No Beethoven: An Autobiography & Chronicle of Weather Report

by Peter Erskine

  44. Life Goes On

  Valentine’s Day is a celebration of love and, by extension, life itself, for what is a life lived without love? And on this day, by one of the cruel ironies of life, my family found itself spending the afternoon of this year’s St. Valentine’s celebration at the site of a freshly dug grave where the father of one of my daughter’s friends was to be laid to rest. While everyone in attendance tried their best to feel some joy in the remembrances of a life well lived, there wasn’t a dry eye on this windy hillside. The sermon reminded us that “life goes on.” It got me to thinking about some of those very big questions that are at the root of our very being.

  California in 1987, I have enjoyed the growth, companionship, and support of my family. And during this time, I have also felt the sting of loss that is, regretfully, a sad and simple fact of life. A few short months after my daughter was born, I received a telephone call from a musician colleague that informed me that my friend Jaco Pastorius had died. Much has been chronicled about Jaco’s struggle with his personal demons, and in that light, the news did not come as a huge surprise; it was the phone call I was dreading but half expecting to come someday. Such phone calls always come too soon, however. Over the years, more telephone calls or emails would announce the deaths of such stalwart drumming colleagues and friends as Jeff Porcaro, Carlos Vega, John Guerin, or my best buddy in New York, Don Grolnick, or my parents, or saxophone colossi Bob Berg and Michael Brecker. Or Joe Zawinul. But I don’t wish to dwell on the hows and whys of death. Rather, I would like to focus on the notion that a person’s being and soul really do live on. This is not a religious tract, though I leave it to the reader to instill his or her own sense of values and spiritual perspective into whatever I write here. Free of any particular adherence to dogma, then, I press on and offer the following.

  Is there a heaven? There are certainly plenty of promises, as well as jokes, about the place. But seriously, folks, I believe quite strongly in the existence of heaven, for I see and feel its presence around me on a daily basis. For example: any and every time that one of us listens to a recording of Jeff Porcaro playing with his band, Toto (or on any one of the hundreds of recordings he made during his all-too-brief life), we are sublimely reminded and graced by the poetic and energetic life force of Jeff’s essence and being. At those moments, Jeff is as every bit alive for the listener as he could be. Think about it. Every time we hear and intelligently understand what Jeff is saying to us, it’s as if he is speaking to us personally. Same with Carlos on a James Taylor recording; or John Guerin on that big band recording he made with Thelonious Monk and Oliver Nelson (titled Monk’s Dream, though John is not properly credited on the album).

  I was speaking about Valentine’s Day. That night, I went to a club to hear a band from New York that’s known as the “Fab Faux,” a clever play on the expression the “Fab Four,” used for the Beatles when they first stormed America and the music world in the early 1960s. My good friend Will Lee is the bassist in the tribute band, and they put on a show that was astoundingly good and fun and exciting and moving. Good fun to hear Beatles’ tunes “live.” It was moving in the sense to think on the day’s events, and in the midst of all of that glorious music, smiling at the thought that the work we do in our lives does indeed live on to touch the lives of our loved ones and, possibly, countless others. John Lennon was murdered in New York, George Harrison died of cancer in Los Angeles, and yet their youthful spirit and thoughts and beings were completely alive in that Hollywood club on Valentine’s night — and on your radio or CD player or mp3 device or just your memory of their music! How often do I think of God? More often than I think of the melody to “Penny Lane”? The Magical Mystery Tour probably wins, hands down.

  Will Lee and his lovely wife, Sandrine, came to our home for breakfast the next morning on their way to the airport. Conversation went from myriad Beatles tunes to the music of others, including our dear departed friend Don Grolnick. Will told me, “Not a day goes by that I don’t think of Don.” Which reminded me of something Don said while he was sick and certain of his own death; I’m paraphrasing here, but in essence Don expressed his assurance that Heaven did indeed exist as long as his presence was in the memory of those who knew him and/or his work. Of course, it does not surprise me that such a gentle and good man would be in Heaven, but it is comforting to know it for certain.

  It is the charge of us who survive to see another dawn each day that we honor the memory of the kind and brave souls who have pioneered and lived and loved before us. They have taught us how to interpret a melody, or how to play a rhythm, or how to laugh at one of life’s many absurdities. Life lessons. Good deeds. Mistakes. The sum of a man’s or a woman’s life can take years to absorb and understand, but we must always appreciate the sacrifice, wisdom, love, and humor that our fallen comrades have left to us.

  The late singer Mel Torme was once flying coast-to-coast on an airplane, seated next to the very much alive and wonderful drummer Jerry Marotta. (Don Grolnick told me this story, in fact.) And the conversation they had turned to such matters as I’ve touched on here, as well as some likely mundane diatribes about this or that. And while I don’t know the bulk of what was said, I do know the closing remark that Mr. Torme offered to Jerry: “Take it from me, Kid, every day above ground is a winner!”

  Good advice, Mel. Thanks! In memory, then, of some of the musical heroes and friends whose lives have touched mine: Stan Kenton, Shelley Manne, Jaco Pastorius, Mel Lewis, Buddy Rich, Jeff Porcaro, Carlos Vega, John Guerin, Don Grolnick, Bob Berg, Michael Brecker, Joe Zawinul, and my parents, Lois and Fred Erskine, I offer words of love and thanks. The days with thoughts of you are, indeed, winners.

  45. Plays Well With Others

  I got called to work on the first American Songbook album of ballads for Rod Stewart. I show up and the producer Richard Perry asks me if I have a wooden bass drum beater. I said, “Yes, but we’re playing standards, right? I wasn’t planning on using it.” He said, “I’d like you to use it,” so I put the wooden beater on my pedal. We were running down the ballad “These Foolish Things” before Rod arrived. I was playing a typical smooth, legato brush feel, and the producer stops the band and says, “What’s with the zzzz, zzzz (mimics brush sound) thing? Break it up more. Go zzzz, zu zzzz, zu (sings long sound on beat 1 followed by short sound on beat 2).” I played it and he said, “Yeah, that’s it. Now add the bass drum when you stop the brush (i.e., on beats 2 and 4).” I said, “You mean like this?” and by this time everyone in the band is looking at me kind of weird. He said, “Yeah, that’s great.” So now I’m playing this beat like an idiot. Rod Stewart shows up and we start running the song with him. He soon stops and says, “Just a sec’ lads.” He goes into the control room, and I can see him saying to the producer, “What the fuck’s the drummer doing?” Then the producer is in my headphones saying, “Uhhhh, just go back to what you were originally doing.”

  There were a couple of times during my tenure with Weather Report when I truly just wanted to pack it in and go home; it’s easy to get tired of the touring, the rigors of traveling, and working and eating and socializing with the same people, day and night after day and night — especially tough when your efforts are being criticized or (from your point of view) not being appreciated. But I would always remember two things: (1) these people knew more about this music than I did, and (2) plenty of musicians come and go; the ones who “stay” are the ones who stick around. I wanted to be sure I was one of those people, because I was (and am) still learning, and being in Weather Report was the best possible educational opportunity that I could hope for. Besides, a day or two would go by after a rough gig, and all would be well again or even better.

  Life lessons. The next generation is always ’round the bend. Passing along the knowledge and the tradition…

  Mr. Peart and a few other well-known rock guys. Why do they choose to study with me? Some want to learn a little more about jazz, others come just because they’re cu
rious or having some issues, oftentimes dealing with self-confidence, or they just feel in a rut. So a lot of my drum lessons are more like counseling than mechanical sessions. Sometimes I’ve got to be like one of those characters in a martial arts movie: I’ve got to hit the student in the head a couple of times, metaphorically. I have to slap some sense into them — whack! — even if the point is to treat sitting at the drumset much like dealing cards at a friendly game of poker — smooth and relaxed — versus guiding a 747 jumbo jet into its parking spot at the airport gate.

  Whack!

  That said, it takes a lot of listening to be able to hear this music in order to speak it. I stopped teaching privately for a while because it was becoming too frustrating, and I tried to explain it to my wife as follows: “It’s like I hear a knock on my door and open it, and there’s some guy with a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine, wearing a beret, and he says in an Inspector Clouseau-accented voice, ‘I want to be French!’ Just like that: ‘I want to play jazz.’ I’m glad that Neil is serious about the study of jazz and drumming. I’m also glad that he’s from Toronto and not Montréal. Neil has my highest respect for the drumming he does with his band, Rush, and for the qualities he exhibits as a human being.

  I’ve had the pleasure of touring and being part of many bands and various artists’ backing ensembles over the years. Some of the more notable groups include Steely Dan (doing their first tour in twenty years) as well as Joni Mitchell when she toured the USA with orchestral accompaniment, and Diana Krall when she toured the USA, Canada, and Europe with her quartet.

  The Steely Dan call was a complete surprise. I had worked with Walter Becker in the studio on several albums, but never expected that he and Donald Fagen would think of me for their band. The call went like this: I had just returned to my hotel room in Sardinia, Italy, after a concert with the ECM trio, and I said aloud to the empty room, “This is the only kind of music I want to play for the rest of my life!” Cue: telephone ring. It was my wife, who said, “You’ll never guess who just called.” So I agreed to meet the band in New York City for three-and-a-half weeks of rehearsal for a summer’s worth of touring. The band’s management sent me two cassette tapes’ worth of songs to learn, and I created cheat sheets of the basic beats for each tune (I couldn’t remember “Hey Nineteen” from “Bad Sneakers” when it came to the drum beats), shrinking and laminating my carefully-notated parts for handy reference. I also practiced these most basic of beats with a metronome set to mildly different tempos so that I could feel the necessary confidence to “own” any tempo that Donald Fagen might count off at the first rehearsal onward. Fortunately, I gained his full trust and confidence thanks to this bit of preparation, as well as by watching his left hand when he played the Fender Rhodes electric piano; my bass drum foot stayed in sync with him, and for the rest of the tour it was “Hey band... WITH THE DRUMS!”

  I suspect that both Donald and Walter were hoping for a bit more jazz voodoo on that tour than I was willing to impart; the recorded drum parts seemed so perfect to me that I could barely stray from the original patterns and beats (though I would never claim to being able to play with the pocket and funk of mssrs Porcaro, Gordon, Keltner, Purdie, Marotta, and Gadd). All in all, a lot of fun to be part of a big rock-and-roll tour.

  As the drummer, I was responsible for counting off the songs, and I used a metronome for that purpose. While Donald and Walter were not so picky when it came to interpretation (much to my surprise), they were absolutely nitpicking when it came to tempo (which should come as no surprise to anyone who has worked with a vocalist). During the lengthy rehearsal process, we would practice tunes at decimal-point tempi (118.5 BPM [beats per minute]), but were able to convince the guys to stick to whole numbers.

  Speaking of “Hey Nineteen” and 118 BPM: after a couple of weeks of touring, I noticed that, when the band played that tune, the horns had a tendency to push the time a bit, and so I thought it might be a good idea to bump up the tempo from 118 to 119 BPM. And so I did, in Cincinnati, without telling anyone and thinking none were the wiser. The next afternoon in St. Louis at soundcheck, Donald and Walter walked onto the stage and called for the band to run “Hey Nineteen.” Then they both turned to me, looking up at the drums on the stage riser, and said, “Oh yeah, felt kinda…FAST last night.” I replied, “Wow, that’s really something that you guys noticed,” and they countered with, “Well, did you do anything different last night?” I said, “Uh, yeah, I changed the tempo from 118 to 119. That’s remarkable that you could tell!” They laughed a bit and then said, real serious, “Yeah, well... DON’T DO THAT AGAIN.”

  My kids both got a big kick out of my doing the tour. I was very glad and remain grateful for having made the acquaintance of the late saxophonist Cornelius Bumpus.

  Touring with Joni Mitchell was luxurious in that we played the Vince Mendoza arrangements for orchestra all across the USA, traveling with Joni, Vince, producer Larry Klein, concertmaster Ralph Morrison, saxophonist Bob Sheppard, bassist Chuck Berghofer, and myself. Guest artists in various cities included Herbie Hancock, Mark Isham, and Wallace Roney. Joni sang her heart out every night. What a thrill.

  Diana Krall’s quartet, including Anthony Wilson on guitar and either Christian McBride or Bob Hurst on bass — with an excellent production crew! — was a lot of fun for me, especially when we focused on her own tunes. It felt more “new” to me than when she turned and returned to the music that made her so popular in the first place. It’s always fun to feel part of something that’s fresh and being put together for the first time. Lots of audiences though, I noticed —whether at a Steely Dan or Joni or Diana concert — were half “there” and half very much not there at all, and I could see in their far-away eyes and smiling faces that the music was taking them back to a comfort zone of when they were younger and discovering the world around them with much of this music as a soundtrack to their lives and loves. And that’s okay. But, that said, it’s more fun to play music that’s new and being created on its own terms — not subject to the expectations of a record company, a bandleader’s spouse, or an audience of balding baby-boomers and their used-to-be-hippie wives. Wait, I just described myself.

  Time to be in charge of my own thing...

  FUZZY MUSIC

  After being a sideman and working for other bands and leaders and waiting for one record company executive or label-owner after another to consent to my entering the studio to realize my own next project, I started my own record label. Just like a lot of other things in life, when you want something done and you want it done the way you want it done, then do it yourself. I should say “we” started our own label, as this venture is entirely a team effort between me, my wife, and some musical colleagues. It takes a fuzzy.

  My dad had always wanted me to make a recording with my cousin Joey. He’s a singer, Italian but kind of like an Irish tenor, with a lovely voice, and he could sing ballads real nice. In other words, he’s not a jazz singer. My father said he’d really love it if Joey and I could record something. So I put a band together with Frank Collett, Sarah Vaughan’s pianist for many years, and bassist Dave Carpenter, and we made an album. What do you do with an album? First, you shop it. “Hmm, sounds nice! How old is he?” “Well, he’s just retired as a DC-10 captain for Continental Airlines, and…” “Too old, sorry.” Then you decide to release it yourself for your own amusement. I had just been reading a book about Fuzzy Logic, so I thought, “Hey, let’s call the label Fuzzy Music.” We printed up some CDs by mail-order but didn’t really know what to do with them. We made another couple of albums, and by this time we thought, “Let’s see if we can start selling some of these.” It was a vanity label with lofty ideas. Maybe we could become a means for other artists, because we were all running into the same thing: begging producers or the guys that wore the suits at the record label companies, “Please let me do a record,” but their timetables might be months away from your moment of inspiration, or they weren’t interested, or they would di
sappear and become unavailable. So hey, we’ll do this ourselves, make the music we want to make when we want to make it, and it won’t disappear forever.

  And we got better and better at it. It was always kind of a kitchen tabletop operation, where we’d get orders, pack ’em up in a box, and send them off. Come to think of it, we still do it this way. Only now, more and more of our music is being listened to and purchased online by way of digital downloading. Most of our fans, the fans of the music I play, seem to be interested and supportive of the music and they’re happy to download it. I wouldn’t even know where to find a free tune on the Internet, because I just don’t do that. If I want a tune, I go to iTunes, buy it, and download it. Thankfully, we have a fan base that operates the same way.

  Fuzzy Music has remained a vanity label in part because I felt we really couldn’t do justice to what other artists deserve, expect, or need. I was at a business meeting — a friend of ours knew some really smart businessmen and invited them to this meeting at our house — and I told them about the record company and my dreams for a better world, etc. One of the guys finally asked, “What does Peter Erskine want to be when he grows up?” And I went, “Huh?” And he goes, “This is all nice and good, but what you’re talking about isn’t business.” Then another guy adds in, “Well, maybe that’s a good thing. You’re doing what you want to do, you have a passion, and you believe in the music. You don’t want to get people like us involved, because as soon as you get us involved, we’re going to start demanding, ‘Why didn’t you do this? Why didn’t you do that?’” And I told them, “Yeah, I’ve got enough other things to think about; I don’t really want to have to worry about meeting other peoples’ expectations.” We put out the recordings and hope for the best!