Jazz Drummer - Phil Seamen matched grip

treeinrock
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Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2010 8:29 pm

Jazz Drummer - Phil Seamen matched grip

Postby treeinrock » Wed May 14, 2014 4:37 pm

Check this guy out. Apparently he was the leading drum mentor in England - pre-rock 'n roll. Ginger Baker was one of his students apparently.

Phil Seamen. Short drum solo at the end.


and...... he plays matched grip.

Does anyone else know more about him ?
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Mark P
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Re: Jazz Drummer - Phil Seamen matched grip

Postby Mark P » Thu May 15, 2014 8:31 am

Phil was a very widely respected British drummer.

I once saw Ginger Baker (horrid, awful cretin) get into a fight over the fact that someone had omitted mentioning Phil in a tribute he wrote about Ginger's favourite players. (He was of course, wrong, and Phil had been included in the tribute all along...) Both Ginger and Phil really, really liked heroin.

Fantastic player, and a mentor to lots of (now very established) British session cats.

I have lots of friends who know him and loved him, although I'm too young to have ever encountered him myself.
I'll try to point some of them in the direction of this board and see if they can't contribute to this thread.

MP
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nomsgmusic
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Re: Jazz Drummer - Phil Seamen matched grip

Postby nomsgmusic » Thu May 15, 2014 10:09 am

Phil released a "unique" LP of him talking about drums, music, etc... called "The Phil Seaman Story." It's sort of like an English version of Papa Jo Jones' "The Drums," there is playing and talking. When you listen to it it sounds like Ginger did learn ALOT (!!!) (maybe too much) from his "mentor." I see the relationship between Phil and his disciples as being similar to Papa Jo and his many disciples (or as Papa Jo called them his "kiddies.") I am in NO way comparing their overall musical influence! But also upon listening, it seems that Phil and Papa Jo seemed to be cut from the same cloth.

I have listened to Phil's playing (3 tunes) with Victor Feldman, which was good. However, there are many others (from the same era) that I would rather listen to. There is a Proper Box (4CD's) of a great deal (maybe all?) of Phil's work, I have not heard it, but would imagine it would be worth investigating. It might even include the "entertaining" Phil Seaman story. I had a nice conversation with Charlie Watts about Phil (and many other things,) I forget what Charlie's take on Phil was though. But I do seem to remember that there were other jazz drummers that he would rather talk about.

MSG

And if you want to hear GREAT jazz drummer from around that same era that played matched grip, listen to Tiny Khan!!!!
[url][/url]bluejayrecords.com/drumatic
[url][/url]vicfirth.com/artists/mark_griffith.html

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