EMP|SFM Oral History Videos

Category: Jazz

Video Title: How the Band Works

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Who: Robert Wyatt

The Player:
Robert Wyatt is a singer-songwriter and former drummer for the British art rock band the Soft Machine.

Learn more: Explore a musical genre that's an American original, at EMP's annual Jazz in January series.

Read the transcript:

Robert Wyatt
My parents used to advertise for lodges, which was a source of income for my parents who didn't have much of an income, and one of the people who came to stay with us was a drummer from California who'd studied and taught at Bali Drum City, which was run by a drummer called Joe Morello. He came and instead of playing for lodging he taught me drums 'cause he didn't have any money. So his rent was he would teach me drums. So I was taught how to hold the sticks correctly. Now his favorite drummer was a bloke called Philly Joe Jones, and he made me listen to Philly Joe Jones.

Philly Joe Jones, that's not his real name, it just means a drummer from Philadelphia who reminded everybody of the original great Joe Jones. He was the drummer who played with Count Basie. Anyway, this is a very good education in one man. George Nidorf, he taught me not about how to play drums but how the point of drums is and the point of all instruments is their role only really makes sense in the context of other instruments so that you're only a good drummer if you're listening to the bass player, and if you're listening to the other musicians in the band. But the band works as one organism, and that's really what I learned from George.