What did people play on cocktail sets in the 50's?

[FW]

Hey!

I've been playing my cocktail set a lot even though I haven't finished building it, and so far I use it for a lot of funk, hip hop, drum and bass stuff on my own and folky/roots rocky type stuff with my band. It struck me that most of these styles didn't exist, or, in the latter case, didn't generally use drums, much less cocktail drums.

I've also noticed that I thought the drum would be great for jazz, but it's actually a real struggle to make my set work in that genre unless I use brushes, in which case, it works fairly well.

I'm curious if anyone on the list was playing cocktail drums in the 50's, or if anyone for any other reason knows what the hip beats were to play back then. I imagine stuff like beguines, mambos, calypsos, brushy jazz stuff, cha chas--but I wonder if I'm romanticizing the 50's and cocktail sets too much. Did drummers care much about cocktail sets? Were they widely used in a day and age when hardware weighed nothing and nobody demanded a drummer use more than a four piece with two cymbals and a hi hat? What were the cocktail "tricks" of the day? Were they big with piano trios, or did they have crazier applications? I'm curious for any kind of sticking patterns, suggestions...anything, that would help shed light on 50's cocktail playing.

Also, I was thinking that if anyone does try to make a book on cocktail drumming, it would be great if the book covered traditional playing methods (which is ironic on a few levels, since the drums have always been freakish), not just contemporary applications.

Thanks!

Famous Willy

[John Mettam]

Hey Willy,

Good questions!

I have heard various stories from people about seeing cocktail drums in the 50s and 60s but sadly there are barely any pictures or written accounts.

It seems that cocktail drums were very popular for the following:

1) Having the singer play drum parts in an otherwise drummerless band...


http://www.cocktaildrum.com/drummers/ly ... npage.html

2) As a show piece during a performance. I have heard of drummer/bandleaders coming up to the front of the stage for a special tune on the cocktail drum. VERY SHOWY!

3) As cocktail lounge drums. When space is at a premium and the music is quite!

I have also run across a few accounts of singers in country bands taking up the cocktail kit as well.

If anyone has stories and pictures, PLEASE send them to me. I will gladly make pages to archive this information. : > )

John

[buchhojl]

I don't know if the original Four Freshmen used a cocktail set back in 1949 and after (I suspect they did, but I'll do some research, and report back.) However, the current incarnation of the Freshmen uses a Jordan Kit to excellent effect. Check out "The Four Freshmen; Live in the New Millenium," on The Gold Label, UPC 715668-21082-0. Great playing and singing! For a great picture, as well as audio samples, go here:

http://www.fourfreshmen.com/index.htm

[Bruce (the K)]

The link to The Four Freshmen's web page in the previous post provides some interesting cocktail drum-related photos. If you click on the link in the sentence "Click HERE to see and hear what we mean!" you'll see some interesting pictures of their drummer playing both a Yamaha Club Joran cocktail set and a very interesting hybrid set that seems like the "missing link" between standard, sit-down drumming and stand-up cocktail drumming.

It looks similar to the old Ludwig Gold Coast set that had a standard, horizontally-oriented bass drum with a snare drum on a pole sticking out the top of the bass drum. This modern variant has the twim risers sticking out of the top of the bass drum, normally used for mounting tom toms. However, it has a snare drum and basket mounted on one of those risers somehow. There's no tom tom but it looks like one could be mounted on the other riser. The high hat stand has been modified to raise the cymbals up a bit and there's one cymbal mounted on a stand. Here's what makes this whole thing very interesting: The drummer is sitting on a very tall drummer's throne so he has both feet available for bass pedal and high-hat pedal but he's much higher up than a drummer would normally be. In other words, he's almost standing but can still play like a standard, four-limbed drummer. I don't know how well the mechanics work but it seems like it would be ok.

I know one of the things that throws off the "real" drummers who try my cocktail kit (a Peace Manhattan) is having to stand on the leg they normally use for their high-hat pedal. This set-up is interesting because it seems like it could be fairly easily cobbled together from an existing set and wouldn't require a different technique but would give the drummer a "new perspective" from much higher up. Also, I don't think any of the required mods would prevent you from switching back to traditional style, if you wanted to. Are any of our modern cocktail R&D folks, who actually have a traditional set, up for attempting something like this?

Also, on the subject of this Four Freshmen site and cocktail drums, follow these links at the bottom of the page and you'll see a few pictures of a bizarre cocktail drum relative from the 1950s:

The Four Freshmen Society
The Four Freshmen Photo Album
Photos from 1948-1973 (Groups 1-4)

Pictures of them performing at a club in the 1950s sometime show them using a very strange little drum set. This thing seems to combine the worst of all worlds. It's a little metal frame holding a snare drum and two cymbals at mid-thigh height. One of the Four Freshmen is playing it standing up (by bending over to reach the snare). No bass drum, no high hat, no drummer's throne. What's the point? A standard snare drum stand and a cymbal stand would work better. Can anybody guess why they used this thing instead?

[buchhojl]

Bruce: It is easy to play the Jordan kit sitting-- if you scroll down the discussion list you'll see an earlier topic I posted (back in Oct.) "Play Sitting?" In addition to raising the high hat, I've also moved the bass drum pedal further under the drum for a more comfortable, playable clearance. Best of both worlds without needing a hybrid set... though the Freshmen drummer's kit IS interesting.

[buchhojl]

I have managed to find and view/listen to a videotape of the original Freshmen as they regularly appeared on The Ray Anthony television show-- 1956-- (Anthony was a popular big band leader of the time.) The songs they sang/played then are still pretty much the book that the current Freshman are presenting. Some perennials: "Day by Day," "Love is Just Around the Corner," "You Stepped Out of A Dream," "Easy Street," "After You've Gone," "We'll Be Together Again," "This Can't Be Love," "Graduation Day." They were, and are, pretty much a "Standards" band.

And yes, on this tape from 1956, Ross Barbour plays a stand-up set which consists of a snare, ride cymbal, and a loosely-closed pair of hi-hat cymbals on a rectangular frame. If you're interested, you can follow the directions in Bruce's reply (above) to see this "strange little set."

[John Mettam]

Wow a video of the wierd kit!

Is there any way that I could get hold of that? I would love to add a short clip to the media section of the board! VHS or digital is even better. Would just want a short piece. Is this a video I can find somewhere?

Thanks for the help

John

[buchhojl]

John:
I've just done a search... I suspect that this video is out of print. I'll have to borrow it again from the friend who loaned it to me, and get the publication info. I remember it was a "Ray Anthony Production." But googling Ray Anthony now gets you some guy who wants to develop your nude photography. (I'm not making that up.) The quality of the video is fairly rudimentary black and white 50's era TV(kinoscope); so, I don't know whether you'd get a usable image from it. But I'll see if I can find it somewhere.