JIM DAVIDSON— DRUMMER

Radio Record, Volume VII, Issue 46, 24 May 1935, Page 13

JIM DAVIDSON— DRUMMER

-JIM DAVIDSON, head, front, leader and driving force of the A.B.C. Dance Band, has a thoroughly classical precedent for directing his band from the drums-no less a musical genius than Hector Berlioz once took up the drum-sticks to lend the needed verve to his hair-raising "Symphonie Tantastique.’ Jim must be Austraiia’s premier drummer. A jazz band often plays without the orthodox baton-~wag-gler, but it has to be trained. Jim declares "the drums are the spine of the modern dance band, because the drum keeps the rhythm, and rhythm is the spine of dance music." The following is the main equipment: --A big bass drum that goes Bomp!

and a snare that whirrs under the two sticks; and pedal tympaniji. These tympanii drums are not like the ordinary copper boilers you see them screwing viciously at symphony concerts to raise or lower the pitch suddenly. They are pedal controlled, their range is an octave and you can tune them immediately to any semi-tone within that octave. , Then there is the vibraphone, like a marimba, but with an electric motor controlling fans, which regulate the vibrations in each steel resonator, producing a "vox humana" effect, from one to four and even more pulsations of tone per second. Also the set of carhe-~ | fral chimes, played like o piano, and not as in the old style, with a mallet, These can be played only slowly, since. the tone takes some time to evaporate, and they are extremely colourful in slow waltzes. ; Add to all the above-mentioned a set of borgoes, one pair of marcassas, one pair of claves, and a guiros, which resembles a dried-out bean, with a serrated edge, which is scraped with a beater of fine wire-all these are used for South American music. Then'there are the Chinese temple blocks for Oriental effects, and the tom-toms. which give the African negroid flavouring, ~ Cyclone whistles, cow-bells, doublerattles, ete., ete, round off a whole lorry-load of valuable gear that goes to constitute the implements of the modern dance orchestra-the usual trumpets, trombones, saxophones, basses, piano, ete., enjoy the alliance of the most unusual collection of effects to be seen away from any London, American or Continental cabaret.