"He is a VERY VERY nice gentleman, who bought it in NYC in 1982 at a well-known specialty shop for jazz drums ( I forgot the name) which has since gone out of business."

From Manny's perhaps? or Adlers? or Frank Ippolito's Drum shop? Maybe Drummer's World? Lots of drum stores in NYC back in the day. All gone now.

Very nice find. Worth waiting for.

I'd be happy to call a 20" weighing 2260g a Medium Ride.

Enjoy, you've got a nice versatile setup there which should do anything you require of it.

Nice addition to a beautiful setup. Well done.

Mike

Beautiful kit sir!

Very nice all the way around! Congrats on the cymbal, shes a beauty!

Thank you everyone. Again showing the kindness of this forum.

I emailed the seller asking for the story of my cymbal as I like to print this stuff up and keep it with the kit for posterity. I thought all of you real drummers would love hearing it. I should probably try to get him to join this forum. Anyway, here is his tale in its entirety:

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"I'd be glad to tell you how I got the cymbal and I can elaborate on it a little more.

In the early 1980's, I used to go to a jazz club in Harlem right near Columbia University called the West End Cafe. They had small jazz groups made up from surviving members of the Count Basie and Duke Ellington bands of the 1930's and 40's. These were the finest jazz big bands of all time. The musicians were pretty old, but they were still great and I'm so lucky I got to see them perform.

On Tuesday nights, the great original Count Basie drummer Jo Jones led a group at the West End. Probably the most influential drummer of all time. He was the first drummer to keep time on the hi hat and the father of modern drumming. Jo Jones, called Papa Jo Jones, was Father Time. Forget metronomes and click tracks. His sense of time was so natural and so swinging. No one can swing on the hi hat like he did, and I also loved the way his ride cymbal sounded.

Anyway, there was a chubby older white guy who used to help Jo with his drum set. Turns out he worked at Frank Ippolito's drum shop on 48 st. It was not a mass market store—it was for drummers only. That was where all the big time drummers stopped by when they were playing in New York. They bought anything they needed there. It wasn't unusual to see Elvin Jones or other drummers hanging around the shop. I saw Roy Haynes there.

Anyway, I was talking with this guy who helped Jo Jones and he said he could get me a used cymbal that had a Jo Jones sound. It was 1982— I met him at Frank Ippolito's and he showed me a 20" A Zildjian made in the 1960's [EDIT: I think it is an early 70's, but I would never correct him to be polite]. It was an A Zildjian (made in America) but it had the mellower sound of a K Zildjian (at the time, they were made in Turkey). And it did have a Jo Jones sound, so I bought it.

That is how I acquired the cymbal, which you in turn acquired from me in March, 2015!"

The very nice previous owner describes the sound as mellow, and my untrained ear tends to agree. I can only compare it to the much heavier/thicker Planet Z which came with my kit. The vintage ride "washes" out and doesn't ring like a bell, a hell of a lot of nuance which the Planet Z completely lacks. I am sort of leaning how to play ride again, haha. A different animal. You have to be a little more gentle with it. I tried to describe the difference to my brother over the phone, was hard to do. In a way, if you took the vintage ride and the Planet Z and imagined their sounds having a "graphic EQ", the vintage cymbals ultra ultra high frequencies are MUCH greater. It can sound delicate, whereas the Planet Z was almost like a cow bell no matter where (or how) you hit it.

Really cool story and nice looking cymbal. Can you post a pic of the stamp?

Gary

Hi Gary,

Here ya go, this is the best pic I have. I am not really great at this, so any help ID'ing it would be great.

[img]http://www.latesixtieslespauls.com/lpf/ridelogo.jpg[/img]