[10] Prior to the 1960s, drummers who played a clave typically orchestrated the rhythms and sounds of Afro-Cuban percussion onto the drum set, focusing primarily on the low tones found in the tumbao pattern, the rhythm of the son clave, and the cáscara found in the timbale pattern. Scholars of Latin music in the United States like John Storm Roberts provide an extensive list of Latin music that American musicians would have heard and emulated throughout the twentieth century. Bandleader Perez Prado’s “Mambo No. 5,” from 1950, is not only one of those popular songs but also spotlights some of the sounds drummers translated onto the drum set (figure 0.5). In “Mambo No. 5,” the conguero plays a specific pattern on the conga, called a tumbao pattern, that contains two prominent characteristics. In one aspect of the pattern, the conguero alternates between a series of muted, palmed, and fingertipped tones. These tones are then interspersed with a slap tone, usually on beat 2. The second aspect of the pattern contains open low tones on beat 4 and the “and” of 4.  (Flip the beats if you’re playing a 2-3 son clave.) Tito Rodriguez’s “Mama Guela,” from the early 1950s, also demonstrates the sound of the tumbao pattern on the congas (figure 0.6). Missing, in this example, are the series of muted and slapped tones, but clearly audible is the 3-2 son clave played on the claves (the instrument) and, more notably, the open low tones on beat 4. “Mama Guela” also contains some other elements that drummers incorporated onto the drum set, specifically the pattern played by the timbalero on the timbales. In Rodriguez’s song, the timbalero plays a syncopated rhythm, called the cáscara, either on the side of their timbales (a part of the drum also called the cáscara), or on a cowbell mounted atop the timbales. Either instrument emanates a high-pitched metallic sound that allows the cáscara pattern to stick out of the audio mix. A final example also highlights the sound of the cáscara: in Tito Puente’s 1958 recording, “Baila Como Es,” the conga pattern gets lost in the mix, but the cáscara rhythm stands out (figure 0.7). It begins on the “2” side of the pattern (thus establishing that the song is “in” 2-3 clave), but it otherwise resembles the cáscara heard in “Mama Guela.” These three songs all demonstrate the three elements that American drummers would later incorporate into their drum patterns: the low tones of the tumbao, the rhythm of the son clave, and the rhythm of the cáscara.

 

[11] With some notable exceptions, the rhythm of the son clave was never played by drummers; instead, drummers during the 1940s and 1950s influenced by Cuban and Latin music typically took the low tones of the tumbao conga pattern and the syncopated piercing rhythms of the cáscara and reorchestrated them onto the drum set. The words and music of jazz drummer Max Roach makes this evident. In 1984, he commented how drummers “mimick[ed] the interlocking parts of the conga drums, timbales, and bongo drums.” His drumming on “George’s Dilemma” from 1955 demonstrates this principle and shows how the congas and timbales found their way into jazz (figure 0.8). In “George’s Dilemma,” Roach took the cáscara and played it on his cymbal with his right hand. He then took the low tones of the tumbao and played them on his tom drums with his left hand. His left hand also accented beat 2 by playing a cross stick on the snare, imitating the rhythm and timbre of the slaps prevalent in the tumbao pattern. Drummers playing in rhythm and blues and rock styles adopted this technique as well. Ray Charles’ (yes, that one again) “What’d I Say” from 1959 (figure 0.9) and “Unchain My Heart” from 1961 (figure 0.10) both offer examples of drummers incorporating the tumbao pattern into their drumming. Neither example contains the cáscara, but both contain the low tones on the toms. The former even mimics Roach’s approach and duplicates the tumbao slap on beat 2 by playing a cross stick on the snare drum there. As the drumming in “George’s Dilemma,” “What’d I Say,” and “Unchain My Heart” all show, drummers influenced by Latin music typically incorporated the sounds and timbres of the tumbao and cáscara and translated them to the drum set: very rarely did they articulate the rhythm of the son clave.

 

[12] The most notable exception to this rule is found in Clifton James’ drumming on Bo Diddley’s self-titled record, “Bo Diddley;” in this example, the drummer clearly articulates the son clave rhythm (figure 0.11). In fact, this song contains the son clave everywhere: Diddley articulates it in his strumming pattern, which colloquially received the name “the Bo Diddley beat,” and James articulates it on his tom drums. A live performance from the Ed Sullivan Show in November 1955 demonstrates exactly the technique James used to play this son clave. In the live performance, James played constant eighth notes, alternating strokes between his left and right hand. But he also sounded the son clave by accenting beats 1, the “and” of 2, 4 – and in the next measure, beats 2 and 3. In addition to accenting these beats, he also placed those important beats on his high tom drum, letting the other unaccented notes lie mostly on a snare drum. (He turned the snares off to make it sound like another tom drum.) This technique of alternating right and left hands on the snare drum stems from second line drumming techniques prevalent in New Orleans and rhythm and blues drummers like James were influenced as much by the music of second line parades as they were by Latin rhythms. James displays this influence in “Bo Diddley” and demonstrates the primary techniques that drummers – in the off chance they did – used to articulate and sound the clave prior to the 1960s.

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[13] The rhythm “invented” by Guarany, as well as the way drummers incorporated the timbre of his caixeta onto the drum set, signaled a break with these previous examples: unlike the drumming of Max Roach or of Ray Charles, drummers influenced by bossa nova always articulated the bossa nova clave rhythm; additionally, the way drummers in the 1960s performed and orchestrated the clave differed from how drummers such as Clifton James typically played a clave previously. American drummers throughout the 1960s developed several different types of orchestrations of the bossa nova pattern: some played with a brush in one hand and a stick in the other; some played on the high-hat; other played on the ride, some played with two sticks; some played with two brushes. However, by the end of the 1960s, rock and funk drummers generally settled on a specific orchestration and performance technique: sticks in both hands, steady eighth notes in the right, bossa nova clave in the left on the snare drum. Their adaptation did not signal some sort of “end point” in the development of bossa nova style drumming. During the late 1960s, for instance, bands still hired percussionists to play the bossa nova pattern in almost the exact same way that Juquinha and Guarany had played it ten years prior. But a series of case studies helps document how a bossa nova pattern, originally played by two percussionists – one playing with brushes on the snare drum and the other playing on a woodblock – ended up being played in rock and funk contexts by one drummer using sticks.

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Case Study 1: Two or More Percussionists

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[14] Given the multiple percussionists present during the Chega de saudade sessions, some of the earliest bossa nova patterns recorded in the United States were also played by two or more percussionists. Some sessions hired multiple percussionists and relied less on the drum set and more on other percussion instruments such as the triangle, cabasa (a type of shaker), tamborim (a small, high pitched Brazilian hand drum), shaker, or pandeiro (a Brazilian tambourine). Two of Zoot Sims’ LPs, New Beat Bossa Nova Means the Samba Swings Vols. I (figure 1.1) and II (figure 1.2), from 1962, showcase this approach. Any number of percussionists at the session typically assumed the role of Guarany and played the bossa nova clave on a high-pitched instrument such as a tamborim or even as a cross stick on the snare drum. (However, these drummers did not seem to play anything else at the same time.) Meanwhile two or three other percussionists assumed the role of Juquinha; however, they did not play Juquinha’s eighth notes on the snare drum, but usually on a different percussive instrument. More typical in American recording sessions, however, was the Guarany and Juquinha instrumentation: one drummer and one (or more) percussionists. Buddy Deppenschdmit and Bill Reichenbach, both recording on Stan Getz’s Jazz Samba in February 1962, demonstrate one way percussionists performed a bossa nova pattern. In “Desafinado,” either Deppenschdmit or Reichenbach played the snare with brushes, exactly imitating Juquinha’s approach (figure 1.3). However, in an interesting change in technique, the drummer held the brush to the snare drum and scraped it back and forth in eighth notes, almost replicating the sound of a shaker. Meanwhile, the other percussionist (in this instance another drummer), played a repeating ostinato on the bass drum and high hats with their feet and the bossa nova clave with their hand on a cowbell. More common was the technique adopted in Art Farmer’s “The Sweetest Sounds,” recorded in August 1962 (figure 1.4). In “The Sweetest Sounds,” one drummer functions as Guarany and plays the bossa nova clave as a cross stick on a snare drum. The other drummer functions as Juquinha and plays eighth notes on the snare drum with brushes. However, instead of adopting Deppenschmidt and Reichenbach’s approach – the approach that scrapes the brush alongside the head of the drum – the drummer on “The Sweetest Sounds” plays the snare drum in a more typical manner: by lifting the brush off the head and striking the drum to articulate every stroke. Together, these three examples showcase percussionists and drummers who adopt a performance technique that most closely resembles the one adopted by Juquinha and Guarany in 1958: one percussionist plays the clave, the other (or multiple others) plays continuous eighth notes. What all these examples have in common is that the multiple percussionists divided the roles and played separate parts of the bossa nova pattern.

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Case Study 2: One Drummer Playing with Two Brushes

 

[15] While multiple percussionists could divvy up the roles of the bossa nova pattern, not every band had – or could hire – multiple percussionists; thus the role of multiple percussionists fell to drummers like John Rae. They were admittedly tasked with a difficult job. Rae, who recorded on Stan Getz’s Big Band Bossa Nova in August 1962, attests to the difficulty drummers faced trying to play a bossa nova pattern just by themselves. “At that point in time,” Rae recollected in 1985, “bossa nova was so new there weren’t too many American [drummers] who understood the style.” Fortunately for drummers like Rae, they could look to their American predecessors like Max Roach and Clifton James who inventively recreated the sounds and rhythms typically played by multiple Afro-Cuban percussionists. In time, drummers playing bossa nova demonstrated a similar level of

inventiveness. 

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[16] In addition to following in the footsteps of orchestrators like Roach and James, drummers like Rae could also follow in the footsteps of Brazilian guitarists. It has become a bit of a truism that guitarist João Gilberto’s picking pattern, known as the batida in Portuguese, distilled the rhythms and timbres of the samba drumline and reorchestrated them to the guitar. Samba emerged in the morros (hills) of Rio de Janeiro, notably around Praça Onze, in the early twentieth century as a type of Afro-Brazilian music that mixed Angolese and Congolese batuques with other national, African-derived, and European-derived music like maxixes, lundus, choros, and marchas. Arguably, a sambista named Donga recorded the first samba, titled “Pelo telefone,” in 1916; but vocalist Linda Batista’s 1945 recording of “Coitado do Edgar” provides an equally good study for explaining samba’s percussive elements since the recording contains many audible elements typically found in the bateria (rhythm section) of samba ensembles (figure 2.1). Prevalent in “Coitado do Edgar” are the pandeiro, which plays a steady stream of sixteenth notes, the tamborim, and the surdo (a bass drum). The last two particularly play important roles in the batida of João Gilberto. In “Coitado do Edgar,” you can hear the tamborim faintly play a syncopated rhythm, known in Portuguese as a telecoteco rhythm. Meanwhile, the surdista plays a foundational role, accenting beats 2 and 4 with low tones by playing the drumhead with a felted mallet in the right hand; they also sound higher notes on beats 1 and 3 by striking the drumhead with the palm of the left hand. Gilberto’s batida takes the roles and rhythms of the tamborim and surdo and reorchestrates them to his guitar. The fingers in his right hand mimicked the rhythms of the tamborim. But instead of sounding the high-pitched smack of the tamborim, Gilberto sounded syncopated chordal accompaniments that emanated from the guitar’s upper strings. The thumb in his right hand, similarly, worked like a surdo. But instead of sounding the low-pitched boom of a bass drum, Gilberto’s thumbs struck all four beats of the lower guitar strings while giving special emphasis to beats 2 and 4. Music theorists and ethnomusicologists such as Irna Priore, Suzel Ana Reily, and Gerard Béhague have all documented Gilberto’s indebtedness to the sambas of Dorival Caymmi, Carmen Miranda, and Orlando Silva that he heard growing up in Juazeiro, Bahia during the 1940s. In 1958, he famously put his batida to use, demonstrating his novel orchestration in songs like “Chega de saudade.” Priore, Reiley, and Béhague have all notated similar versions of his batida, taking the aggregate of Gilberto’s picking patterns over the years and distilling them into a short and digestible rhythmic idea (figure 2.2). Despite these differences in notation, the basic idea remains: Gilberto took his batida from the rhythms and roles of the surdo and tamborim and adapted them to the guitar. The novelty in Gilberto’s approach was not necessarily that he derived new rhythms; anybody who heard “Coitado do Edar” would have recognized those rhythms in his batida. Instead, his novelty was in orchestrating those rhythms and placing them in new contexts and articulating them with new timbres.

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[17] American drummers like Rae could equally look to Brazilian drummers, who, like Gilberto, also orchestrated the multiple percussion instruments of samba onto the drum set. Beginning as early as the 1920s, drummers like Luciano Perrone, Valfrido Silva, Benedito Pinto, and Sût (João Batista dos Chegas Pereiera) became some of the first drummers to take the modern drum set and recreate the sounds and rhythms of the samba bateria. Admittedly, this was conceptually a far easier task than Gilberto’s. Drummers can recreate the sound of the surdo for instance, on their bass drum and floor toms. Typically the tamborim’s telecoteco, or other rhythms played by repenique (a tenor drum) or caixa (snare drum), get moved to the drum set’s snare drum as well. In his study of Brazilian drummers, percussionist Andy Smith demonstrates how drummers like Peronne and Silva played the drum set on samba recordings such as Radamés Gnattali’s arrangement of Ary Barroso’s song, “Aquerela do Brasil” from 1939, and pianist Gadé’s 1956 recording, “O feitoço virou.” In 1957, Edison Machado began to play samba nos pratos (samba on the cymbals) and helped inspire a whole host of drummers in the 1960s such as Milton Banana, Wilson das Neves, Dom Um Romão and Hélcio Milito. Drummers like Dom Um Romão and Jayme Storino demonstrate how Brazilians typically played bossa nova patterns. Unlike several of their American counterparts, these drummers did not necessarily strictly abide to playing the bossa nova clave. Instead, drumming on songs like Cannonball Adderley’s “Clouds,” from December 1962 (figure 2.3), or João Meirelles’ “Batucada,” also from that year (figure 2.4), demonstrate how Romão and Storino modified the clave rhythm. In “Clouds,” Romão plays eighth notes on the snare drum with a brush and plays a cross stick on the snare drum with his left hand. But the rhythm he plays on the cross stick resembles more the telecoteco rhythm of the tamborim than the clave Guarany played. Storino adopts a similar approach in “Batucada.” He plays eighth notes on the ride cymbal with a stick and in his left hand plays a more syncopated rhythm than typically played by American drummers. In several ways, then, the path marched on by American drummers in the 1960s was already blazed by Brazilian drummers years before. However, American drummers tended to simplify what their Brazilian counterparts were playing, creating a style of drumming that pianist Sergio Mendes called in 1967, a “standard American bossa nova pattern.”

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[18] One of the simplest ways drummers took the pattern played by Guarany and Juquinha and orchestrated it on the drum set was by playing the snare drum while holding brushes in both hands. The least common version of this technique was employed by drummers Chuck Lampkin and Ed Shaughnessy. On Eddie Harris’ 1962 recording, “Whispering Bossa Nova,” Lampkin played the bossa nova clave similarly to how Clifton James played the son clave in “Bo Diddley:” Lampkin played constant eighth notes while accenting beats 1, the “and” of 2, 4 ­– and in the next measure, beats 3 and the “and” of 4 (figure 2.5). Shaughnessy took the exact same approach on Don Goldie’s “I Hear a Rhapsody” in a recording from October of that year (figure 2.6). More commonly, however, drummers playing bossa nova articulated the clave not by displacing it over both hands but by playing it entirely on one hand; Bill Reichenbach demonstrates this common technique on Charlie Byrd’s “Um abraco do Bonfá” from 1962 (figure 2.7). As the sole drummer at the session, he adopted a technique he heard during the Jazz Samba sessions earlier that year. He played the snare drum with the scraping technique in the right hand and kept the brush always on the snare drum while moving it back and forth. Meanwhile, in the left hand he played the bossa nova clave. He orchestrated this rhythm on the snare drum as well; however, in contrast to his right hand, his left hand articulated every stroke of the clave by lifting the brush off the snare and striking the drumhead. In time, this technique of playing eighth notes in the right hand and a clave in the left would become the predominant way drummers played a bossa nova pattern.

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[19] The benefit of the approach taken by drummers like Lampkin, Shaughnessy, Reichenbach – and several of the drummers discussed in the following section – is that their orchestration and technique removed the need for extra percussionists. To be clear, percussionists certainly played alongside these drummers. Songs like “Whispering Bossa Nova” and “I Hear a Rhapsody” feature the sounds of the pandeiro, shaker, and cabasa. However, the drummers already “took care” of the bossa nova pattern. While the sounds of extra percussion give each song rhythmic and timbral intrigue and variation, at least seen from the perspective of a drummer playing a bossa nova pattern, their presence is, dare I say, superfluous. Surprisingly, the percussion in many of these songs contains the conga, played by famous congueiros like Ray Baretto and Carlos “Patato” Valdés. As a result, many of these recordings contain both the Afro-Cuban tumbao pattern and the Brazilian-inspired bossa nova pattern. This mixture of techniques from the Cuban-inspired conga and Brazilian-inspired drum set creates a metaphorical audible salad bowl: a combination of cultures that do not exactly melt but instead retain their separate identities.

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Case Study 3: One Drummer Playing with a Stick in One Hand and a Brush in the Other

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[20] A consequence of playing with brushes in both hands is that drummers struggled to recreate the sound of Guarany’s caixeta on the drum set; substituting a brush for a stick and using it to play a cross stick on the snare drum helped solve that problem. In fact, playing a cross stick on the snare drum would become one of the more identifiable timbres within bossa nova. Of course, drummers adopted several variations of this orchestration and technique. In Shirley Horn’s “Wild is Love,” recorded in September 1962, Osie Johnson takes Reichenbach’s approach to scraping eighth notes with the right hand, but instead of playing the bossa nova clave in his left hand with a brush, plays it with a cross stick on the snare (figure 3.1). Mel Lewis offers a visual example: during an August 11 televised recording of Shorty Rodger’s “Martin Bossa Nova” on the program Frankly Jazz in 1962, the camera briefly pans in on Lewis scraping the snare drum with a brush in his right hand while playing a cross stick in his left. More often, drummers avoided this scraping technique and instead played constant, articulated eighth notes with their right hand instead. Ben Riley demonstrates this technique and orchestration in action on his April 1962 recording of Sonny Rollins’ “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” (figure 3.2). With a brush in his right hand, he plays eighth notes on the snare drum; in his left hand he holds a stick and uses it to play a cross stick on the snare drum. Billy Higgins would play like this on Dexter Gordon’s “Love for Sale” (figure 3.3); Dave Bailey played like this on Gerry Mulligan’s “Capricious” (figure 3.4); and Don Michaels played like this on Lionel Hampton’s “Bossa Nova New York” (figure 3.5). The list goes on. Some drummers took this technique and simply reorchestrated their right hand. For instance, in a 1962 performance on Frankly Jazz with Paul Horn, drummer Milton Turner plays a bossa nova pattern on “On Green Dolphin Street.” He plays the bossa nova clave with a cross stick on his snare; meanwhile, instead of playing eighth notes on the snare drum with a brush in his right hand, he plays eighth notes on the ride cymbal instead. Whatever the orchestration, drummers were beginning to standardize a specific way to perform a bossa nova pattern: eighth notes in the right hand and using the left hand to articulate a bossa nova clave on a high-pitched drum.

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[21] An analysis of two different versions of Freddie Hubbard’s song, “Crisis,” demonstrates not only this novel orchestration and technique in action but also how it differed from ways drummers incorporated Afro-Cuban elements previously. On August 21, 1961, Freddie Hubbard wrote and recorded “Crisis,” a song full of Afro-Cuban rhythms. Drummer Elvin Jones, for instance, played a drum pattern that closely resembles what Max Roach played on “George’s Dilemma.” Jones played a cáscara rhythm on the ride cymbal with his right hand. In his left hand, he imitated the slap of the tumbao pattern on beat 2 and played the open tones on his toms on beat 4 (figure 3.6). A little more than one year later, drummer Willie Bobo recorded a version on his album Bobo’s Beat. Several Cuban elements were still present in Bobo’s version: the song features a 2-3 tumbao pattern on the congas, for instance. However, on the drum set, Bobo played eighth notes on the snare drum with a brush in his right hand and articulated a clave in his left hand as a cross stick (figure 3.7). Both versions by Hubbard and Bobo are indebted to Afro-Cuban music and both Jones and Bobo incorporated elements of the clave into their drumming. But the patterns both drummers played are not at all similar.

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[22] Several examples of music notation from the 1960s also document how drummers typically played the bossa nova. As cultural historian David Suisman notes, between 1890 and 1930, the commercial music business developed a thriving sheet music industry that commodified music, much like other industrial products. This practice continued into the post-war years as well, as various Latin bandleaders and pedagogues began to publish pedagogical books that capitalized on the American infatuation with several dance crazes like the rhumba and tango. One of the first was a book by bandleader Xavier Cugat, published in 1941, written specifically for pianists, accordionists, and arrangers. Cugat would not write the only book addressing this topic; between the 1940s and 1960s, arrangers and composers could also purchase books such as Arranging Latin Music Authentically and How to Arrange Latin American Instruments. More often, publishers released pedagogical method books specifically for percussionists. Students could learn from books like Latin American Rhythm Instruments and How to Play Them, Basic Bongo Beats, Ethel Smith’s Latin American Rhythms, How to Play Maracas, and How to Play Bongos, Congo Drums, Timbales, and Maracas. Unsurprisingly, although several of these books discussed a broad range of styles – from West Indian calypsos to Martinican beguines – most focused on Cuban styles like the guaracha, son montuno, rhumba, and mambo. However, Chico Arnez, a London-based bandleader broke from this mold and published a book that focused primarily on Brazilian music in 1960. Despite its name, Latin Instruments & Rhythms mostly contained explanations of Brazilian percussion instruments like the cuíca and reco-reco, as well as descriptions of rhythms like the maxixe and frevo. In time, musicians and pedagogues supplemented such books with specific explanations of how to play bossa nova on the drum set.

 

[23] In 1962, a Brazilian percussionist named Jucato followed up on Arnez’s book and published Bossa Nova and Other Latin-American Rhythms. Jucato’s book offered one of the first pedagogical instructions for how to play bossa nova on the drums. Itinstructed drummers to play the bossa nova by taking a stick in their left hand (“always a stick,” he wrote) and “placing the thinnest part of the stick on the skin of the instrument and executing the beats on the rim of the drum.” The “beats” he mentions are Gurany’s bossa nova clave. In the right hand, Jucato acknowledged the multiple variations played by drummers: “the rhythm on the upper part of the staff,” he writes (referencing continuous eighth notes), “can be played with the stick or the brush on the drum, or on the cymbal.” A few years later, a Brazilian drummer named Paulinho published Rhythms and Instruments of Brazil and included a notational description of the bossa nova pattern. Like Jucato, Paulinho focused on ensuring that the drummer used their left hand to play the bossa nova clave with a specific timbre. Paulinho recommended playing a cross stick on the snare (or on a woodblock, just like Guarany did) and also offered a number of timbral possibilities for playing with the right hand: sticks or brushes in the right hand on the snare drum, high hat, or ride cymbal. A reproduction from Paulinho’s book encapsulates the multiple techniques available to drummers playing the bossa nova (figure 3.8).

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Case Study 4: One Drummer Playing with Sticks in Both Hands

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[24] Similarly to how playing with a brush in the left hand would not bring out the rhythm of the bossa nova clave, playing with a brush in the right hand might not be suitable for occasions when drummers wanted to play in a harder style and create a louder timbre; the technique of playing a bossa nova pattern with sticks in both hands solved that problem. In time, it became the technique that most rock and funk drummers adopted. With this technique drummers still played eighth notes with their right hand and a bossa nova clave with their left; however, they tended to play eighth notes on instruments other than the snare drum. As Milton Turner alluded to in his performance with Paul Horn, drummers also began to play eighth notes on the ride cymbal. Dave Bailey adopts this orchestration in Curtis Fuller’s “Samba de uma nota só” in an early bossa nova recording from August 1961 (figure 4.1); Grady Tate plays it on Jerome Richardson’s “No Problem” from 1962 (figure 4.2); and Harold Jones plays eighth notes on the ride cymbal and a cross stick on the snare drum in Paul Winter’s “Journey to Recife,” also from 1962 (figure 4.3). Once again, the list goes on. Two television recordings visually document this approach. During an August 4th performance on Frankly Jazz, drummer Larry Bunker takes a stick in his right hand, plays eighth notes on the ride cymbal (and later his high hat) on Bud Shank’s version of “Misty.” Meanwhile, in his left hand he held a stick and played the bossa nova clave as a cross stick on the snare drum. Similarly, on Oscar Brown, Jr.’s television program Jazz Scene U.S.A. from 1962, Louis Hayes played his right hand on the ride cymbal and a left hand on the snare drum during Cannonball Adderley’s “Jive Samba.” In time, this approach has become standardized and normalized; any beginning drummer that is learning to play a bossa nova pattern would probably learn this orchestration and technique first.

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[25] While drummers typically used two sticks to play their right hand on the ride cymbal and keep their left hand on the snare drum as a cross stick, drummers adopted several variations as well. On a 1963 recording of Jon Hendrick’s “O pato,” Jimmie Smith played eighth notes on the high hat with his right hand and a with his left hand plays the bossa nova clave also on the high hat (figure 4.4)! (The fact that you can hear Smith occasionally “flam,” or play both his hands at slightly different times, confirms that he’s playing on the high hat with two hands as opposed to one.) On another Hendricks recording, “Outra vez,” Smith played eighth notes on the ride cymbal but played the bossa nova clave on the rim of the snare drum as opposed to as a cross stick (figure 4.5). Instead of eighth notes on the ride cymbal, Oliver Jackson played quarter notes during Gene Ammons’ recording of “Moito Mato Grosso” from September 1962 (figure 4.6). And instead of a ride cymbal, Rudy Collins played continuous eighth notes on a tambourine on Lalo Schifrin’s 1962 recording, “An Evening in São Paulo” (figure 4.7). But in all these examples, the same basic technique applies: simple time in the right hand, clave in the left.

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[26] A final visual example summarizes the multiple ways that drummers orchestrated the Guarany’s clave and played a bossa nova pattern. During an October 15, 1962 performance of Luiz Bonfa’s “Manhã de Carnaval” on Jazz Scene U.S.A., John Rae played eighth notes on the snare drum, adopting a technique and orchestration that resembles an approach to playing the clave demonstrated by Clifton James, Chuck Lampkin, and Ed Shaughnessy. The song also featured Bill Fitch who played percussion. In Fitch’s right hand, he held a shaker and played continuous eighth notes. In his left hand, he held a stick and played the bossa nova clave on a cowbell that he placed on top of a conga drum. Both Rae and Fitch summarize the different ways of playing in a bossa nova context. Given the similarities between Rae’s approach and approaches taken by his predecessors like James, Rae’s approach proved far less influential. In contrast, Fitch encapsulated the technique and orchestration that would ultimately be adopted by rock and funk drummers throughout the 1960s.

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[27] Of course, several variations of the bossa nova clave emerged as well. Bill Reichenbach, for instance, took the 3:2 or 3:4 hemiola implied in the bossa nova clave and used it as a rhythmic motif. Instead of articulating the bossa nova clave with his left hand, he instead played a series of dotted quarter notes (i.e. groups of 3). These strokes alluded to the defining characteristic of the bossa nova clave but created an even more lopsided feel as his pattern went over the bar line, just like the calligrapher whose words spill over onto the next line. A version of “O pato,” recorded by Charlie Byrd in April 1962, demonstrates Reichenbach’s approach in action. His left hand played this hemiola as a cross stick while a brush in his right hand played constant eighth notes on the snare drum (figure 4.8). Other variations existed as well. In a prime example of how the bossa nova clave did not mimic the son clave’s role as an organizing principle, several bossa nova drummers casually switched between 2-3 and 3-2 bossa nova claves. Jimmie Smith took advantage of such liberty (or commits such an error!) in a recording of “Jive Samba” with Jon Hendricks (figure 4.9). Several drummers also swung the eighth notes in their bossa nova patterns, creating what commentators called a “bossa nova shuffle rhythm,” a “shuffle-rock bossa nova,” a “swingin’ bossa nova,” or a “boogaloo bossa nova.” Billy Higgins offered the most prominent example  during his recording of Lee Morgan’s “The Sidewinder” in December 1963. In his right hand he played swung eighth notes on the ride cymbal with sticks and in his left hand he played a 2-3 bossa nova clave on the snare drum head (figure 4.10). Whatever variation employed, the same basic principle applied: the right hand kept steady time, the left hand played the clave.

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Case Study 5: Bossa Nova in Rock and Funk Drumming of the 1960s

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[28] In time, the innovations of these drummers playing bossa nova music found themselves in all sorts of music of the 1960s; John Densmore’s drumming on The Door’s “Break on Through (To the Other Side)” from 1967 offers one historically misunderstood example. Historian Ned Sublette attributes the groove’s influence to Cuban mambo origins, but musical evidence suggests otherwise. Densmore’s groove does not recall how drummers like Max Roach typically played Cuban mambos or how musicians like Ray Charles incorporated Latin-influenced grooves into their music. Instead, in the song’s opening pattern, Densmore plays eighth notes on the ride cymbal and a bossa nova clave on the snare with a cross stick, essentially mimicking verbatim the patterns played by drummers such as Louis Hayes or Grady Tate (figure 5.1). In addition, Densmore’s own words confirm his indebtedness to bossa nova. According to an article in Modern Drummer, as well as the biography on his own website, Densmore notes that he modeled the song’s opening groove after having heard the canonical bossa nova song, “A garota de Ipanema,” sometime in the mid-1960s. Little doubt exists about the pattern’s origins.

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[29] Densmore was not the only American drummer to incorporate bossa nova patterns into rock of the decade; several rock and roll artists recording in late 1962 and early 1963 offer numerous examples. According to Jack Maher of Billboard, Bellino’s 1962 single, “Boss Bossa Nova/Bossa Nova Rock” was one of the first to incorporate bossa nova rhythms and drumming into a rock and roll context. On the track, “Boss Bossa Nova,” the drummer takes two sticks and plays on the snare drum, alternating both hands just like Clifton James did on Bo Diddley’s self-titled track. However, instead of playing the son clave, Bellino’s drummer articulates the bossa nova clave instead (figure 5.2). The song thus merges established New Orleans second line and rock and roll drumming with the rhythms of Brazil. Alan Brenamen, the drummer for the instrumental rock and roll group The Piltdown Men, adopted the “case study 4” approach in the band's 1962 release, “Tequila Bossa Nova.” In this cover of the The Champs’ famous 1958 hit, “Tequila,” Brenamen took two sticks and played eighth notes with their right hand and a bossa nova clave with their left (figure 5.3). Thanks to this approach, The Piltdown Men took a song originally conceived by Chicano rock and roll artists living in Los Angeles during the 1950s and recorded a version indebted to the rhythms of Brazilian bossa nova. Chubby Checker also adopted bossa nova early on. His 1962 release, “The Bossa Nova,” featured a drummer adopting the technique from “case study 3,” playing eighth notes with a brush in one hand and a stick playing a bossa nova clave with a cross stick in the left hand (figure 5.4). Writing about the state of the music industry in 1963, Billboard columnist Nick Biro noted that “more rock and roll-oriented hits are finding their way into the pop market.” He gave a rather expansive definition of the genre: “we include the broad category of rock and roll, which covers the twist and even forms of the bossa nova.” Given the prevalence of songs such as “Boss Bossa Nova,” “Tequila Bossa Nova,” and “The Bossa Nova,” it was easy to see why Biro found “rock and roll” to encompass bossa nova.

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[30] Bossa nova drumming patterns found themselves in the music of rock and roll during the mid-1960s as well. Instrumental rock and roll group Santo & Johnny, for instance, also recorded bossa nova. In their 1965 single, “Brazilian Summer,” their drummer adopted the techniques from “case study 2.” He played the snare drum with the scraping technique in the right hand and kept the brush always on the snare drum while moving it back and forth. Meanwhile, in the left hand he played the bossa nova clave (figure 5.5). This orchestration helped create the song’s mellow sound, which served as a contrast to the record’s more raucous A-side, “Mucho Tempo.” Jack Nitzche, who later went on to collaborate with producer Phil Spector, also incorporated bossa nova rhythms in his music. In his 1965 instrumental, “Senorita from Detroit,” Nitzche alternates between two sections: one full of riffs, harmonica, hard-hitting backbeats and the other with a calmer bossa nova approach. In the softer sections, Nitzche’s drummer plays with sticks, playing eighth notes with their right hand on the high-hat and a bossa nova clave with their left hand on the snare as a cross-stick (figure 5.6).

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[31] While examples from The Doors, Bellino, The Piltdown Men, Chubby Checker, Santo & Johnny, and Jack Nitzche attest to bossa nova’s influence on rock and roll music and artists, interviews with some of James Brown’s former drummers illuminate how the rhythms of bossa nova found their way into Brown’s music. Don Juan “Tiger” Martin, a lesser-known drummer for Brown during the early 1970s, recalls learning the bossa nova pattern from his uncle while growing up in Cincinnati. “My uncle’s name was John Green,” Martin recalled to author and drummer Jim Payne, “…and he would try to teach me. He played with John Wright’s big band from Cincinnati. I would go to the Cabana Lounge with him and watch him play. That’s where I learned the bossa nova stuff and a little jazz.” Evidence of this Brazilian inspiration in Martin’s playing with Brown, however, does not exist in audio recordings. Similary, Clayton Fillyau, who played with Brown during the early 1960s, also remembered incorporating bossa nova into his drumming. His reminiscence to Payne merits reprinting in full: 

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I came up from reading, from learning how to hear, how to feel. I’ll give you a good example. Remember the bossa nova, “I Remember April?” (sings tune). The drum part went like this – (sings drum part). They told me I was playing wrong. I said, ‘don’t worry about what I’m playing – I’ll meet you at the crossroads. I’ll betcha when you get to the other section, I’ll be there too.’ 

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[32] Unfortunately, Payne’s book does not contain any audio replication of what Fillyau sang. But analysis of some recordings from the 1960s of “I’ll Remember April” help clarify his point. Written originally in the early 1940s, “I’ll Remember April” had received several different musical treatments by the late 1960s: Eddie Cano recorded a version that alternated between straight-ahead jazz and Afro-Cuban grooves in 1962 while Brazilian guitarist Luiz Bonfá recorded an unaccompanied guitar rendition in 1958. Fillyau was not referring to either of those examples, though. Instead, he was likely recollecting the bossa nova treatments recorded by pianist Jack La Forge in 1962, arranger Hugo Winterhalter in 1963, or vocalist Joanie Summers from 1964. In all these examples, the drummer played constant eighth notes with a brush in their right hand while playing a cross stick on the snare drum with their left. Fillyau played with Brown on the bandleader’s famous “I’ve Got Money” session where Fillyau debuted one of the first ersatz funk patterns. He also played at the Live at the Apollo performance. Both were recorded in 1962. However, neither “I’ve Got Money” nor any of the tracks that appear on Live at the Apollo seem indebted to bossa nova rhythms or drumming styles. Nevertheless, the recollections of Fillyau and Martin suggest that funk drummers were encountering and taking inspiration from bossa nova music.

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[33] The career of Bernard “Pretty” Purdie offers additional evidence that Brown’s drummers were familiar with bossa nova drumming patterns. In 1967, Purdie recorded “Soul Bossa Nova,” a track on his debut album, Soul Drums. The recording features Purdie playing an updated version of the bossa nova pattern. On his bass drum, he plays a syncopated pattern that no drummer playing bossa nova really played before. Yet, with his hands, he plays the familiar continuous eighth notes on his ride cymbal and the bossa nova clave with a cross stick on the snare (figure 5.7). Around the same time that he recorded Soul Drums, he was playing on James Brown’s Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud recording sessions. However, in a story that resembles Martin and Filyau’s, none of the drumming on Say It Loud appear indebted to bossa nova. Nevertheless, Purdie’s career places him alongside other famous session musicians who have played in bossa nova contexts and then went on to record with a host of soul, rock, r&b, and funk artists. Earl Palmer offers one example. Palmer began his career in the 1950s playing with Fats Domino and Little Richard and then during 1960s he played on several bossa nova sessions. His playing on Howard Roberts’ “Dirty Old Bossa Nova” from 1963 offers one of several examples of Palmer’s approach to bossa nova. In his right hand he plays continuous eighth notes on the shaker (and then later on the ride cymbal) while playing a bossa nova clave in his left with a cross stick on the snare (figure 5.8). Then for the rest of the 1960s he went on to play with artists as diverse as Sonny & Cher, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Neil Young, The Monkees, and The Beach Boys. Further investigation into the musical career of Palmer might illuminate how bossa nova patterns found itself in the drumming of an illustrious session drummer.

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