Great Session Players - Steve Gadd
Posted by: Fusion 45 in Great Session Players, tags: jim croce, paul simon, rickie lee jones, steely dan, steve gaddAsk anyone who’s played the drums for more than 20 minutes to name his Top 5 players and, without exception, you should hear the name Steve Gadd.
What makes Gadd one of the greatest is not his pyrotechnics, though he was certainly capable of making some noise.
What set him apart was his sound, his style and his inventiveness. He could (and did) make a couple cardboard boxes sound like a $3000 set of Pearls. He could slip a four-on-the-floor shuffle beat into his pocket and make it swing like Dizzy Gillespie. And, he had such an imagination that he created some of the most well known drum tracks in the history of pop music.
50 Ways To Leave York Lover (from Paul Simon’s album, “Still Crazy After All These Years, Columbia, 1975)
Even people who have no clue about Steve Gadd know this famous rhythm, based on a drum corps street-beat Gadd learned in the 1960’s.
Woody And Dutch On A Slow Train To Peking (from Rickie Lee Jones’ album, Pirates, Warner Brothers, 1981)
Tucked into the middle of this disc (at the end of side one of the vinyl version) is one of the swinging-est tunes Rickie ever recorded. The track fades in with Gadd playing brushes on cardboard boxes and goes full mojo for the next 5 minutes. Pure joy.
Danny’s All-Star Joint (from Rickie Lee Jones’ album, Rickie Lee Jones, Warner Brothers, 1979)
Whereas Gadd pushes “Woody and Dutch” forward to its climax, he does exactly the opposite on this cut: he lays back into the groove and lets the music drive itself. Never has a straight shuffle beat been executed with such artistry.
Workin’ At The Car Wash Blues (from Jim Croce’s album I Got A Name, ABC, 1973)
As “50 Ways” is to the word “iconic,” this track is to the words “under appreciated”. Once again using a modified street beat, with a delightful 16th-note roll on the fourth beat of the bar, Gadd underscores the song’s theme of tiresome work and light-hearted fantasy with a terrific “march-off-to-work” groove.
Late In The Evening (from Paul Simon’s album One Trick Pony, Warner Brothers, 1980)
The secret sauce behind this groove is Gadd’s “two-sticks-in-each-hand-held-at-the-’wrong-end’” technique, which gives the song its Latin street band sound. Listen to the drum break at the end of the song: it’s all Gadd on drums and a pair of cymbals, a groove that’s been co-opted by everyone from Ritchie Haywood to Dennis Chambers to James Bradley, Jr. (Gadd’s replacement in the Mangione band).
Aja (from Steely Dan’s album, Aja, ABC, 1977)
Considered by many to be Steely Dan’s crowning achievement, Becker and Fagen openly admit it’s the studio musicians who made this album work. On this track, it’s Wayne Shorter’s sax solo and Gadd’s incorporation of rock, jazz and Latin into one 7-minute song. Legend states that Gadd came into the studio, read the chart and played the song in one take, requiring the rest of the band to re-cut their performances. True or not, listen closely, especially the last 8 bars which is virtually all of Gadd’s signatures combined into one stretch of 30 seconds.
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