Art of Drumming Featuring Joe Porcaro Emil Richards

With the passing of studio great Joe Porcaro, we've gone back into the vault for his November 1994 Modernistic Drummer characteristic, in which we learned well-nigh his path to the acme of the L.A. studio scene, and got an within view of what it was like during the heyday of live soundtrack piece of work.

Joe Porcaro can still recall the nighttime before his first big 50.A. session, laying in bed, staring at the ceiling the whole night through. It was a tape engagement for Nancy Sinatra. Who knew what would be thrown at him the next morn? Information technology was twenty-six years ago, but Porcaro notwithstanding remembers the fears he had, such as whether he would be confronted with a tough mallet function. As it happened, he played orchestra bells, tambourine, and timps, and all went fine.

He shouldn't have been concerned. Porcaro had been preparing since he was six years old, accompanying his dad—a office-time snare drummer in an Italian symphonic ring in Connecticut—to gigs. In drum-and-bugle corps, Porcaro played the drum cadence in betwixt the songs during the fiestas for the Saints. At eight, he began to take reading lessons from the conductor of that band, and the clarinet histrion taught him near time signatures and note values. To pay for lessons, Porcaro shined shoes outside a pool room, zeroing in on the winners he knew would tip him well.

Porcaro also had a few lessons with a pit drummer from a local theater, and he participated in a Catholic Youth Organisation band with his friend Emil Richards. But all of this was a prelude to the serious studying that followed when he came in contact with Al Lepak and Hartt College.

While learning the nuts and bolts with Lepak, Porcaro and the instructor became very close, with Lepak even inviting Joe to nourish rehearsals with him. At seventeen Porcaro was asked to exist the tertiary percussionist with the Hartford Symphony. Interestingly enough, Joe, who however feels his mallet playing is junior to his proficiency on other instruments, ended up taking over the mallet chair in the symphony when Emil Richards was drafted. (Joe then finally bought an onetime xylophone to woodshed!)

Jazz exploded in Porcaro's life effectually this time, and being just ii hours from New York, the teenager traveled to Birdland to sit in the bleachers. It wasn't long before he was packing upwards quickly at the symphony rehearsals to make information technology to his gig as house drummer at the local jazz club.

Between those two jobs and his weekend stint playing at a Greek eatery, Joe was becoming an proficient at odd meters. "Playing in the symphony orchestra and in chamber groups," Porcaro recalls, "we did pieces like Stravinsky's 'Les Noces' and '50'Histoire du Soldat'—which are both in odd times. Information technology'south one of the best challenges for a percussionist. I also performed Bartok's 'Sonata for Ii Pianos and Percussion,' which also has a lot of odd-time playing. In the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, we did 'The Rite of Spring' and I played the 2nd timpani function. And at the Greek restaurant, where they had some great abdomen dancers, all their music was in seven, nine, eleven, or thirteen. If I was playing in nine and lost it, I would never hear the end of it from those girls." [laughs]

One summer, percussionist Emil Richards, who was doing well in the L.A. studio scene, returned to Connecticut on holiday. He planted the seed in Porcaro's listen. Joe visited Emil out in L.A. to encounter what doing sessions actually consisted of, and by the finish of the week, Joe told himself that, with the exception of mallets, he could handle the studios. So Porcaro went dorsum to Connecticut and spent a twelvemonth working on mallets before packing upward his wife and four kids—Jeff, Mike, Steve, and Joleen—and moving west.

It was the right conclusion. Through recommendation and power, Porcaro'south session work as drummer/percussionist began nearly immediately, and information technology hasn't slowed much since. In fact, his career in music has been impressive: He has worked with near every important composer in Hollywood; he'due south written 2 pulsate books, Joe Porcaro Drumset Method and Odd Times—A New Approach to Jazz, Latin and Stone; he'due south co-manager at the Percussion Institute of Engineering science in Hollywood; and he's currently involved in a pair of businesses that marketplace drumsticks and instrument covers.

Nevertheless a first-call percussionist for film and TV, Porcaro knows that his experience and thirst for knowledge is responsible. He still finds fourth dimension to play in jazz clubs once a calendar month, and he is well-known as a man who loves to improve at his craft.

MD: Practise you remember anything about doing your first Goggle box session, Daktari?

Joe: I was very impressed that Shelly Manne, a drummer I had admired all my life, was too the composer.

Physician: Were you nervous?

Joe: I was nervous as all hell. When studio players go to work, they're a bit on edge.

MD: Are you always a footling on border?

Joe: Non always, although I call up it's healthy to take that piffling edge. It keeps you sharp.

MD: What did y'all know about click tracks?

Joe: I had never worked with a click track up until then.

MD: So you walked into the first session and were met with a click track?

Joe: Right. [laughs] I got used to it pretty quickly. I had dealt with metronomes before, just this was a niggling dissimilar considering you're listening to a click and following a usher. Of course, non everything was on click. A lot of studio work is done to timing, so the conductor has a big clock upward there. There's a timing sheet showing how long a cue has to be, and the usher knows how many beats per minute information technology should be. Shelly Manne had expert time, and he worked very well with a timing clock.

There's a funny story about Shelly and how we became friends. I had been giving my son Jeff lessons every week when he was immature, and before I knew information technology, he was showing me some hip stuff. I'll never forget one day I was doing a Mancini engagement at Universal. I was playing percussion and Shelly was the drummer. I was writing something down when Shelly came over and said, "What are you doing?" I said, "I'm putting together some stuff with rudiments." And he said, "You don't need that shit. Who the hell uses rudiments?" I said, "Well, these stone drummers are coming up with some hip stuff, Shelly. My son showed me a thing with paradiddles that's pretty hip." He politely said, "Aw, get lost."

Then Mancini said, "Shelly, I desire you lot to become this locomotive affair these drummers are getting into on the hi-hat." Shelly tried and was scuffling with information technology, trying to play 16th notes with one hand. Henry was saying, "No, no, that's not information technology." I went over to Shelly and said, "Look, my son showed me this beat out with paradiddles and inverted paradiddles. You won't have to work half as hard as you're working." I wrote downwardly the paradiddle how-do-you-do-hat design where the left hand comes dorsum on the backbeat on ii and 4. It was right, left, correct, right. Left, right, right, left, then you would hear the backbeat on two and you'd ghost the last left hand. Shelly started messing with information technology and he picked information technology upwards right away.

The next fourth dimension we did that cue, Shelly played that blueprint and Henry said, "That'due south it, Shelly. That'due south what I wanted." I don't think he put down rudiments after that, and from and then on I became his all-time friend. In fact, he wrote the introduction to my drum book.

Dr.: Were you primarily playing percussion on these dates?

Joe: I played a lot of drums, as well. At Universal, later on Shelly, I was probably one of the number-one drumset players. It was an interesting time. There was a little era where Jeff met David Hungate and David Paich, and they got hot around town as a rhythm section. They chosen them the Youngbloods. Jeff had been playing at the Studio City Park with the band he had in high schoolhouse, Rural Still Life, and Jules Chaikin, this well-known contractor in town, happened to be there. He heard the band and freaked over the drummer. He went over to Jeff and asked him his name. The very next calendar week, Chaiken came over and said, "I heard your son play last week. He knocked me out. He's a hell of a piffling drummer." Before I knew information technology, the contractors were calling for Jeff.

Physician: Did you lot become to work together?

Joe: When Marty Paich took over Ironside at Universal, it required a real funky rhythm department, then they hired Jeff, Paich, and Hungate to be part of the rhythm section. There's Jeffrey, seventeen years old, playing at Universal with all these heavyweight studio guys.

I remember one solar day Jeff was in the drum booth and I was playing congas on a session for a TV picture. He looked over at me and shook his caput—in other words, maxim, "Dad, this isn't for me." He was very bored on those dates. After that he wouldn't take that kind of studio call. He only enjoyed tape dates. Contractors would encounter me on the date and say, "Why isn't your son taking my dates?" I said, "Hey, he's his own person now." He had an incredible opportunity to get the number-i studio drummer if he wanted to. He didn't desire it.

Doc: That'south an interesting point of discussion—inventiveness in the studio. Do yous experience stimulated?

Joe: That'due south a difficult question because there are so many unlike types of dates. Some of the music wasn't enervating. It had no groove to it. Here'southward a seventeen-year-old child rolling on a cymbal, hitting a triangle.

There'd be maybe four bars of time and that was it. Yous couldn't get too raucous and you had to play existent simple. For me, it was always a challenge coming up with the correct conga beat. With the percussion thing they'd get, "We want some kind of a sound hither. The triangle isn't right. What else tin can we do there? I need a weird sound." It was kind of challenging to put a cymbal on a timp and hit the cymbal and push the pedal downward. Emil Richards has all these instruments you can rent, but when you're on a engagement and they need you to come up upwardly with a weird sound on the spur of the moment, y'all have to get your imagination going.

MD: Tin you think some of the more creative sessions?

Joe: Whatever time I've ever worked with Lalo Schifrin. I played some drums for him on Mission Impossible. That was ever a challenge because there was a lot of playing in five, and I had to come upwards with a vanquish he would be happy with.

MD: Things weren't always necessarily written out?

Joe: Oh, no. I'thousand pretty famous for playing what's not there. [laughs] And I don't hateful it quite like that. You have to be conscientious. There was an era when I was playing a lot of drums, and that was because I would come up up with things they were pretty happy with.

If they wrote in odd times, my experience helped them along. Because of my odd-time feel in drums, if I play congas or any hand percussion, I just transfer my thinking over to that. If I'm playing drums in 5 and I think of some permutations to embellish what I'm playing, I use those same concepts playing hand percussion. If I'm playing congas in five and I see a pattern, what they write is ordinarily pretty bland, so I'll see how far I can go with my own concept. Sometimes I might get likewise far and they'll say, "Hey, that's too decorated." You lot have to be careful. Sometimes it works and you're a hero, and sometimes it's also busy. There were times when I worked for Dave Grusin and I had to tape a tambourine part in seven. Some guys have trouble just playing in vii. On this item moving-picture show I played mostly percussion and timps, but he needed to overdub some rhythm. It was a cue in seven, and I felt good virtually the fact that he was happy with what I came upwardly with. I did all his movies after that.

It is as well creative when you go on a moving-picture show call, and something the composer wrote doesn't work out. The producer will say to the composer, "What the hell were y'all thinking of? This isn't happening for this scene." So the composer comes out and he'south either going to rewrite information technology or say, "Guys, assistance me." He'due south not aback to admit it: "I've got to do something hither; what tin you come up up with?" So you need to ad-lib. And with the tabla stuff, for instance, they'll just requite you what they call a sketch, a skeleton. Some guys will literally write the function out.

MD: Let's take it from the beginning. You get a call, and…

Joe: A contractor gets together with the composer and they figure out the budget and what it calls for. How big an orchestra? How many percussionists? Let's say there are 5, which is virtually boilerplate. Sometimes it's less, but it's been pretty big lately. Let'south say he or she wants Emil Richards, Bob Zimmitti—who's a not bad snare drummer, he and I think the same way—Larry Bunker, myself, and maybe Mike Fisher on electronics. The timpanist is classified by himself because of the way they're writing for timpani lately. He has so much to remember well-nigh, so much timing and piece of work, that they exit him lone as far as percussion. Believe me, he'due south worth every dime he gets. The timpanist usually gets time and a half, sometimes double, because it'south such a demanding chair. Things are not disorganized, somebody has to be the straw boss in the percussion section—"You play this, yous play that, you play that." Let's say information technology'due south Emil Richards. He'll look at the music and say, "Joe, you play snare pulsate. Bob, y'all play congas. Larry, you play vibes. Mike, yous're on electronics." And it goes very smoothly. Whoever is asked to exist the harbinger boss gets time and a half, as well.

Medico: So you lot get the call and information technology tells yous where to be and when.

Joe: The call might be, "MGM, Monday morning time, the 24th, 10:00 a.m., double session," which is 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. The phone call may say, "Joe, you are to bring the instruments"—which means I'one thousand the straw boss—and "Call the copyist." I'll call the Fob Library and say, "This is Joe Porcaro. I need to know what nosotros need for percussion on James Newton Howard's date on Mon the 24th for Wyatt Earp,"and they'll requite me a list of all the instruments nosotros demand.

On the bodily date, I become in that location an hr ahead of time and get all the instruments out. The guys all get in that location, the music is passed out, and I open the book and say, "Okay, on this cue, Bob, you play snare drum. Bunk, I want you to play bass drum." On some other phone call, Larry Bunker will be on timps.

Nosotros just did the adjacent Karate Kid movie for Neb Conti. Emil Richards is ever offset percussionist for him. Unremarkably Larry is on timps, and Pecker likes the way I play tabla and snare drum. For that i, it said tabla. On Huckleberry Finn I did snare drum, which was all this intricate, real repose snare pulsate playing with the trumpets. Certain composers want you for certain things.

Dr.: How much time do y'all accept to wait at your part?

Joe: We arrive at the studio, they pass out the music, I uncover the timps and allow the heads become settled into the room temperature. I open the music and beginning marking how many notes I need to tune and where I have changes. I look at the music and the conductor runs it downwards so the engineer tin get a balance. We run information technology down maybe two or three times, and and then nosotros start recording.

Movies are a lilliputian more relaxed than a television set serial. That's where it can really get hairy. I used to practice shows like I Dream of Jeannie, where inside three hours yous had to record two, sometimes 3 shows. They came in with pounds of music, but they're short cues. We'd run it downwardly in one case and start recording, run down the next cue and record, run down the next cue and record. I think doing some of those I Dream of Jeannie shows where I had to play pretty difficult xylophone parts.

MD: Accept you always been unable to do your role?

Joe: And so far, thank God, I've never been hung for playing a mallet part. Only if I did, I'd but say, "If this was such a difficult part, you called the wrong guy." I don't advertise that I'm a hot mallet player. I can play mallets and I tin play some pretty hard parts, simply hopefully I'm not going to become nailed. I do the best I can. But I don't panic similar I used to. When I first started doing this I thought, "When am I going to get nailed?" Only I never did. Actually, today it's a little easier considering if I blow a part, I can overdub. In that location wasn't as much overdubbing years ago. Simply I've been on some calls where I had to play some xylophone parts and said to myself, "This is it. You're either going to play this or you're out of here." And I did it.

I would put the role in my case, go home, and try to play that part, but at domicile I couldn't exercise it. Something happens to you when you're in the studio with your subconscious—your adrenaline—and you say, "I've got to do this." And you do it. I don't know how I played some of the parts I've had to play.

MD: Do you remember a session where sweat formed on your brow?

Joe: Quite a few. [laughs] At that place were a couple of sessions where I had to play some pretty tough mallet parts, for instance, for the film Mame. Information technology wasn't and then much whether it was a xylophone part or a snare pulsate part that was hard. What was hairy about it was the music in general was so difficult, with all kinds of irresolute meters. When we did The Outlaw Josey Wales and The Wild Bunch with Jerry Fielding, at that place were then many changing meters. I played timps on The Fugitive, a more than current movie, and that was a pretty tough part, again with changing meters all over the place.

When I used to do albums with Toto, originally I would go in there and play tambourine, vibes, a little conga…but all of a sudden, the musicians in the rock bands became very sophisticated. People like Lenny Castro, who is a specialist in sure areas, began to come in. If they want a vibe actor, they go out and get Larry Bunker or Emil Richards.

I think one of the well-nigh pressured moments I ever had was overdubbing for Jeff and David Paich. Guys like that and James Newton Howard are so finicky about the time. If y'all play on top, they observe it in ii seconds. I might retrieve I was right with the click, but they could say I'd have to nonetheless hold back. Before Jeff passed away, I overdubbed on "Jake to the Os." That melody was in 7, and Jeff wanted me to play muffled bong plates. These are steel plates, and I played them with triangle beaters. And then I had to play tabla on a ballad. Everybody would leave the room and information technology would exist just Jeff and me in the studio until things got pretty tight. Then Paich would walk in, which made it more intense. Those were some pretty scary moments.

On the album before that, The 7th 1, we did "Mushanga." It was rare that they used me on congas, but Jeff wanted me to play congas and squeeze drum on that rail. It was a pretty hip rhythm, like an African type of thing. Information technology was but Jeff and me. He wanted to see what it sounded like with congas, so I started playing and he said, "Hey, that's pretty decent, let'south continue it. I desire y'all to practice it." "You sure you lot don't want to await for Lenny?" "No, no, you lot practise it."

Then there was the night I was doing Blood In and Blood Out with Bill Conti when Jeff passed away. I was playing tabla when the stagehand came over and tapped me on the shoulder and said I needed to call my daughter immediately. I knew something was seriously wrong because he wouldn't take come over right in the heart of a take. I thought something had happened to my wife—why would my daughter be calling? I went to the phone and came back and explained they had only rushed Jeff to the infirmary. The contractor said, "Nosotros need one more take on that." Nosotros were and so close and it was just a 40-second cue. It was hard in the respect that I was playing tabla and I had to play with a click runway. There wasn't anything to read except bar lines; I was advertizement-libbing what he asked for—a hip rhythmic part. And so I did ane more take and jumped in the auto. That was crazy. To be honest with yous, I was probably in shock. I didn't fifty-fifty know what I was doing.

Doc: Can you think of whatsoever lessons—musically or politically—that yous've learned along the way?

Joe: If you get along with people and don't accept an attitude, you can make it in the business. Merely you lot practise have to be a dandy actor. Musicians are a commodity. There are guys who get on the phone and hustle themselves. I couldn't practise that, but there's nil wrong with being a skillful competitor. You don't take to exist malicious or step on everyone's toes while you lot're blowing your own horn. Go seen, get to know people, and be the all-time at what you do.

Interview by Robyn Flans

Photos by Michael Bloom

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Source: https://www.moderndrummer.com/2020/07/remembering-joe-porcaro-november-1994-feature/

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