gh, Steve Gadd is a very technically trained drummer (in rudiments, the equivalent of a guitarist, bassist, or pianist knowing all the scales of every key in every position. The Band bassist Rick Danko said organist Garth Hudson’s advice to learn them was the best he was ever given), having studied at both The Eastman and Manhattan Schools of Music, as well as having played in the U.S. Army Stage Band. His famous part in Paul Simon’s "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" is very militaristic. He was already sitting in with world-class Jazz artists as a teenager.
Steve uses his incredible technique as a means to precisely and cleanly execute his very musical drum ideas and parts, not to merely display that technique. He doesn’t overplay, a rarity amongst highly technical players. His technical abilities allow him to play with a great deal of finesse and delicacy (it’s hard to play drums quietly! The Band’s Levon Helm is great at that), yet also play a thunderously dynamic crescendo or solo.
Speaking of solo, his are very musical---with an intro, a theme established, a variation on that theme played, followed by another theme, an eventual finale, etc. Lots of structure, and musically interesting and lyrical ideas, not the mere athletic performance that is typical in the vast majority of drummer’s solos. It was for the same reason I cited Don Lamond’s solo (actually, a short drum "break") in Bobby Darin’s studio recording of "Beyond The Sea", as musical (and humorous!) a drum solo as I’ve ever heard.
In addition, Gadd plays with a lot of dynamics, letting the song, singer, and other musicians tell him when to hit hard and loud, and when to bring it way down, playing his bass drum with the "feathered" technique I explained in a previous post. Many drummers play with almost no dynamics, giving every note the same dynamic value---eleven! Some music calls for that---Keith Moon in The Who had little choice in the matter, not that he cared ;-).
And lastly, Steve’s drums and cymbals sound great; he learned how to tune drums (you’d be surprised how many don’t, including Buddy Rich), and knew how to pick out good brass---his cymbals are really good sounding ones, though not as good as those of Jim Gordon and Levon Helm, the two best sets I’ve ever heard. Again, very "musical" sounding---the overtones in tune with the fundamentals---harmonic, not dissonant. The sound of cymbals, by the way, is greatly influenced and determined by the manner in which they are played. Ringo’s and Keith Moon’s cymbal sound was very "washy", as they both played them with the "shoulder" of the stick, not it’s tip. I love the "click" produced by the tip of a small drumstick hitting a thin cymbal, the click greatly enhanced in recording with the application of heavy compression on the mic recording the cymbal. It makes the stick tip-on-cymbal impact really "POP!" If the engineer isn't already doing it when I record now, I request he do so.
