Last week a co-worker shared this amazing video of Buddy Rich in his prime. Playing his famous medley of songs from West Side Story, complete with an unreal drum solo:
This got me thinking about the one time my parents took me to see Buddy Rich perform at a street festival in the Chicago suburb of Berwyn in 1986. It was a pivotal moment in my life. Unfortunately, a year later, Buddy Rich passed away. While I couldn’t find any video footage of that exact show, I found this video from the same tour and you can see that Buddy was still playing out of his mind…he had not lost his fastball, that’s for sure:
After Buddy Rich’s death, his legacy lived on. The Buddy Rich Big Band carried on without him, performing shows in his honor.
This got me thinking about Rush drummer Neil Peart and his association with the Buddy Rich Big Band over the years.
In 1991 there was a Buddy Rich tribute show in New York City where many famous drummers were asked to sit in with the Buddy Rich Big Band. Neil Peart was one of the people invited to perform. Here he is playing “Cotton Tail” at that concert:
Afterwards, Neil Peart was reportedly not satisfied with his performance. He decided to focus on playing in this style and improving his drumming overall. Journey drummer Steve Smith recommended he study with Freddie Gruber. This changed Neil’s overall approach to music and inspired him to create his own tribute to Buddy Rich. This became the Burning For Buddy project. It was eventually released as two CDs (Volume 1 in 1996 and Volume 2 and 1997) along with a video. Burning For Buddy is today’s pick!
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I remember when Burning for Buddy Volume 1 came out. I had to special order it at the small record store in the college town I was living in (Macomb, IL). After it came in and I bought the CD, the owner of the store must have kept her own copy. Every time I came into the store after that day for the rest of the semester, she would play it over the store speakers while I shopped. A fun memory!
The Burning for Buddy albums contained a who’s who of jazz and rock drummers. The incredible list of participants included Dave Weckl, Steve Gadd, Billy Cobham, and Bill Bruford just to name a few. This was obviously right up my alley. It helped that the performances of all the songs were top-notch. The Buddy Rich Big Band is in fine form and each drummer took the assignment seriously.
The album starts out with a bang: “Dancing Men” performed by Simon Phillips:
What a way to begin! The quality of the performances stay at this very high level over the course of the 2.5 hours between both volumes.
Neil Peart again performs “Cotton Tail”. He does sound much improved and more comfortable with the material:
Steve Gadd’s take on “Love For Sale” is another highlight, including his trademark drum fills:
Not all of the songs were in the traditional big band style. Omar Hakim brings the “Slo Funk”. The title is truth in advertising:
Another outside-the-box performance was Steve Ferrone playing “Pick Up The Pieces”, originally by Average White Band:
Dave Weckl goes back to tradition, performing one of Buddy’s favorites, “Time Check”:
The last song I’ll highlight is Bill Burford playing “Willowcrest”. It makes me wonder if Bill Bruford’s experience with Burning for Buddy was impetus for why he focused on acoustic jazz with a new version of his group Earthworks soon afterwards:
These performances are just scratching the surface. Both volumes of Burning for Buddy are front-to-back bangers that require deep listening and study. An awesome achievement and a fitting tribute to one of the best drummers of all time.
