Well, I’ve been writing this jazz drumming blog since 2009 and sometimes I get stuck or busy with life and not quite sure what to post and share. However, someone once gave me a good piece of advice, something along the lines of “If you don’t know what to say, say something nice!”. I've also recently been inspired by Colleen Clark and Vinnie Sperrazza's recent ongoing Substack posts lately and I think their writing is fantastic. So in the spirit of gratitude I’ve decided to write a series of columns and record some drum solos that acknowledge the many drummers, percussionists and teachers who are very much part of who I am today.
Drum Gratitude Part 1 - Beginnings: The Lions Band
Regina, Saskatchewan 1986-1995
I started my drum journey in 1986 in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada at the age of nine. I had already been playing the piano for a couple of years but hated practicing (!) so I decided to try something different and started on the drums (go figure!) My parents enrolled me in the Regina Lions Band, an incredible youth band program that already had a reputation as a premier music education institution in Western Canada, under the direction of Bob Mossing. The program focused on year-round concert bands and competitive marching bands, along with jazz bands, “dixieland” bands and, for us percussionists, playing in drum lines with an emphasis on rudimental drumming. Suffice to say, I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for the experience and instruction I received in the Lions Band, from the ages of nine to eighteen.
Here’s a few of the people who shaped my experience and to whom I am eternally thankful:
Jack England was an older gentleman (a retired a jeweller I believe) and a local amateur percussionist who was enlisted by Bob to teach the beginner percussionists during my very first week of band practice in 1986. He taught me how to hold my sticks!
My first regular drum teacher was Richard Toth, who was older than I, in high school and a member of the senior Lions “A” Band (we all started in the beginner “D” Band and progressed through the C and B bands until we reached the coveted senior “A” Band by high school (aka the “Pride of the Lions”). Richard was a wonderful teacher who made drumming fun and encouraged proper fundamentals, particularly in learning to read rhythms. The first year I took lessons with Richard I won first prize in a junior snare drum competition, performing a solo called “Pet Rock”.
John Worthington coordinated the percussion sections and drum lines for the entire Lions Band program, up until I reached high school. John was a retired police officer and had played percussion with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. “Big Dog” as he was called, was a tough old-school snare drummer who demanded the students take their drumming seriously and there was no messing around with his drill-sergeant like intensity, discipline and accountability. To this day I am very thankful for his emphasis on rudimental drumming and he set the bar very high for us young drummers, even back to my first interaction with him was when I was only about 12 years old. He taught me to take my drumming seriously, to take pride in what I was doing and to do the work. This was meant to be serious business. No shortcuts, no excuses, no B.S. and no messing around OR ELSE!
The Lions Band program (now defunct, unfortunately) had been active since the 1940s and relied on older members and graduates of the program to offer instruction and mentor younger students. I was very fortunate to take many drum lessons with Jody Mario (who was five years my senior) and he was really my introduction to contemporary DCI style rudimental snare drumming. He was also a mean drum set player who knew all of Neil Peart’s drum solos with RUSH and I always marvelled at his epic open drum solo that he played with the Lions #1 Stage Band (still a strange term for a big band I think Lol) on Frank Mantooth’s arrangement of “If I Were a Bellson” (a drum feature written for Louie Bellson).
Chris Worthington (Big Dog’s son) was also a significant influence although he had already graduated the program by the time I reached the “A” band but would return frequently to help out, teach and hip us to the latest drum corps trends he was learning on the West Coast in California. Brent Jefferson (who was also an important local drum set influence of mine - more on him in a future post) was also a regular sectional instructor. Brent, Jody and Chris were all very accomplished drummers, had fast hands and also marched with the Santa Clara Vanguard and the Blue Devils Drum & Bugle Corps respectively. We spent many hours lined up in the RCMP drill hall, in empty parking lots, inside the old band hall on Dewdney Avenue and in the gymnasium of the “new” band hall on Pasqua Street beating out drum exercises with these guys correcting our mistakes, striving for precision and pushing our limits with every beat.
We were also very fortunate to work with many regular guest drum line clinicians as I got older, with esteemed DCI luminaries such as Tom Float, Paul Rennick and Glen Crosby. I worked with Glen on a few occasions over the course of a few camps and summer tours and distinctly remember his emphasis on always striving to get a good quality of sound and tone out of the instrument and to spend time developing my touch. I didn’t really get it back then (!) but I do now and am very thankful that he planted those seeds even way back then.
Keep in mind that this is back in the early 90s, well before the internet was a thing as we know it, so the information, concepts and exercises that they shared and left with us up in Saskatchewan were significant at the time and I certainly didn’t take it for granted. I still practice and share many of those exercises with my students today.
Robb Muller was recruited from the USA as an assistant director by the time I got to high school (working alongside the amazing Luther Appel). Robb brought a different perspective to drum line and rudimental drumming, albeit informed by his time on the East Coast and from his experience with the legendary Bridgeman Drum & Bugle Corps. His partner at the time, Amy James, was an incredible marimba and mallets player (who had also played with the Garfield Cadets). Amy was one of the sweetest human beings and teachers I ever met and I regret not taking more mallet lessons with her at the time (of course I was stubborn and it was all about honing my snare chops and getting into the drum set).
I also worked with Helen Barclay towards the end of high school. Helen was a great percussionist who had graduated from McGill University and relocated to rural Saskatchewan. She would come to Regina frequently to teach and run percussion sectionals for the Lions Band and gently offered a sense of purpose in my being a complete and musical percussionist in addition to my focus on the snare drum and jazz drumming.
Of course I would be remiss if I didn’t mention some of many of the great drummers and friends that I marched with and drummed with over the years, side-by-side for hundreds of hours of long parades, marching band competitions, countless drill rehearsals in empty parking lots and on grassy football fields, hundreds of drum line rehearsals and warm ups in the old band hall (sometimes spilling outside onto the sidewalk on Dewdney Avenue as cars and delivery trucks drove by) and trading licks on rubber Real Feel practice pads. These include my pals and forever drum brothers Les Schaeffer, Timothy LaBelle, Sean McDougall, Scott Polowyk, Dean Pelzer, Jim Hobson, Jim Milton and many, many others (you know who you are!). Playing drums with other drummers is a real privilege and I am thankful for the opportunities and experiences I had that were afforded to me when I was growing up.
So this where I got my start and these are the people who shaped my early music education as a drummer in the Regina Lions Band. In my next post, Part 2 will focus my first introduction to jazz drumming and early development on the drum set.
Please enjoy this short improvised drum solo dedicated to everyone listed above, a Philly Joe Jones inspired variation on a classic old Lions Band marching snare drum cadence called "Mark's Blues 2026”:
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