Music Before the Money

“Louie is the best person I ever met.” — Tony Bennett

Louie Bellson, a band drummer who played with Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Benny Goodman, died after a lengthy bout with Parkinson’s disease. The 84 year-old Bellson started in the bands over 60 years ago and racked up 200 record albums. Not only that he wrote more than 1,000 compositions and arrangements in jazz, orchestral suites, symphonic works and ballets.

In 1998, the six-time Grammy winner joined Roy Haynes, Elvin Jones and Max Roach being honored as one of the four Living Legends of Music. This was added to the American Drummers Achievement he received from the Ziildjan Cymbal Company.

But where did this guy come from?

He was born Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni on July 5, 1924 and like most people of ethnic origins he “Americanized” his name to Louie Bellson. At 15 years-old  Bellson was precocious enough to engineer a double bass drum setup that is widely used today from jazz to metal drummers. When he was 17 he won a national drumming competition, the Slingerland National Gene Krupa drumming contest. He was one of 40,000 drummers in the competition.

During World War II is entry into the U.S. Army meant a diversion the the army band in the same manner as Danny Kaye, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Lionel Hampton. After the war he performed mostyl with Duke Ellington until 1952 when he married Pearl Baily and became her musical director. She predeceased him 1990.

In other areas of his life Bellson was a vice-president of Remo drums and wrote many books on drumming as well as tutorials that were highly acclaimed by drumming enthusiasts.

So how did he feel about the double-bass and other drumming accessories? Here is an except from his interview with Jazz Connection:

“I’ve been of the opinion that all a drummer really needs is one bass drum, a snare drum, some tom-toms, a ride cymbal, a crash cymbal, sticks and brushes. If you can’t do it with that, you better go back to the drawing board. The extra bass drum is frosting on the cake. It doesn’t mean that every drummer needs to play two bass drums. For me, it works.”

His double-bass was his trademark and that fit in with the rest of his showy act. This included  a mixture of energy, showmanship and drumming precision that made Bellson’s playing a perfect fit for the big-band era. Buddy Rich, his friend and a player with whom he sometimes had drum battles in heavily promoted spectacles, thought Bellson his peer.

As we lose people like Louie Bellson we sincerely hope that others with the desire to perfect their instruments will step up to the plate. These are musicians who not only play well but look for ways in which to improve both the instrument and the craft for the betterment of the music world.

Louie Bellson’s picture is from his website: Louie Bellson.

My good friend Dennis Davies from Calgary was a “poster child” for a drum company out of Lloydminster, Saskatchewan, a small bump on the road as you leave Alberta on the way to Saskatoon.

Canwood Drums were – and still are to a certain extent – shells that were built and finished by a farmer named Fred Pepper 30 miles southwest of Lloydminster on what was once a cattle farm. Between 1986 & 1990 when Long & McQuade stores across Canada handled his drums exclusively.

Fred worked with 6 ply shells for toms, 8 ply shells for bass drums & 6, 8 or 10 ply shells for snare drums. He also would sometimes do 8 ply toms but these, as Dennis admits, were not a huge seller. Fred also wanted Canwood to be special, to be separate from other drums so he came up with a bearing edge that was cut from both sides at a 66.3 degree angle making the contact point of head & shell right in the middle of the ply set up.

Pepper was also very creative with stains & finishes & produced some amazing colours even matching things like hotrods in car mags & one dudes coffee mug. In fact Fred had an incredible knack for picking snare shells. With the elongated Tama type snare beds & the somewhat unique bearing edge, his snare drums were truly awesome.

Canwood actually may have reached the point of too much success. Like many manufacturers who have early success Fred had trouble keeping up the output & quality control started to suffer. Issues with finish materials & the environment (resulting in some subquality finishes durability wise), & some health issues forced Fred to back off & seriously reduce production.

Fred still runs Canwood but the main thing they do there now is PA rental. Dennis says Fred sometimes does a custom order and keeps a limited supply of raw Keller shells on site. He no longer does any spray finishes but does some nice hand applied oil finishes.