Hall of Fame

by Lauren Vogel Weiss You’ve probably seen the name Sandy Feldstein on a snare drum book on your music stand. Or a keyboard book in your music library. Or the back of a DVD lying next to your TV. Whether it was published by Henry Adler, Alfred Publishing, Columbia Pictures Publications, Belwin Music, Warner Bros.,…

by Rick Mattingly While working as an editor at Modern Drummer magazine in the 1980s, I came up with what I thought would be an easy way to interview Steve Gadd. I would just make a list of tracks he had recorded with prominent artists and ask him to describe how he came up with…

by Lauren Vogel Weiss The influence of Leigh Howard Stevens extends beyond the marimba technique that is forever linked with his name. He is a performer, educator, composer, publisher, and inventor, as well as a successful entrepreneur. Despite his relative youth (53 years old), Stevens fulfills all the requirements of being in the PAS Hall…

by Rick Mattingly Call it love at first sound. In 1956, when Latin Percussion founder Martin Cohen was 17, he wandered into the legendary New York nightclub Birdland, where vibraphonist Cal Tjader was leading a Latin-jazz band. “The music was so infectious that I have never lost my love for it,” Cohen says. He subsequently…

by Mark Griffith Billy Cobham’s supremely influential career cannot be easily encapsulated. He has influenced drums, drumming, and drummers, not to mention music in general. His influence has crossed all genres and is as strong today as ever. In the world of drumming, Billy Cobham raised the bar, and for that we all owe him…

by Lauren Vogel Weiss Portraits in Rhythm, a collection of 50 snare drum etudes published four decades ago, can be found on music stands around the world. The book is on audition lists for All-State Bands as well as college and universities in over a dozen states. When the book was written, the author was…

by Rick Mattingly ‘I’ve been through the mill, from drum pad on up to soloing,’ comments Warren ‘Baby’ Dodds in his landmark recording Talking and Drum Solos. ‘That takes in every bit of it. Drum pad is where you start. No bass drum at all, just a pad. No snare drums. Sticks. From pad…to drums,…

by Lauren Vogel Weiss The New York Times ranked him ‘among the great composers of the century’ and the Village Voice hailed him as ‘America’s greatest living composer.’ This past May he was awarded the Polar Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and last year he received the Praemium Imperiale for Music Award…

by Lauren Vogel Weiss “It’s important to grab on to any opportunity that comes your way, but you also need to practice the art of creating your own opportunities.” Evelyn Glennie is a percussionist of many firsts: first full-time solo percussionist in the world; first to perform a percussion concerto at London’s Royal Academy of…

by Rick Mattingly  “There are kids out there today who are playing drums for the pure love of it. That’s what’s behind the whole music business, and I think some of these large corporations forget that.” About a half hour before he was to give a drum clinic in Louisville, Kentucky in 1977, Roy Burns…