Ben Riley

Unfortunately I just heard that the great Ben Riley passed away this weekend at the age of 84. Not only was his work with Thelonious Monk very influential on me but hearing him play live once also really changed my life and my overall perspective of Jazz drumming...

During December 1998 I took my first trip to New York City, by train from Montreal, to hear Elvin Jones play at the Blue Note for the better part of his week-long residency. My good friend, and brilliant tenor saxophonist, Kelly Jefferson (who was studying at the Manhattan School of Music at the time) offered to let me stay at his apartment for the duration of my stay. Kelly met me at Penn Station once my train arrived and after a quick bite to eat we headed to the Village Vanguard. Ben Riley was playing that night with the band Sphere, a great band that also featured Kenny Barron, Gary Bartz and Buster Williams. It was of course a special evening of music being my inaugural experience at the Vanguard but I was also blown away by Riley's light touch and ability to swing the band at such a low dynamic level. I'll never forgot how he started the 2nd set of music with a drum solo and as the audience (many tourists of course...) gradually dinned in volume how I could see Riley's hands moving furiously and low around the drums before I could hear him, gradually crescendoing into a highly swinging wall of sound that propelled the band into a roading rendition of Monk's Rhythm-ning...

Here's a few nice articles about Ben Riley and his legacy:

- WBGO

http://wbgo.org/post/ben-riley-jazz-drummer-who-made-accompaniment-his-art-has-died-84#stream/0

- Ted Panken's "Today Is The Question"

https://tedpanken.wordpress.com/2017/07/17/for-drum-master-ben-rileys-84th-birthday-a-wkcr-interviewmusicians-show-from-1994/

- Ethan Iverson's "Do The Math"

https://ethaniverson.com/a-little-left-hand-from-ben-riley/

- A transcription and analysis from Todd Bishop's Cruiseship Drummer:

http://www.cruiseshipdrummer.com/2017/11/ben-riley-comping.html

- Modern Drummer

https://www.moderndrummer.com/2017/11/ben-riley-making-history/

And from a 2005 Modern Drummer interview (via Mark Griffiths), this quote pretty much sums it all up:

“I came up in an era of accompaniment. I enjoy that more than soloing, because each person I’ve worked with has had different attitudes, songs, and styles of playing. I never come on a job thinking: "I’m going to play this or play that." I wait to see what they’re going to do and then fit into that picture.”

My experience hearing Ben Riley play was, of course, consistent with his description. However, as you can see below, he was a great soloist too!