The Evolution of the Drummer

The modern drummer’s domain is the back of the stage. Tucked behind the other musicians, enshrined in a rough semi-circle of instruments—typically a bass drum and foot pedal, a tom, a snare, and various cymbals—he (or she, it does happen) beats out the rhythm of the music, establishing the time in which the rest of the band plays. More colloquially, the drummer “holds it down back there, man.” John Bonham, Ginger Baker, Ringo Starr, and countless other charmingly reckless rock ’n’ roll percussionists have contributed to making this image of the drummer iconic. But before there was rock ’n’ roll, long before Mitch Mitchell, Neil Peart, and Animal from The Muppets were “banging it out,” drumming was a very different art.

In any music venue prior to the twentieth century, multiple percussionists would share the stage, each playing a single drum, rather than one musician commanding an entire set. It was not until near the end of the 1800s, in New Orleans, that percussionists playing jazz and its predecessor ragtime would begin to innovate ways of combining their instruments, allowing one drummer to play multiple drums and cymbals at the same time. By many accounts, it was with the beginnings of jazz music that the first iteration of the drum set, and with it the modern drummer, arose; and it makes perfect sense that this happened in a port city where African as well as European and Caribbean cultures and musical styles collided and melded in unprecedented ways. 

[You might like: Hattiesburg: Birthplace of Rock ‘n Roll?]

In order to understand how these instruments were first combined, it is important to note the diverse origins of each component that makes up the modern drum set. The advent of the earliest drums is nearly impossible to pinpoint, though they existed in ancient China and Mesopotamia, and primates have been creating rhythmic beats with their hands since before humans were even around. African drums emerged in the twelfth century, though these drums and the beats produced with them were banned in most of the southern United States prior to the Civil War for fear that they would stimulate slave revolts. An ancestor of the modern bass drum was used in the Ottoman Empire, and the snare is a direct descendant of a medieval drum called a “tabor.” China contributed the “tom-tom” that was quickly adapted into the tom in America, and flattened bronze cisterns from Turkey and other parts of Asia eventually became so popular that the original cymbal company, Zildjian, was motivated to relocate from Turkey to Massachusetts. 

For a long time, each of these instruments was played entirely independently of its cousins; at the turn of the century, it was still common to walk into a music venue in New Orleans and find multiple drummers on stage: one playing a bass, another a snare, and so on. Band directors eventually realized they could pay fewer musicians and free up room on stage by having one drummer tackle multiple instruments. Before the bass drum pedal allowed for this, there was a technique called “double drumming,” wherein one drummer places a bass drum on a chair and plays it with his left hand, while playing a snare with his right. “But they were doing that in New Orleans before it became commonplace to use the bass drum pedal,” said Stanton Moore, drummer of the New Orleans jam band Galactic. “So guys have been trying to figure out how to cut someone out of work for years. And it’s probably not the drummer trying to cut anyone out of a job, but more likely the band leader trying to figure out the economics of the gig.” 

Of course, it wasn’t until the creation of the bass drum pedal that modern drummers like Moore were able to truly conquer a full drum set. “The bass drum pedal was first kind of popularized or mass produced by William F. Ludwig in 1909 [out of Chicago], but in New Orleans this had already taken hold,” said Director of the New Orleans Jazz Museum Greg Lambousy. 

[Now read: Memphis Memories.]

Lambousy and others credit Dee Dee Chandler, an early jazz drummer, as being one of the first to truly master the bass drum pedal, allowing the drummer to play the bass with one foot, thereby freeing up both his hands to focus on snare, tom, cymbals, and whatever other percussion a particular gig might require. Chandler crudely concocted the earliest iterations of the bass drum pedal out of wood, rope, and in one case a piece of a milk carton from the grocery store where he worked. Though Chandler’s pedal would have doubtlessly been difficult to play, other musicians of his time realized the benefit of freeing up both hands, and other drumming innovators in New Orleans like Warren “Baby” Dodds and Paul Barbarin (who played drums for Louis Armstrong) were quick to adapt and improve upon the design. By the beginning of the twentieth century, bass drum pedals were becoming a standard feature for every jazz band in the city. 

In any music venue prior to the twentieth century, multiple percussionists would share the stage, each playing a single drum, rather than one musician commanding an entire set. It was not until near the end of the 1800s, in New Orleans, that percussionists playing jazz and its predecessor ragtime would begin to innovate ways of combining their instruments, allowing one drummer to play multiple drums and cymbals at the same time.

Though Dodds claimed to not like the sock cymbal—two cymbals clashed together by a foot pedal—he did allegedly contribute to its invention. William Ludwig was traveling aboard the steamboat on which Dodds worked; he traced the drummer’s foot and used that measurement to manufacture the cymbal’s pedal. Ludwig’s sock cymbal allowed a drummer to focus primarily on playing the tom and snare with his hands while playing bass and cymbals with his feet, finally allowing one drummer to do what only a decade prior might have been the job of four. Dodds and other New Orleans drummers eventually made their way up to Chicago after the jazz venues of Storyville were shut down, bringing with them their new methods and the intricate beats they were now able to master with all four limbs. 

For many modern drummers, this original setup used by jazz musicians continues to be the most practical way of arranging their kits. “I think I was about 16 or 17 when I realized that playing jazz would make me a better drummer in any realm I wanted to head into,” said Galactic’s Stanton Moore. “I started to fall in love with jazz, and it’s become a large part of what I do. In setting up the drums I wanted to be able to navigate between jazz and funk and rock and whatever I decided to do without greatly changing my set up, so that it would always kind of feel comfortable no matter what style of music I was playing or what genre I was playing in.” 

That’s the beauty of the drum set, from its inception until now: each setup is as individual as the drummer behind it, able to evolve and adapt with its musician. “For me personally, I like to have it evolve around the four-piece kit, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not valid to set it up completely different ways,” said Moore. “But I’m sure we’ll be seeing people trying different things in the future.” 

And what better place for musical innovation than New Orleans? 

Baby Dodds’ drum set is currently on display in the New Orleans Jazz Museum, and Lambousy is planning a full exhibit on the origins of the drum set sometime in 2018. nolajazzmuseum.org. 

Stanton Moore’s new album, “With You In Mind: The Songs of Allen Toussaint,” features Cyril Neville, Maceo Parker, Trombone Shorty, and many other New Orleans musicians and is available now at stantonmoore.com.