleall

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It was around 1978 when I was playing in the Empire, Leicester Square that we all started noticing Gadd.

I put together a little booklet of some of his playing that got noticed around that time.

On the off chance I sent it to the then DCI (Drummers Collective) to see if they fancied printing it.

Nothing came of it but awhile later they got in touch to see if I wanted to transcribe Up Close the video! This was around the mid eighties, I think, and the first drum instructional video.

How did I do it well before any of the computer wizardry of today?

Nobody believes this!

I bought a cassette player that could run at up to 30% slower and held it up to the speaker of the TV and recorded it. Trouble was it didn't keep the pitch, unlike today's stuff, so it sounded like mud!

So most of it was done, at speed, with the sound off and I just watched his hands to pick out the sticking. It took ages, of course, and a couple of years went by (probably more)) before Gadd had a chance to edit it! He only corrected one or two things, as I recall.

The book didn't come out until 1992, I can't remember who put me in touch, it might have been the Zildjian representative, but Steve invited me to his hotel in London around this time while he was on tour with Paul Simon. I was there a good couple of hours, chatting, and he signed some books.

Just to finish, he said how grateful he was and that without my efforts, it would not have happened.

That was the first of an avalanche of books along the same lines.

So we started something there.

That's the story.      Anybody who would like to get in touch can do so at www.bobbycleall.co.uk.

Bob

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Groove Alchemy – Stanton Moore

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Messin Wid Da Bull - Jeff Salem

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The concept behind writing this book was to show students of all levels different grooves and fills that can be applied to the tracks on the CD. On each tune there is a written rhythm chart with all the horn shots and bass guitar rhythms as well as a short form road map of each tune. Three different levels of grooves are written so beginners can enjoy playing along with the tracks. In the intro of the book I explain the different concepts I used to create the various grooves throughout the book using linear ideas, paradiddle concepts plus much more. This book is more like an encyclopedia for funk drumming.

Jeff.

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                My own philosophy is "No one is a failure until, they stop trying."                                     Ashley Wardell

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