Jazz Drumming - American Influence

American Influence

The military drumming of America, predominantly fife and drum corps, in the 19th century and earlier supplied much of the technique and instrumentation of the early jazz drummers. Influential players like Warren "Baby" Dodds and Zutty Singleton used the traditional military drumstick grip, military instruments, and played in the style of military drummers using rudiments, a group of short patterns which are standard in drumming. The rhythmic composition of this music was also important in early jazz and beyond. Very different from the African performance aesthetic, a flowing style which does not directly correspond to Western time signatures, the music played by military bands was rigidly within time and metric conventions, though it did have compositions in both duple and triple meter. The equipment of the drummers in these groups was of particular significance in the development of early drum sets. Cymbals, bass, and snare drums were all used. Indeed, a method of damping a set of cymbals by crunching them together while playing bass drum simultaneously is probably how today's hi-hat, a major part of today's drum set, came about. Military technique and instrumentation were undoubtedly factors in the development of early jazz and its drumming, but the melodic and metric elements in jazz are more easily traced to the dance bands of the time period.