I just realized I had forgotten that I have the book "Jazz - A History Of The New York Scene", by Samual B. Charters and Leonard Kunstadt also.

I'll keep looking for brushe info. If you think of something else that I can check for you, feel free to ask! I am looking forward to seeing what you uncover.

The book above mentions Gilmore on page 33 “Buddy Gilmore, traps and drums” in reference to Europe’s band (1913?) There is a reference to Gilmore on page 38 also. They were mentioning a recording session with Europe’s orchestra that was supervised by Vern and Irene Castle (the dancers) in 1914.

Here is a quote: “The first record, “Castle Rock”, is dominated by the rhythm drumming of Buddy Gilmore, the first jazz drummer in the modern sense of the word. His drumming now sounds monotonous and heavy, but for 1914 he was sensational. He was a featured part of the entertainment at Castle House, using a drum set that included not only snare and bass drums but an assortment of cymbals, woodblocks, and cowbells. Vernon was so impressed with him that he took lessons from Buddy and finally began sponsoring afternoon drum battles between Buddy and other drummers playing with Europe orchestras.”

Now this is gold:

"The softer the band played, the better Mutt played. The drummer used sandpaper, there being no wire brushes at that time. You could hear every instrument. They seemed to blend better than the average band nowadays. Whenever the band became noisy, Mutt would look back and sideways and say, "Sh, sh," meaning get down softer. That didn't stop them from swinging. Some cats can't swing soft."

Preston Jackson talking about Mutt Carey in Hear Me Talkin' To Ya: The Story of Jazz As Told By the Men Who Made It, a 1955 book by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff.

This backs up the claim made in the info linked-to in post 14:

"Drummers began to use brushes (which were fly-swatters before being mass-produced by the drum companies) in Dixieland music, emulating the sound of sandpaper blocks rubbed together, a popular dance effect used by minstrel show and vaudeville show drummers."

...and the info in the book I linked-to on the last page (3 & 4 down):

Link

More investigating to do about this, I'll keep you posted.

As has been noted, brooms were used for sweeping percussion sounds way back when. So what the heck is this photo from 1887 of? Can anybody tell me what the folks in this photo do? The photo comes from a school archives site. Please, let's not highjack Gerry's thread with humorous responses!

Here’s the link: http://www.departments.dsu.edudsuarchiveshistcalendar.htm

Hey, Gerry,

I answered your question about the earliest jazz recording with brushes on the Red Hot Jazz BB, but thought I mention it here, too, for the edification of those on this BB.

As far as I can tell, the first use of brushes is by Chauncey Morehouse on The Georgians 1923 recording "Land of Cotton Blues." The Georgians was the "band within a band" of Paul Specht's Orchestra. In Dick Sudhalter's book "Lost Chords" he mentions this track might also be the earliest recorded drum solo.

There's several videos on Daily Motion of a band including Morehouse, doing transcriptions of some of Bix's recordings. Here's the link for "Since My Best Gal Turned Me Down" http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18jui_bob-wilber-since-my-best-girl_music

These videos are from 1975.

Cheers,

Chris Tyle

Chris, many thanks for your input. I'll check out "land Of Cotton Blues" and the links you provided.

Also, thanks for alerting me to all the replies at redhot: I sent a reply but it hasn't been posted yet so presumably it has to be vetted by a mod first.

I've been busy researching all this in greater detail and have unearthed a huge amount of info - too much to post here - but all fascinating stuff (to me at any rate).

One thing that is worth mentioning, as it should interest the drum historians here, is that there was nothing different except for the fact that Ludwig & Ludwig missed out Allis & Weins 'fan-spreading' mechanism. It was for this reason that Allis failed in a 1928 court case against Ludwig & Ludwig for patent infringement. Despite the obvious similarities, there were previous patents for telescopic brushes - albeit different in form and function - and the spreading mechanism was the only unique thing about Allis & Wein's fly killer...so his claim was dismissed. He must have been as sick as a parrot! Incidentally, according to the court summary, even Allis (by then) was marketing his fly-killer, predominantly, as a 'drum beater'.

Gerry - Thanks for the update about this, and Allis & Weins and their marketing ploy! Please keep sharing this with us here. You are doing some hard work on this and it deserves to be seen.Clapping Happy2

If patents were anything like copyrights I would guess the duration would have been for close to a life time. If I recall correctly, up until the 1970s copyrights were for a duration of 75 years so I think patents would be similar. With the patent dates of these early swatters (1899 etc.) a few decades probably wasn’t enough for it to be “Public Domain” by 1922-3. I'm thinking Allis might not have had a big enough business to support his case.

Gerry - On the lighter side! After listening to hear the brushes in those old recordings with all the surface hissing, I'm starting to think the use of brushes developed back then so the live performance sounded more like the record!Mind BlowiLaughing H

510, in the late 80s I played a guitarist friend some Keith Jarrett and told him to listen out for Paul Motian's brush work. This guy was a total metal head and didn't know what I was talking about. He said (in all seriousness) he couldn't hear the drums because my record was so scratched...bloody metal-heads!

Re patents, I'm pretty sure that they're not like copyright law and that they have to be renewed pretty regularly. Can't remember what the time span is, though. Regardless, someone has to make a claim and nobody except Allis bothered.

I googled Louis Allis the other day and the company he founded is still around and a big-wheel in manufacturing, so I doubt his livelihood depended on the outcome of the hearing. Even though, it must have p*ssed him off every time he saw a drummer using brushes...especially with Ludwig's name on the handle! I bet the lawyers made a bundle, which is all that matters at the end of the day...

Whoops, that should have been Allis and Wiens in my previous post.

Well, I listened to Land of Cotton Blues and it does sound like brushes used for the drum break:

http://www.redhotjazz.com/georgians.html

Not really swishy, more like a tap-dancer's rhythms...which goes back to the ragtime practice of using sand-blocks to imitate sand dancers. Thanks for that Chris!

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauncey_Morehouse