I went to the Wednesday clinic in Memphis and enjoyed the heck out of it! My first stop when I got into town was Memphis Drum Shop, to purchase tickets. Mr. Gadd's bus was parked right in front! He was very casually sitting behind the counter signing autographs for everyone. Between the impressive inventory (it's a VERY nice shop) and being kinda star-struck, I was pretty much in a daze. But I managed to shake his hand and get an autograph. He seems to be extremely down to earth, and a genuinely nice guy.

He was equally laid-back during the clinic, discussing recording sessions and other experiences as comfortably as if we were all in his living room at home. Most of the questions were good ones, and there were no interruptions. His discussion of getting the call to do Aja was particularly interesting. Of course, the main thing was to hear him PLAY!
He did a brief breakdown of the Mozambique groove, then played it for over a minute, moving various parts around on the kit. This demonstration alone made attending worth the effort!

i think the clinic was really good i love to watch steve play his kit. i was a little bummed cause alot of what he was doing was really easy so i did not learn a whole lot but he is really good at drumming.  the questions some of people were asking were a little too easy but i enjoyed it and it was thriling to watch him play!!

Caught the meet-and-greet at the Drum Pad during the afternooon and the clinic last night in Chicago (also ran into rhythmist - nice you meet you, sir!).

Steve graciously signed autographs, posed for photos and generally hung out at the store answering questions.  What a soft-spoken, humble guy (and quite a bit shorter than I realized!).  I asked him how the tour was going - he said "I'm seeing some great drum shops and meeting a lof of nice people.  It's been fun."

Zildjian brought quite an array of production and prototype cymbals for everyone to check out.  They had them set up outside the shop on stands, and then again at the clinic.  And the Zildjian reps were equally happy to talk with us.  Drum Pad bought the display stuff, and Steve signed all but the prototypes.  The cymbals are being offered for a special price if you're in the area.

I heard there were 600+ at the clinic last night.  Steve opened with some brushwork while humming/singing "Bye-Bye Blackbird".  Then onto  some stick work for a few minutes.  The bulk of the clinic was Q&A.  He was particularly gracious to kids (there were a lot of them there!).   He played all the stuff he was asked to play slow enough so us mortals could try to tap it out on our knees.  After which he sat down, played the patterns at the proper tempos, and promptly dashed all our hopes.  There were a couple of sycophants in the crowd who asked lengthy questions that resulted in groans from the audience, but Steve handled them all graciously.  One guy asked a question about brushwork, and then promptly got up on stage so he could watch Steve's demonstration from behind.  Alrighty then.

Here are a couple of shots.  My apologies for not getting anything of the clinic, I was sitting too far back to click off anything decent.

The Zildjian Gadd tour bus parked at Drum Pad:



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DaveFromChicago and Mr Gadd at the shop:

Me and my son went to see Steve at a high school auditorium in West Allis WI yesterday. I'll try to not reiterate too much of what was said in the other thread on his earlier clinics.

-Showed up on stage to standing ovation from audience
-Played brush solo for about 5-7 minutes
-Played funk/soul grooves on high hat with his typical sixteenth ghosting craziness
-Played fast tom/bass/snare fills ala Aja

Got up and talked. Spoke about his being in the army band to get out of going to Vietnam, hooking up with Tony Levin who he went to college with after getting out of the army who in the meantime had made all kinds of connections in NY which basically started him on the whole session drummer kick.

Questions were asked about:

-How do you practice before you play? Steve proceeded to bend down and play a full rudimental workout on the stage with his sticks to applause at the end. EVERY non accented or accented note sounded even, you don't see guys with this much consistency everyday. Anyway my drum teacher was there and wrote down the workout I'll try to post it later.

-Was Aja really in one take? This is an old story but what I heard that was new was that Steely Dan had several other drummers come in and try to nail it but they weren't getting the results they wanted. By the time Steve came in the band was really tight and Steve just had a "magical moment" where he nailed it right away because he wasn't just playing to a click and the band was really easy to lock in with.

-Can you play the Groove from Nite Sprite? The answer was "No". He went on to explain that alot of the more complicated stuff with Corea that he recorded was very inspired by the musicians around him "Most of the songs we were doing then didn't even have names - it was like Track 1, Track 2. I don't go home and practice this stuff after I lay it down, I go home and practice Tony (Williams)".

-He broke down his 6 stroke roll and ratamacue patterns everyone's seen on his videos when asked how he came up with the fills at the end of Aja. He got into how he started breaking up parts of the sticking on different drums and eventually ended up with what he played but again said it was inspirational.

-When asked who his influences are he listed basically every jazz great, and every modern great. He said if he could he would come to all our concerts and sneak behind us so he can watch what we play, then go home and practice it. Gave a talk about how everything he plays is inspired or has been done by someone else and that is part of the craft - very down to earth.

-Did the mozambique patterns after someone asked about late in the evening. He went off on it for about 4 minutes though doing triplet stuff between the high hat and bass drum with his feet underneath it and shuffling around on the floor toms - very cool.

-What's your bass drum technique? He pulled his chair out from behind the kit, sat down and demonstrated sliding toe and heel to toe technique with one and both feet. Another younger guy asked him something about hardcore bass drumming and Gadd sat behind the kit and played a solo with double bass that would put any would-be metal drummer to shame, so much more tasty and hip than most of the cr*p I hear from double bass drummers.

At one point he asked the crowd to clap a clave pattern and solo'd over us for about 6 minutes. I had to stop clapping after a while because I wanted to hear what he was playing better. The grooves and fills he played against the audience were amazing.

He also demonstrated a samba feel in 16ths he got from watching Airto and explained how seeing Rick Marotta for the first time with a band made him seek "groove" and trying to play simply. One thing he said cracked me up "I was playing with some guys that were into soul and I would just keep playing the same thing and everyone totally dug what was going on. If I tried to throw in some jazzy fill or something they would turn around to me and say 'Man, what would you want to do that for when it feels so good?'" lol.

All in all I was expecting to see a tired Gadd but was surprised that other than him being a bit winded after his first solo (he had signed autographs for several hours before the clinic) he was playing very fast and tight.

My son got a little tired and bored about halfway through but they started an hour late. He dug alot of it though. Definately go see Gadd if you get a chance I can't think of a better person to go see his feel is just great.

Awesome thread.

Steve looks good!

Here's the linup for the Columbus show:

Steve Gadd (Paul Simon, Eric Clapton, James Taylor)
Giovanni Hidalgo (Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Paul Simon)
Simon Phillips (Toto, The Who)
Billy Kilson (Dave Holland Group, Bob James)
Dave DiCenso (Steve Morse, Berklee College of Music)

Thanks for the good overview, shoeless.  For the most part, that would be my assessment as well.  It was great to see all those excellent musicians, but by the end of the 7-hour event, I was pretty tired.

One thing I was pleased to see reaffirmed was that great professional musicians are still "real people."  They drop sticks, occasionally miss drumheads or cymbals, and sometimes can have arguably boring solo sections. Yippee! (I've got those things down). Yet they can still knock our socks off with taste and chops (I'm still working on that).  I was motivated by both of those aspects of their performances.

By the way, shoeless, where were you?  I looked for any other Cafe members, but had no luck. I was in the second main section from the stage, second row.

There's a way of fixing that, up there, on the right, third entry down in the "Café Menu" ...  

My friend went and he tried to get me to go.

I didn't get home til 6 am sunday and I was in no mood for a day of drum clinics.

Anyways, he called me and told me about it:

He said Simon Phillips kicked butt- very articulate *I've seen Simon a few times and was always amazed*

He said Gadd was a drag and wished he had the 1.5 hours back of his life.

He said his pocket sounded real "greasy" whatever that means.

He also said it was his last stop and Steve is not a good spokesperson.

I just report the news- I don't write it.

Anybody who wants an hour and a half back that he spent in Gadd's presence is NOT somebody I want to party with. I'd pay money to watch Gadd sort his laundry for an hour an a half.

Felix, on the other hand, is a gas to party with. I know this firsthand!