Drummer, musician, producer, arranger and musical director, Bernard Purdie can be proud of a discography of on over 3,000 recordings. From his first recordings with King Curtis and Aretha Franklin to later with Larry Coryell, Miles Davis, Hall & Oates, Al Kooper, Herbie Mann, Todd Rundgren and Cat Stevens, his collaboration on Steely Dan’s ‘Aja’ sets a signature to his definitive style that has led him to anchor sessions with BB King, James Brown, Isaac Hayes, Rolling Stones, Joe Cocker and countless others. His grooves have been sampled, cut and pasted on dance tracks and his groove is sort after in all genres of jazz, soul and funk.

For the most part he is now a reference point in the basics of drumming tuition with the innovation of the ‘Purdie half-time shuffle’ which was the inspiration behind Jeff Porcaro’s ‘Rosanna’ - a fusion of the Purdie’s half-time shuffle and John Bonham’s ‘Fool In The Rain’.

What made you want to pick up a pair of sticks and how were you schooled back in the day?

I was drumming since I was three years old. When I mean drumming, I mean at that age I was hitting pots and pans in the house and putting rhythms together that sounded good to me on those pots and pans. But as far as a pair of sticks, I finally got on a toy set at the age of six which was given to me by first teacher Leonard Hayward. He lived around the corner from my house, he was also the high school teacher for music studies but he was also the drummer for the Clyde Bessicks Big Band which was a fourteen piece orchestra. The first thing that he made me understand was that you played music to make people dance; it was all about the dance – nothing technical just a very firm philosophy. So every Friday and Saturday, the big band always played some place and getting into that was the easy part ‘cause I use to go help him set up his drums by the time I was eight and tear it down - now in those days that was part of the apprenticeship.

On top of that, since I couldn’t afford drums and I couldn’t afford drum lessons, he use to let me sit in on the lessons when his students attended their lessons and then he would ask me to demonstrate. Now I could do all of that, ‘cause I was out there listening and little by little I was training my ears – that seemed to come very naturally to me. He would say the same thing at lessons week after week, month after month - now I didn’t understand why it was taking the kids so long to get this. I got it immediately, I naturally focused in on it and that’s how in tune I was.

Getting the pair of drumsticks was the easiest part for me but it was also the hardest ‘cause I had to translate that from the pots and pans from playing with the spoons, fork, knife and my hands. Now I thought this is what everybody did, I really thought this is what you had to go through.

He taught me everything about the drum set, not just playing it but setting it up, listening to the rhythms to even fixing and repairing them. But the biggest lesson was at that young age was he taught me that everything was musical. So you had to learn what the notes were so you had to learn and understand music.

Would I be right in thinking that, in spite of playing rhythms you also had to learn to play in melodies too?

Absolutely right, besides playing the melodies rhythmically, you had to think it - that was how I was taught. So that brought me to then learn about tuning the drums and being sensitive to tone. Now what you didn’t do was to tune it to a specific note and be aware of tones so it didn’t get in the way of the other acoustic instruments. Like the bass drum and the floor tom getting in the way of the acoustic bass and piano. Now you tune that floor tom to an Eb or G it’s gonna go right into the piano and the bass – it’s just going to hum and it’s going to ring.

That’s interesting, ‘cause that must have made your ears very acoustically sensitive?

Oh, very much and the frequencies would get in the way. So I start by tuning the bass drum to get a good tone so it doesn’t interfere with the bass and piano. Then the floor tom with a big enough difference going up do the same with your tenor toms either the one or two and then to the snare. Do it in that order and your drumkit is now ready to interact with melody. The pitch tuning on your drum kit will make you appreciate musical notation before you start playing rhythms – to me the understanding is the prime importance. Now you start thinking about the rhythms your time and what you have to play. All these things follow as it is a natural progression. This is what most people see in the beginning but they move away from it ‘cause distraction gets in the way and drummers mostly want to emulate their favourite drummers and stand back from the fundamentals.

Chad Smith is absolutely a phenomenal drummer, David Garibaldi, Kenny Aronoff – all of those guys were students of mine that came from Berkeley. They learned their music in Berkeley but they came to me to learn the groove and to learn the time – not the ten thousand notes but to learn that ‘less being more’. My thing was time and that was what I was taught. The feel and the attitude all comes together when you want to get something across positively. To have a positive feel, you have to have a positive attitude – it helps make up the feel.

So the concept of ‘the person you are, is the drummer you’ll be’ seems to apply here wouldn’t you say?

That’s a very good analogy. What that does is it gives your inner person a chance to come out to express. But that can only come from the positive side of you. Negativity just gets in the way and that’s just a downward spiral. Now a positive person will give out those good vibes which will make others listen and feed the music.

That leads me to ask you about dynamics, how do you manage rhythms in the context of dynamics?

Learning how to manage your beats is another lesson and on top of the positivity, dynamics comes with experience. Knowing how to interpret the music with your rhythms and manage those beats within the context of music, that’s what dynamics is. As a drummer, you also need to learn how to carry the band. Now your job is to steer the bus that means everybody in that band comes under your umbrella. Your job is to support them and allow them to ‘smoke’ and bring out the best in them meaning your frontline musicians.

In your early years, there weren’t many magazines, DVD’s, music colleges and even the internet - how did you promote yourself?

There was a young guy, my bass player, Jimmy Tyrell. He said to me that I had something very unique and should make up some signs. I said "...for what?" and he said "...to advertise". This didn’t make any sense to me, I did not perceive that. So 2 years went by and he had been on my back trying to get me to do this but I just put it to one side.

So one day, right next door to me was the cleaners that I went to and next door to the cleaners was a sign painter. I stop in one day, 2 years later, and joked with the sign writer and said that I was thinking about making up a sign. I explained to him that I was a studio musicians and been on quite a few hit records and been around the block. So he said "...why don’t you stop back this afternoon, I’m gonna design something". When I walked back a couple of hours later, after all the things I had said to him, he did this. "THE HITMAKER...IF YOU NEED ME CALL ME...BERNARD ‘PRETTY’ PURDIE". I said "I love it" and he said hold on I have another one "THE LITTLE OL HITMAKER...CALL ME" this one had no name and no phone number. "IF YOU NEED ME, CALL ME...THE HITMAKER", that was the third sign. I said "I love all of them!!!" and he gave them to me, he just gave them to me.

That night when I went back to the recording session, I got me another music stand behind me and I put up all three of the signs. Folks came into the session and the guys in the band started laughing but in the control room they started writing down the information and asking questions. The reaction was that those folks in the control liked the fact that I was self promoting myself. The engineers took a liking to me and they used to give the feedback and consequently became the conversation piece in the studio.

I went back to the guy and got cards made up a week later and these folks use to write my name down and I gave them my card. This happened purely by accident but for 2 years Jimmy Tyrell kept on at me, get this done. I continued for 10 years straight and I would not do a job without putting up that the signs. Then I was racking hit record after hit record and it was going so strong. It got to fever point where it became superstitious and producers were reminding to put my signs up. I had new clients who would come up to me and say "..put your signs up man" ‘cause they all wanted a hit record and it was as though if I didn’t put it up, it became like a curse.

You were amongst several other incredible drummers back then, Uriel Jones, James Gadson, Pistol Allen, Tony Thompson and many more. Were there too many drummers around at that time?

Well no!!, there were never ever enough drummers ‘cause you had very few that were studio drummers. Most of the drummers played live but they panicked when they walked into the studio. Most of the drummers didn’t read so it was against them in the first place. I thought all drummers read ‘cause you’re a musician so you had to read. For me that was easy ‘cause that was how I was taught and that’s what I did - the more I did it the easier it became.

I have to mention Herbie Lavelle, Panama Francis, Joe Marshall and Grady Tate too at this time, these are all great drummers at that time.

Now the half time shuffle, the ‘Purdie Shuffle’ how did that come about?

That part was the easiest part for me ‘cause when I was comin’ along, we had to do the straight shuffle all the time for the music from the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. Well I did all that but I really got tired of doing the same thing all the time so I use to throw in what I call my locomotion and put in my variables to the straight shuffle. Where it really came in was in the slow songs with the triplet feel in 12/4 and that’s where I could sneak in the half time. I started moving the feel from a 6/8 to 12/4 to sixteenth notes and adding my ghost notes kept it subtle. You push the feel with the ghost notes when I had to excite the feel I held back on the ghost notes and accented the backbeat and that’s how I allowed the rhythm to breathe. The best way is to clip it with the hi-hat and on the bell of the ride so I could keep it rising and now it’s not on my left hand as much but transferred to my right hand and that’s where the dynamics kicked in.

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The Purdie Shuffle

First off, here’s the half time shuffle. The key to making it work is to ensure the ¼ note is accented and the skip note, or ‘let’ of the trip let is quiet. Aim to play the accents with the shoulder of the stick and the skip notes with the tip.

Once you have the down, the next thing is to add the ‘trip’ skip note with the left hand. This is what gives it that rolling triplet feel. Be aware of the volume of the snare ghost notes as playing them too loud will make them sound lumpy and watch out for the unaccented note straight after the back beat on 3. Although it’s not written for the sake of clarity, you should still play the hi hat accents from the first example. Think of it as the sticking;

R l r R l r B l r R l r – ( upper case is accented, B = both hands)

The next two examples are the same, but it may help you to think of them in one of these two ways. This is the ‘Full Purdie’ similar to what can be heard on such killer tracks as ‘Home At Last’ and ‘Babylon Sisters’ by Steely Dan

Now the hi hat opens on the let and closes on the ¼ note giving it that slinky feeling. In the first example below, think of just pedaling the hi hats on the quarter notes, that should give you the effect we are looking for that’s written more accurately in the second example below.

James Hester

www.jameshester.co.uk

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As simple as it is, what is the concept behind sitting on Bernard Purdie’s drumkit?

It’s very simple, the first thing is posture, set your drums to give you the best posture. Sit up straight and that’s because of me playing flat foot and being in a position to control the bass drum pedal for all the little subtleties of those ghost beats. For my playing, I learnt how to rock the pedal flat foot that was one of the first things that I was taught right off from Jump Street. Now both feet have to alternate as though you were walking – left foot then your right foot. You’re not wobbling put walking – now the straighter you walk the more control you have and the more dynamics you can get out of it. Use your wrists and your fingers, leave your arms and elbows alone so you can get longevity out of your performance – avoid stiffness and be relaxed.

Tuning the drums. Well for me I tune my drums mid range to low end. Drums have a natural high end but tuning it in mid range to low gives it the projection, that’s what I want; the accents will be clear and easier to execute with the minimum of effort. I tune it so I can get as much control over the drum sound as possible. The cymbals are the icing on the cake and in relation to the drum sound choosing your cymbals that are going to bring the best out of the drums and your performance will be a personal choice; but for me, I need those cymbals to lift the music. Whether you’re hard, light, fast or slow player put yourself in a situation where you are in full control.

When they hire Bernard Purdie for a session, in spite of them knowing your work – how easy is it for them to trust you with your musical contribution?

Now you’ve touched on a very acute observation with session work. That’s the hardest thing in the world when in comes to the studio, even now; simply because the person who’s writing the music has a concept already. They know what they want and they also know when they hear it; but if they don’t hear it then the player starts thinking "well what does he want?"

Consequently there’s a lesson to be learnt here and it’s called interpretation of the notes, it’s so important. An eighth note is an eighth note and a quarter is a quarter note; now how you interpret those notes is the key. The notes on your chart don’t change; it’s down to how you interpret it whether it’s jazz, blues, gospel, reggae or whatever – it’s how you express it to tie in with the piece of music you’re given to work on. Now if you can refine that well you’ll never ever be out of work in the studio.

I tell everybody, see the music, feel the music, play the music. If you do it this way, you will never, ever, ever have a problem. It means that you are listening to what somebody else wants and you become the catalyst. Remember also, time is money in the studio and you have to respect that too. Somebody is paying for that session so in my sessions I need to expedite the work as quickly and as effectively as possible so it makes it viable for musicians to create and the job to get done at the same time. I got called in the studio 5 maybe 6 days a week for practically most of my life for 25 years.

What are the important factors that need to be considered for a studio drummer?

Let me take you back and then bring you forward. When I was comin’ along there was room for space and creativity but there are other responsibilities that go with working in the studio.

Be creative

Make things outstanding

Play for the song

Help sell the product

Have fun with what you’re doing

The disciplines for working live and in the studio are completely different. When you have an engineer that has an open mind and good ears, you’ll be guided correctly but that’s in a fortunate case.

In other cases, they send me MP3’s and the majority of the time I go in the studio and put down the drum tracks by myself.

Now, you must loose that human interaction and really that’s not how you use to record, so how do you deal with that?

I put the whole band in my head and I follow the notation to make the track happen. It’s the hardest thing in the world to do but I have to create the band sound in my head and if there’s just notation then I have to make up something up in my head to play along to or the result will be clinical, the warmth and the feel will be taken away so in that case, I make the melodies up in my head so I have something to play along to. I concentrate on the dynamics and feel so I don’t go astray.

Now I have to say that the ‘click track’ itself is a handicap but there are times when you have to use it so make it your friend. Learn to play behind the beat, right on the beat or on top of the beat. The other thing is learn to not just to read the notes but to interpret the expression of those notes.

I’m paid a lot of money to speak on the drums and to do what I do and I’m honoured to still be doin’ it.

For the budding studio drummer, there is room in this business for all drummers, just believe in your talent and you’ll do just fine.

For more information: www.bernardpurdie.com

Interview and Photography: Jerome Marcus