Okay, so I still have two red sparkle Jazzette kits -a 1967 and a 1969

Years ago, I wrote an article for Not So Modern Drummer Magazine about the Ludwig Jazzette kit. I learned a lot in my research and one of the things that kept standing out to me, was the fact that Bud Slingerland and Bill Ludwig had a healthy competitive rivalry that included acquiring the most popular drummers of the day, as endorsers.

Now, as the story goes, around 1965, Roy Haynes (who was one of THE names in the world of jazz drumming, at the time -and a Slingerland endorser), bought an Alpha Romeo sports car and, in order to fit his kit into that car, he modified his Slingerland 18 X 14 bass drum by changing out the resonant side wood hoop for an 18" tom tom hoop and replaced the T-rods, as well....in doing so, cut about 2" off the overall depth. He kept the batter side wood hoop so he could attach the pedal to it.

Sometime around 1965, Slingerland came up with the "Jet" kit -which utilized Roy's metal, tom tom rim bass drum idea and a special pedal attachment thingy to allow both ends of the bass drum to have the rims.

But sometime that year, Haynes jumped ship and began endorsing Ludwig...and, in that transition, the Ludwig Jazzette was born -as I contend, to fulfill Haynes' request for shallower bass drum. As we know, Ludwig just shortened the shell by 2" and kept the traditional wood hoop/T-rod aesthetic.

The 1967 catalog was the first to show the Jazzette kit as a sale item. But, I recently stumbled onto this rare video of Roy playing a (what appears to be) a Mahogany Jazzette kit in a 1966 concert in Europe. Check it out:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07HBRUwPj7I"]Roy Haynes: Extendend Drum Solo - 1966 - YouTube[/ame]

Interestingly. once Hayne left Slingerland, the Jet kit never became popular and was relegated to the "Oh well!" pile and subsequently discontinued (making them exceedingly rare, today, btw!)

Cheers!