Great musician...dead & gone.

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Great musician...dead & gone.

Postby Royal » Wed Dec 01, 2010 3:24 pm

Martin Drew, jazz drummer, born 11 February 1944; died 29 July 2010

In his autobiography, the Canadian jazz virtuoso Oscar Peterson described the drummer Martin Drew, who has died aged 66 after a sudden heart attack, as "a very happy-go-lucky, joke-quoting person, who has a special dedication to music". With those words, Peterson captured the essence of Drew's personality and character, defining the qualities that prompted the pianist to engage the drummer to work with his trio. Drew was loquacious, with a penchant for downbeat, Jewish-style humour. On the bandstand, however, he was utterly committed to the music, to making it the very best it could be.

To see Drew sitting low behind the uplifted cymbals, his face a picture of creative pain (or was it ecstasy?) while experiencing his "monster swing" was one of the defining pleasures of British jazz. At the Swanage jazz festival, Dorset, in mid-July, he was featured with the alto saxophonist Peter King's new quartet, prompting King to share his (short-lived) delight that Drew had agreed to join the group, making it "the best rhythm section I've yet had", as he told the writer Jack Massarik.

Drew was born in Peterborough, where his family had been evacuated during the second world war, and took to the drums early on, his desire to play fuelled by three years of lessons from George Fierstone, then a leading jazz drummer and bandleader. Although he had played gigs as a teenager with Fierstone's band and was in demand as a part-timer for club dates in and around London, it was only in 1973 that Drew felt able to walk away from his day job as a cosmetics salesman and turn professional. Thereafter, his career blossomed, encompassing trio work with the pianists Tony Lee and Eddie Thompson, a lengthy period with the Bebop Preservation Society band led by the pianist Bill LeSage, and a substantial stint with the tenor saxophonist Ronnie Scott, whose quartet he joined in 1974.

Scott augmented the group to a quintet and presented it regularly at his club in Frith Street, where Drew became the house drummer, called on to perform with a litany of star American guests, including the trombonist Frank Rosolino and tenor saxophonists Zoot Sims, Coleman Hawkins and Johnny Griffin (with whom he recorded). It was while playing there with Barbara Thompson's quartet that Drew's fateful association with Peterson began. Headlining at the club, Peterson sat in with Thompson's group and liked what he heard in Drew's playing. In a rare accolade for a home-grown player, Peterson invited Drew in 1974 to join his trio alongside the brilliant bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen.

From then on, Drew lived in the parallel worlds of Peterson and Scott, touring with both but giving precedence to his Peterson engagements, which took him around the world a number of times and allowed him to record extensively with Peterson and others from the Norman Granz jazz stable, including the trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, clarinettist Buddy De Franco and saxophonist Benny Carter. With the addition of the guitarist Joe Pass, the trio became a quartet. Drew was often charged with getting the bassist sober enough to play, but the resulting music was magical. Peterson took time off to recover from a stroke in the early 1990s. When he resumed performing, he again called on Drew and Pedersen to tour.

Referring to his time with the pianist, which came to an end in 2004, Drew explained: "When he calls, I jump. When you work with Oscar, you're only as far away as an airline ticket." Always proud of his accomplishments with Peterson, Drew felt far closer to Scott, whom he described as "a darling man", admiring his playing prowess and chiming with Scott's legendary sense of humour. Their quintet often hit the creative heights, with Drew responding to Scott's desire for "thunder behind him", but sadly, recorded only once, Never Pat a Burning Dog, issued in 1990.

After Scott's death in 1996, Drew toured with the Ronnie Scott Legacy Band, fronted his own trio and worked often with Scott's pianist John Critchinson before forming his highly popular New Couriers band. As he told me, complaining that work was short: "Me, I just want to play the drums. I thought if I fix my own band, it's got to be me on drums!" Designed to recall the original Jazz Couriers with Scott and Tubby Hayes on tenor saxophones, Drew's unit teamed the saxophonists Nigel Hitchcock and Mornington Lockett. The two men tore into Hayes's originals with fire and relish. When the vibist Jim Hart replaced Hitchcock, the band gained new impetus. Their recordings on the Trio label were an apt summary of their value, with Drew stoking the fires on up-tempo numbers while playing with rare sensitivity on ballads and blues.

The bassist Dave Green, a frequent associate, spoke of Drew as "a great, warm-hearted guy." A devoted family man and intensely proud of his children's achievements, Drew is survived by his wife Tessa, his daughters, Danielle and Michelle, his son, Jason, and three granddaughters, Gemma, Amy and Lauren.

• Martin Drew, jazz drummer, born 11 February 1944; died 29 July 2010
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