Word: drummer
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Died. Lindley Armstrong ("Spike") Jones, 53, antic bandleader of the pistol-popping, whistle-shrieking, Bronx-cheering City Slickers during the 1940s and '50s, a square-jawed musical clown with airplane eyebrows and wildly checked suits, who was an unknown drummer when he formed the Slickers in 1942 and led them to success with rowdy parodies of sentimental hits (Black Magic, Cocktails for Two) until rock 'n' roll drowned him out in 1962; of emphysema; in Los Angeles...
Only the percussion section was consistently attentive and spirited throughout the concert, especially the timpanist and the snare drummer, who managed to make the most pedestrian rhythmic punctuation sound fresh and vigorous...
...breadth of five pieces from this musical (Lorna's Here, I Want to Be with You) and added Yes, I Can, which was cut out of the Broadway production, but makes a showpiece for Wayne Shorter's quicksilver tenor sax. The ten-member band, backed by Drummer Blakey, works such solid changes on the textures and rhythms of the score that it seems to come from Birdland rather than Broadway...
Only once did Piatigorsky accept an offer to conduct. "Half dead from rehearsals," he recalls, he mounted the Denver Symphony podium and to his horror was informed that he first had to conduct the national anthem. "Somewhat bewildered, I gave a sign to the drummer and let him go on for an unreasonably long time. Majestically I raised my hand for a crescendo, and only when it reached its peak did I recall the national anthem." Returning to his cello, he found it like "a piece of furniture I had never seen before . . . Its import seemed pale in comparison...
...espouses "positive neutrality," but he has a far less abrasive personality, and has spoken out against "Communist colonialism" as well as the Western variety. He winces at the abusive anti-Western jargon tossed around by hardcore African leftists, is affable and accessible (he once served as chairman and honorary drummer of an international jazz festival in Central Park...