The record changer (Feb-Dec 1948)

reminiscing in tempo" sonny greer, drums For almost three decades Duke Ellington has been leading a band that has undeniably been a consistent source of exciting, important, experimental, music. The style, the reputation, the personnel of the band have shifted constantly but for twentyeight consecutive years there always has been in existence an Ellington-led unit — which is obviously the all-time record for big band jazz. And for all those 28 years the same quiet, dapper little guy has been backing up the rhythm section. On every Ellington record date, at every dance and concert, it's always been Sonny Greer on drums. Down through the years the Ellington band's personnel has featured an endless stream of top-rank jazzmen : men like Bubber Miley, Arthur Whetsel, Freddie Jenkins, Cootie Williams, Rex Stewart, Lawrence Brown, "Tricky Sam" Nanton, Juan Tizol, Johnny Hodges, Barney Bigard, Ben Webster, Harry Carney. Even with that tremendous assortment of solo talent, and the Duke himself, in the spotlight positions, it's still hard to understand why a solid and consistently tasteful musician like Greer has always been one of the most thoroughly unpublicized and under-rated drummers in jazz. But Sonny is quite willing to admit that being under-rated is probably largely his own fault. It just happened that a long time ago in Washington he met a fellow named Ellington whose ideas about music he understood and liked. They were ideas that called for unison and form in band jazz, and Greer has always disdained sensational and exhibitionist drumming. So he's gone along from the very beginning as a key figure in the Ellington rhythm section, pacing the ensemble drive, filling in around and behind solos. And apparently feeling that his is the way drums should be played and that he's an important cog in a great band — it's hard to think of any other reason for a man holding down the same job for 28 years in as shifting a business as big-band jazz. Sonny's entry into jazz, and the formation of the Ellington Washingtonians, are the result of a fascinating series of accidents and coincidences. William Greer (he doesn't recall how he came to be called "Sonny") was born in Long Branch, N. J., forty-six years ago, of a totally nonmusical family, and as he tells it, he became a musician because it was the easiest way to get some free time. by orrin keepnews "I was in high school, and my German teacher happened also to be the leader of the school orchestra. I noticed all the free time and liberty the boys in the band were getting, so I decided to join them. I looked things over and found that the drummer was the worst one in the band." A friend, "Peggy" Holland, was drummer in a band with, which J. Rosmond Johnson (later of the Hall-Johnson Choir) was touring vaudeville circuits. He taught Sonny some rudiments — the only formal musical education he has ever had — and Greer became the school drummer. (Ironically enough, now that the Duke is off to Europe for a six-weeks' tour, without the orchestra, Sonny is looking forward to his first "free time" in more than half his life.) After graduation he turned professional, playing club dates and in pit bands, mostly with one of seven or eight units run by a fellow named Yerkes. Then some friends, a vaudeville team known as the Conway Trio, invited him to visit Washington, D. C, with them. "I went for a week-end and stayed for years. There was a Cuban band playing at the Howard Theater. The drummer took sick and I replaced him, and stayed on, doubling between the Howard and nightclubs— I had a singing, dancing and drumming act." There were a lot of musicians around Washington in those days : Claude Hopkins, Whetsel, Otto Hardwick. Ellington wasn't a professional then. "He had a college degree as a commercial illustrator, just a good guy on the loose who hung out with musicians." As a note for historians, Greer spikes the story that the Duke began his professional career with an engagement at the Poodle Dog Cafe in Washington. "He was still an amateur when he sat in there." The start of Ellington's professional career seems to have been strictly accidental. Fats Waller had a band on the Hurdick and Seeman burlesque circuit, but there was "some sort of disagreement" and the outfit broke up in Washington. This left Clarence Robinson, the booker and producer (who was later to produce several of the Cotton Club shows) with a theater date to fill in New York, and no band to fill it with. "I was the only man in town whom he knew very well," Sonny recalls, so Robinson asked him to get together a small outfit. Greer quickly gathered together some available men : Ellington, Whetsel on trumpet, Hardwick on sax, and came on to New York, where they added Charlie Irvis, on trombone, and went over to 'play at the circuit's local theater, which is now the Apollo. "But when we showed up, they wouldn't give us the job. They wouldn't take us on because no one had ever heard of us and they wanted some 'names.' " With this most inauspicious start, the Washingtonians were born. This was in 1920. Then followed a short period of scuffling around for occasional jobs; "I wouldn't say that we had 'hardships,' " says Sonny, "but we certainly had 'adventures.' " Ellington took over leadership, by default ("Why should I want all that grief") and finally they were booked into the Club Kentucky. And as Sonny puts it: "The rest is just stock stuff. Everybody knows all about the rest." Actually, "the rest" is a fascinating mass of anecdotes, of travels all over this country and Europe, some of which has been told in Barry Ulanov's book on Ellington, but the full, start-to-finish inside story of which is known only to Sonny and the Duke. "But the Duke has been so wrapped up in the music and in running the band that he wouldn't recall half the stories — and they're stories that read like fiction." So Greer is now making serious plans for writing his own book, a full story of the band and the jazz greats he has played with. Musically, Sonny admits to being influenced by no other drummer in particular, has no strange tricks or mannerisms to his style. He is emphatic, though, about the role of drums in the band, refusing to name any record as his best. "A drummer shouldn't stand out. A drum solo can be a pretty stupid thing — an experienced drummer can take a solo and do it with taste, but I can't see any point in mugging and jumping around." He finds the changes in the band's style through the years to be natural and logical. "We have the same sort of approach to the music as always. It's just that a man — and a band, too — go through different experiences, live in different times than twenty years ago, and changes in style come naturally from that. It wouldn't make sense to be playing exactly the same now as twentyfive years ago. I've made three or four thousand records with the band, and under my own name (Sonny Greer's Memphis Men) and naturally there's a lot of difference between the first ones and the recent (Continued on Page 26) 14 THE RECORD CHANGER