Author: John

by Mark Griffith There are many compliments you can give a musician: musicality, taste, creativity, the ability to make everyone around you sound better. Harold Jones personifies all of those characteristics. But longevity is possibly the highest accolade one can give a musician, and Harold has that, too.  Jones played on one of the first…

by N. Scott Robinson The achievements of Glen Velez have significantly advanced the art of percussion in several ways. Beginning in the late-1970s, his single-handed development of a global approach to modern frame drumming in the USA involved the mastery of diverse hand drumming techniques from South Indian, Central Asian, Arab, Persian, Brazilian, and Italian…

by Lauren Vogel Weiss “Nice” can be defined as something—or someone—pleasant, agreeable, satisfactory, kind, polite, and/or respectable. It can be a one-word summary of a musical experience featuring great precision or sensitive discernment. And when asked how he would like to be remembered, it is one of the words that 2014 PAS Hall of Fame…

by Rick Mattingly Art Blakey’s stated goal was to be a great drummer. “But,” he told writer Chip Stern in a 1984 Modern Drummer cover story, “just in the sense of having musicians want to play with me—not to be better than Buddy Rich or to compete with someone. I will not compete that way;…

Marimba Masters/Vibraphone Virtuosos By Lauren Vogel Weiss You find your seat in the theater and look at the stage: nearly empty except for one vibraphone and one marimba, facing each other, shining in the spotlights. This event could be a college recital or a professional concert, as the pairing of these two keyboard percussion instruments…

The Voice of Marching Percussion By Lauren Vogel Weiss “On the starting line, from Bayonne, New Jersey, the Bridgemen…from Hawthorne, New Jersey, the Muchachos…from Bloomington, Indiana, Star of Indiana!” These are but a few of the drum and bugle corps that Dennis DeLucia has coached during his career. He is the only instructor to win the…

The Man Behind the Mallets By Lauren Vogel Weiss Percussionists today may take for granted the enormous selection of mallets available to them, from ones that can entice the softest soft to those that can produce the loudest loud. But as recently as 40 years ago, choices were limited to soft, medium, and hard. In 1976,…

 by Garwood Whaley  In 1996, while I was president of PAS, I was honored to be invited to represent PAS at the Taipei International Percussion Festival by its founder, Tzong-Ching Ju. Since PAS had no budget for such an expensive trip, Mr. Ju graciously volunteered to pay all expenses for my wife and me. Together…

 by Lauren Vogel Weiss  He dreamed of being a timpanist in a major symphony orchestra. He almost changed careers to work with underprivileged children. But fortunately for the world of music, Ed Soph kept returning to the drumset, making the multiple-percussion instrument sing with music. Edward “Ed” Soph (which rhymes with “loaf”) was born in…

by Lauren Vogel Weiss Chamber music is defined as a small ensemble, usually one player per part, with the members themselves serving as artistic directors. These conductor-less groups have been around for centuries, usually as string quartets, woodwind trios, or brass quintets. But during the mid-20th century, a new form of chamber music began to…