Give the drummer some time

By GRAHAM REID

For some reason - perhaps because they work in a loud profession - you expect drummers to shout. Few do, and while Joe La Barbera may have started his career in the appropriately named Thundering Herd led by Woody Herman, the quietly spoken drummer doesn't shout about it, and doesn't bellow about his illustrious career either.

For the past decade he has taught percussion at the California Institute of Arts. He pursues his own work - recordings, club gigs at night, tours of Europe in the summer holidays - and takes students for private tuition.

Shortly he joins fellow faculty member Larry Koonse (guitar), bassist Tom Warrington and vocalist Brenda Boykin (who appeared here as part of the World Blues Revue in '01) for a short national tour in the inaugural Jaguar International Jazz Series, which starts at the Bruce Mason Centre next Thursday.

La Barbera works all the time, except when he's working?

"Oh yeah, I also practise every day. I'm still fascinated by the drums and my students bring in stuff and I pick up on that. I coach two combos and have students, so I am playing drums all the time."

Growing up in Mt Morris, New York, he was part of the family band with his parents and his older brothers Pat and John, who went on to become a famous jazz saxophonist and trumpeter/composer respectively.

His father taught him drums, clarinet and saxophone and the polish was put on at Berklee College of Music in Boston. He reflects on the difference between students in the 60s and what he sees today.

"I am noticing the level is much higher, and I attribute this to Wynton Marsalis. What Wynton did was made it cool for young people to get back into this music, so definitely the level is up."

In the 80s, trumpeter/composer Marsalis was at the forefront of the neo-conservative movement in jazz, which took Duke Ellington and Miles Davis as their musical template. Suddenly jazz was hip and fashionable - Marsalis adopted snappy suits and posed for fashion shoots - and it seemed a viable career option for young players.

"What's different though is there are no entry-level jobs where a young person can go out on the road, bang around and learn something. That's where universities take up the slack and provide the environment where people can get together to play. It's totally different from how I learned."

La Barbera learned on the road with Woody Herman's Thundering Herd, one of the great jazz bands of its era, although its star was in decline when he joined. It was the university of jazz life for young players like La Barbera however, and his longtime friend Alan Broadbent, the former Aucklander whom he met at Berklee and was also a member of the Herd.

Now a Grammy-winning composer and arranger for Natalie Cole, pianist Broadbent was then, like La Barbera, a young guy learning what it meant to be in a band bus night after night going to the next gig.

"That never changed for Woody, he always kept that kind of pace. But that's the reality in having a band that size. You have to work it as much as you can to pay the bills. At one point we lost the bus because he couldn't afford it, so we had to rent cars. I don't think Woody's schedule ever changed much, it was hard but I loved it.

"From the time I was in high school I'd wanted to play with that band, it represented a real jazz band as opposed to a dance band. Woody's band was primarily a blowing band, so I was way into it - and I loved Woody."

At the time Herman - who died in '87 age 74 - was permanently on the road because a manager had gambled away the band's income tax payment and Woody had a big bill. Another in the Herd was trumpeter/flugelhorn player Chuck Mangione, who went out with his own band and invited La Barbera to join.

In the mid-70s Mangione enjoyed huge crossover success with the album Chase the Clouds Away and Main Squeeze. But that was after La Barbera's tenure.

" I've always managed to miss that. I left Tony Bennett just before he became huge too," he laughs. "With Chuck it was a struggling jazz group trying to make it. It was a labour of love and we played jazz clubs and festivals around the world."

After five years he left and freelanced in New York,playing with guitarist John Scofield (as with Mangione, his fame would come after the drummer's stint in his band), Jim Hall, Phil Woods and many other jazz luminaries.

In '78 he was invited to join the trio led by pianist Bill Evans, widely regarded as one of the most innovative, intimate, elegant and exceptional players in jazz. One encyclopedia described his style as as "a kind of zen on the piano".

"He was also a wonderful guy, very personable with a great sense of humour. Not that you would deduce that from looking at the record covers, they always make him look serious. Whenever he would do a photo shoot for an album they would do 15 shots and he'd be smiling in 13, then make him pose for two serious ones. They'd go for those ones every time.

"You can be introspective without being a sourpuss or on a downer. He was really a very warm person. I learned pretty much everything I know from being with him. He was a genius and a lot of that is bound to rub off on you, just the way he would approach the melodic flows of his solos. I definitely picked up a lot of that."

After Evans' unexpected death in September 1980, La Barbera took time out, the only period when he hasn't worked. Early the following year he joined Tony Bennett for a few years ("That's where I learned how to pace a set, and he gave 110 per cent every night") and now juggles teaching duties and his own quintet.

A fortnight ago he was playing in Los Angeles with saxophonist Lee Konitz, next month he joins Grammy-nominated singer Karrin Allyson on an extensive tour of Europe before meeting flautist/saxophonist Bud Shank for a series of workshops. Last week he recorded with the acclaimed Swedish pianist Jan Lundgren, and he still plays in the occasional gig with Broadbent.

"My life has always been so diverse, and people still call me".

Performance

* Who: Joe La Barbera

* What: Jaguar International Jazz Series

* When: first show at Bruce Mason Centre Thurs, May 22