Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today we are joined I guess for the last time of this series by mr. Paul Wells Paul welcome back. Thank you Bart. It's great to be here again Yes, so people watching this I'm assuming they've they've learned that we have kind of switched the order around on them We've kind of talked a lot about pretty much in every episode. We screwed up the order as we discussed it We said part two would be symbols. It's now part four. So Garrison was on part three You have not seen that yet because I recorded it two days ago Yeah at the time of recording this but it's awesome. You'll enjoy it when it comes out. Thanks to Garrison for doing that. Yeah, so today's the big one because Tony is famous for his symbols Yes, and a lot of other things his drumming but his symbols kind of live in infamy on their own So indeed got a lot to talk about so I know you wanted to talk about some other stuff that you From the previous episodes, whatever you want to do first. Why don't we hop in? Yeah, thank you. So this happened when we did the Neil episodes that We did the episodes and either I realized after we filmed them that I forgot something so in like part two I had some things to add from part one, but also some some awesome people commented on Part one and part two so far and have brought some things to light But also in the in the week since we did them I've been doing some more research and found out a few extra things So I wanted to amend a couple of things and actually leave if there was something that and actually very Big a mission that I left out of I guess it would have been it should have been in part two where we talked about backline kits There's a very famous one that I just somehow completely forgot to talk about so But before I get to that I want to talk about I want to rewind to 1971 1972 and there was some question about The kit or kits that you see in various photos and videos from 71 and 72 where where Tony was Touring with various bands his own band and then this other band with John like Ponty and Stanley Clark We actually discovered if I if I'm remembering correctly when we were talking about this kit from 1971 and these photos taken by a Photographer young person person in Copenhagen as we are talking I think we noticed that this bass drum actually has 10 lugs per head Which is very unusual and I still think that that's an 18 inch bass drum But very very unusual for an 18 inch bass drum from Gretch to have 10 lugs per head Gretch had I think at some point maybe no actually they still make 20s with so they're 16 inch 18 inch and 20 inch bass drums all have eight lugs per head And it's not so you get to 22 inch bass drums that you see 10 lugs per head But this is a certainly smaller than a 22 and you see one two three four five six seven eight nine ten And now you do see that with Gretch 18s when somebody has converted a floor tom because by the mid 70s Gretch floor toms in the 18 inch size Gretch 18 inch floor toms had 10 lugs per head But that's sort of even mid 70s. I believe or at least It's not really in this time frame. So who knows why he had all those extra yet two extra lugs But what's important about this is that it makes us it makes it clear that this next kit from 72 Is actually a different kit and we thought maybe he had cleaned up like he had he had you know An artist or somebody had done all these designs on his 71 kit And maybe he you know sort of cleared them up and had a clean You know version of the same kit But this is actually a different kit because or certainly a different bass drum because this is an eight lug per head Bass drum. Yeah, now it's a little hard to see in this photo And in fact all of the photos I have from the 72 kit But there is a lot of video footage of this kit. There are a couple of extensive videos of him in 72 that you can see including one where he's doing a lot of duets with Art Blakey that is very very cool and You could see lots of great shots from the front of the kit and you can see that it's Probably an 18 inch bass drum with eight lugs per head. So different kit Also, I have since seen and I'm afraid I don't have screenshots of it prepared But again, you can go on YouTube and look at these I have since seen color videos from 71 where you can definitely see that this kit in 71 is a natural maple finish kit and There also is now there's color footage from one song from the 1972 concert with Jean-Luc Ponti and Stanley Clark that is in color And it's not a colorized video. It's actually the actual footage in color and you can see that it's a yellow kit and this photo to 1972 live one, I mean you can it you know the tint is a little bit You know, it sort of looks like it's maybe in the sunset and the lighting's a little off But you know, we were pretty sure that this was probably yellow and this video definitely confirms that So it's a separate kit different bass drum different lug, you know Set up on the bass drum all together. So that's an interesting find the other really big omission is When we're talking about backline kits I forgot to mention one of the most famous examples of Tony using backline, which is at the 1972 Montreux Jazz Festival Tony was there playing with Stan Getz is quartet with Chick Korea on Rhodes and piano and again Stanley Clark on bass and Also on that same bill at Montreux in 72 was the Chuck Mangione quartet Featuring Jerry and I would on saxophone Tony Levin on bass and a very young Steve Gadd on drums and Steve Gadd has talked about this in a lot of interviews. He talked about playing that Festival with Chuck and that Tony borrowed Steve's drums and Tony you Steve's drums at this festival and there is video footage of both of these bands playing Montreux 72 and Although there are some things that are different. You can see that it is the same kit. So We have this photo of Steve in 72 at Montreux Now unfortunately the only video really of this that's on YouTube Somebody uploaded it, but they uploaded it without sound and they have this watermark That tells you that you should order it with sound by emailing this gentleman, but we see this kid It's a it's a 12 14 18 stop sign badge era Gretch in walnut finish and You know, there's some interesting things like the the four-point rail mount Which was sort of the later rail mount that Gretch used starting in the early 70s So if you look at the symbol stands though, these I think are sort of classic of the era Gretch symbol stands I can't really tell what the hi-hat stand is but You know, you have Gadd playing this kit and then if we look at these photos of Tony Like this one this nice shot from the front 12 14 18 stop sign walnut Gretch kit and you know this this confirms what What Steve Gad said that Tony is there at the festival playing what appears to be Gads Gretch kit now What is different is if you notice the symbol stands and the hi-hat stand are not the same symbol stands that that Gadd was using so I wonder if maybe Tony brought his trap case to Europe with him You know, maybe brought a trap case with his hardware symbols and you know sticks But otherwise didn't bring drums It must have been because he's not you know, these are not Steve's symbol stands and what's also very interesting I know we're gonna talk about symbols But I want to talk about this right now since we have this this kit sort of we're talking about this Tony is not Likely using his own symbols or I mean he may have been given these symbols, but Famously the piste symbol company Who is located in Switzerland the factories in Switzerland in the 70s? They were pretty famous for they would bring symbols to the Montreux Jazz Festival for various drummers to try out And they were you know hoping to you know, Piste were still kind of building their brand at that point And I think they were hoping to get some people converted to their symbols and sign some artists, which they definitely did There were a lot of jazz artists that signed with Piste in the 70s now Tony never signed But he apparently did receive a set of symbols, which maybe he took to Africa possibly yeah because later we see at least a 2002 crash on the Footage from Tony Williams in Africa, but here's a nice close-up of Tony's symbol You can very clearly see here piste 2002 logo just below the bell But these are the symbols that he's using on this on this Stan Getz concert now He may have used these symbols for exactly just this one gig and then never played them again Or he may have used them for the whole tour. We don't know but It's it's likely that he got them at Montreux because Piste as I said, we're in the habit of you know Giving symbols out for for artists to try Yeah, I mean but really Comparatively to like the earlier kits like the kind of junkie looking Rogers kit that was falling apart Oh, yeah, pretty nice back Yeah, it is it is I'm I would imagine Tony was pretty happy to to get this kid and it sounds really really great But there's an entire Concert is available on video of Stan Getz Quartet Montreux 72 and it's fantastic and Tony plays brilliantly and the drums sound really great So yeah, it was definitely a it was a happy day for him I think to get him to get a nice kit like that The other thing that I wanted to mention as far as Tony's drums that I left out And I again, I don't have any photos, but Tony on his Record of from 1986 called foreign intrigue which is sort of his return to leading a jazz group his his Groups it'd be you know from 69 on it really been fusion groups and kind of got even more and more into the sort of rock side of fusion but in 86 He started leading a new band and the it was an acoustic jazz band mostly acoustic and That record for an intrigue was really the start of that and it was based around his compositions and I encourage everybody to check out these That band and these records because it's brilliant music brilliant playing and that very first record Tony had the idea to incorporate electronic drums into this otherwise acoustic jazz record and It's it's a bit bizarre frankly. I think it's it's it's a really bold idea. I'm not entirely sure it works Very few people have Incorporated I mean Bill Bruford actually very very successfully Incorporated electronic drums into an acoustic jazz group with his the original incarnation of his band earthworks But Tony was also doing that and In Tony's modern drummer interview in 1984 he talks about this a little bit He talks about You know, he he wants to incorporate electronics into his next project and the only specifics He says I'm gonna quote from this interview is He says I like the Lynn Meaning the Lindrum the drum machine. I like the Lynn I like the Oberheim DMX and I like the Roland right now It's a matter of sound the DMX has the capability for me and the snare sound is really hot I also have a set of Simmons So that's as specific as he gets as far as what he's using on this record And I don't know if he's maybe triggering some DMX sounds with a Simmons brain But what I hear, you know, I'm not I'm not an expert on Simmons drums, but I know a little bit about them I hear actually some Simmons SDS 5 and I also hear Simmons SDS 7 sounds Those two brains have very distinctively different sounds Yeah, and I hear both of those on that record for an intrigue. So I think he may have had both But anyway, that's that's as much as I can tell you about the electronics But they are on that record and it's and it's worth checking out. So that gets the stuff out of the way that I that I missed and Yeah, I've tried to do that as quickly as I could because I really want to get into the symbols and You know, that's that's yeah, the symbols are really magic with Tony and and of course You know a large part of it is simply the way that he plays the symbols the technique is his touch his technique You know the way he hit some his concept what he's hearing all of that stuff is is Pot you're probably more important than the actual symbols But the symbols are important and a lot of people have a lot of questions about them speculation and stuff I what I don't want to do is I don't want to give any background on You know, I mean he's famous for using old K's iljans. If anybody doesn't know what an old K is A K's Iljan made in Istanbul. There are plenty of other places to learn that stuff I'm not gonna give a history lesson on on the ziljan Companies and I'm not gonna talk about the different stamps that you know for identifying the error or anything like that And it's all speculative anyway because I don't know what stamps were on Tony's symbols Unfortunately, that have not been documented. So I don't want to speculate on that I just kind of want to give an overview of what I know that he used and Look at some pictures and talk about maybe a little bit about why they sound great Yeah, and I think it's important to say that I did an episode about the stamps and identifying vintage A's I planned to do one about vintage K's. It's a different beast all together Yeah, but but just and then before we move forward again to not to keep the history straight A's Iljan and K's Iljan are separate companies. They're competing It's almost parallel to like Sabian and ziljan nowadays. We're like they're related, but they're not the same company They're in competition Like you said K's are made back in Turkey and Istanbul Gretch was the distributor of K which I think plays into this. Yes, that is true Yeah, I mean just briefly I guess K's Iljans Handmade in Turkey hand hammered tended to sound darker A's Iljans Made in Boston Somewhat more by machine a little bit more automated But but tend to be brighter a little brighter a little cleaner sounding, but Beyond that, I think everybody that's all we're saying Yeah, that's all you know a lot of you guys probably know this stuff anyway and those who don't You've you've got a really fun deep dive on your hands because it is amazing history, but the the basis of Tony set up Through more or less until we get to the early 70s is simply a ride a crash and a pair of hi-hats and Other than a couple little variations. It's basically that It's it's basically a 22 inch ride an 18 inch crash 14-inch hi-hats and I do want to make the distinction that the left symbol as a crash Mostly for him 99.9% of the time was just a crash symbol There's like two or three times in the 60s that you can hear him ride on that symbol One that comes to mind if anybody has the Charles Lloyd record called of course of course If you listen to the tune the best thing for you is me On the the opening head of the tune on the bridge he rides on the 18 For just the eight bars of the bridge or whatever it is That's one example that I know where he uses it I think there's also one or two points on the plug nickel recordings where he may ride on the crash for just like a second The oh the also the intro to the first tune the beginning of the very first tune on Andrew Hill's point of departure He's riding on the on the on the right symbol. I believe sorry on the left But mostly mostly it's a crash mostly for Tony ride crash hi-hats He actually rode on the hi-hats way more than he ever rode on the on the crash He actually used that sound quite a bit. This episode is brought to you by Masters of Maple Masters of Maple is proud to present the 323 snare drum the 323 is a love letter to Los Angeles It embodies everything about where Masters of Maple is from and where this drum is made It's dark gritty and has just enough flash to make it in Hollywood. This drum comes in two sizes There's a six and a half by 14 and an eight by 14 each size is limited to a production run of 12 drums It's got a 1.2 millimeter pure copper shell It features the new Masters of Maple stump badge and has black nickel plating the snare comes with a trick Multi-step throw off and you have the option of choosing split lugs or tube lugs or die-cast or triple flange hoops So you get to customize this drum you can pre-order the 323 right now at mdrums.com before it goes live for sale on December 8th 2023 this is a limited production run and it will go fast So head over to mdrums.com to learn more thanks to Masters of Maple for sponsoring this episode So briefly the hi-hats are 14s. They're old K's. They're on the heavier side I'll talk about weights Down the road because again, we don't have weights Exactly, but we can speculate on weights a bit, but I will get to that, but they're they're on the chunky side Heavy ish They've got a bright chick sound a really Strong but also a lot of overtones a lot of dark trashy stuff going on when he rides on them It's amazing sounding hi hats and they're great jazz hi hats But also when you get into the later 60s and they start doing some kind of more backbeat Sort of funkier rhythms like the tuned stuff with Miles Davis's Quintet They work great as sort of like funky backbeat kind of hi hats. The 18 is not a K the 18 is an A And the best photos of it really are the photos that we'll look at later of the you know when when Istanbul Mamet Make their Tony signature series which are copies of these symbols and they publish some really good modern photos of Tony's originals But you can pretty clearly see in those photos that it's a a type bell a type hammering. It's all very typical People that know vintage symbols probably already know this but you take one look at that 18, you know, it's a you know It's an a 22 now. This is where the real This is this is the legend. This is this this the stuff of legends This is the stuff that people just endlessly talk about and geek out about and think about and I've certainly spent I mean, I think I started listening to Tony. So sometime in high school and Immediately attracted to that sound and that amazing the way the sound and the way he plays it in the sounds He draws out of it and it's it's you know, we we honestly I I don't know I don't think anybody really can say whether he had one symbol all through the 60s or multiple symbols There's a lot of speculation that there were multiple symbols But he definitely had a sound in his head and if he had numerous symbols They're all kind of in the same ballpark where they all have this really great Woody stick sort of a clicky stick Yeah, he would be such a great Technician of the instrument too if he did have more than one He could probably go through a pile of symbols and find exactly the one that matches closely to The one he's looking for. Yeah This would be a good time to talk about actually to bring this up is there's a really great Well, there are a couple of quotes from him where he talks about the K talks about his K ride symbol And the first quote is from the same modern drummer interview that I just read from About the Simmons drums June 1984 modern drummer So the interviewer who is a gentleman named Rick Mattingly who? Interviewed a lot of the great jazz drummers for modern drummer Rick asks him he says I've often heard you equated with the K sound more than any other single person and Tony says great fantastic the K sound. I got that from max actually Years ago. I think it was 1960. I came to New York to visit max I had met him. I think in 1959 or 58. He was kind enough to let me play with his band Actually, he let me come up and sit in I was about 12 or 13 Anyway, I went to visit him and we went to the old gretch factory in Brooklyn I met mr. Gretch Fred Gretch at this time. They had K's Elgins at the factory max said here Why don't you take this one? This sounds great Max started me on that sound a big high dark sound. That's the right symbol. I have it's a high tone But the symbol itself is a dark sound. I learned that definitely among other things from max So this ties into what you're saying before about Gretch being the distributor of K's Elgin You know K's were made in Turkey and then shipped over to the Gretch factory in Brooklyn and then Gretch would distribute them they would send them to all of the dealers and Gretch artists could also go to the Gretch factory and pick out. They had probably thousands of old K's They're at the factory. So artists could pick Symbols, you know from up from a lie like have a huge selection to pick sure so max You know Tony is is coming, you know visiting from Boston going to New York to visit max max takes into the factory They're probably poking around playing some symbols and max is like oh listen to this one. Why don't you take it Tony? Here you go Yeah, and that's yeah, the guy who like is in charge of the symbols is like, uh, okay I guess you can take it No, that would have been Phil Grant that would have been Phil Grant who was among other things You know artists relations for Gretch at that time and he's the one who signed all of these great New York City jazz drummers Art Blakey Kenny Clark Art Taylor Jimmy Cobb Elvin Tony Charlie Pursip all these great drummers Phil Grant was the one who signed them and he probably would have been the one He was taking them around showing them the factory and and that probably would have been through Phil's approval that Tony could Take that symbol home, but yeah interesting. Yeah, and it caught max's ear max is like. Oh, this is really good man You should take that Presumably that's the symbol or at least one of the symbols that that Tony is playing I love the way he describes it to a big high dark sound and those are three sort of conflicting Descriptors and dark. Yeah, really go. Yeah, but then he clarifies He says it's a high tone, but the symbol itself is a dark sound and and I mean really that does No, really good old K's have everything from like very low frequencies all the way up with this amazing mid-range And and some of the stick sound is from the mid-range, but also these sort of swirly breathy overtones I often describe the overtones is having this sound like like somebody's going You know, it's like this breathing sound It's it's it's amazing and swirling sort of sometimes slightly conflicting overtones, but Yeah, and they just make amazing music and Tony's simple man. It's It's one it has one of the best washes wash being, you know, the sustaining undertone He's a sort of below the stick sound that sort of sustains And sort of connects the beats that you play with the stick and it's just such an incredibly musical Sound it's such a beautiful, you know complex Combination of overtones and it and I've really just I mean, I've heard some really great old K's I've heard great new zilgins. I used to play Istanbul a gop and had some great symbols from them and a Lot of my symbols have had bits of this, but I've never really heard anything Even you know, maybe some other old K's but man Nothing that just has that right perfect combination like Tony's symbol had yeah, and it's really something very very special I don't think it's an accident that people Obsess about this symbol so much. It really is one of the greatest symbols of all time. It's meant to be I mean max roach picking it up Visiting yeah grabbed it the day before and taken it home, but they didn't and it worked out for history, right? Unbelievable. Yeah, there's a good quote from a drummer named Terry Clark who is a great drummer from Canada and Played with Jim Hall Among a lot of other people really really amazing drummer and he talks about sitting down on Tony's kit going to see Tony and getting to I don't think he necessarily sat in with the band But he got to sit down at Tony's kit at a gig in the 60s. So This is from June 1983 modern drummer interview with Terry Clark And Terry this is this is Terry speaking and Tony's kit He had that beautiful K zilch and symbol that started everyone looking for old K's because he got such a good sound But after playing it I realized it wasn't so much the symbol is the way he played it He had that wrist snap to his playing. I couldn't get it Back in 65.  So maybe, you know, if drummers aren't necessarily You know jazz drummers or they don't have an ear for a certain type of sound K's can they can they don't always some of them are very clean and clear sounding Sort of like we associate a zilch ins, but K's can have Especially if the symbol has a bit of an umbrella shape profile can have a lot of what we call trashy overtones which I think is sort of like overtones and sort of musical notes that conflict with each other and You know, sometimes that I think can almost be an aggressive and almost like ugly sounding note but we also sometimes really like that too and I Think what Terry Clark is talking about when he says a trash can lid or a garbage can lid is that sort of And again, maybe younger people have never seen a metal garbage can But you know before these sort of like plastic tub garbage cans that we think of garbage cans in, you know, the 19 in the 20th century will most likely to be Metal made of metal. Yeah Yes, thank you, we were right on the same page there Oscar the grouch is it lives in the type of garbage can we're talking about and the lid was just this flat round lid Slightly simple shaped and you can imagine if you pick that off just this piece of like tin or whatever and hit it with a stick It would just sound pretty ugly, right? It would just kind of sound like kind of clanky and Trashy like it would have this weird sort of and that's what I think what people sort of mean by trashy or describing something as a garbage can lid it just sort of junky sounding but a Lot of jazz drummers like that It can create character and it can blend really well with an acoustic jazz group Sometimes those higher mid-range overtones will sit really nicely with an upright acoustic bass Yeah, also can sound really great behind Trumpets and tenor saxophones particularly there's just something about that kind of overtone that really works a lot of the time with The jazz group if you want to hear what I mean Just listen to Tony listen to Tony on Miles smiles by Miles Davis from 1966 I think This is that that sound.  We're in certain situations. It's it's completely different But yeah, yeah, well, it's maybe we look at like some more of these pictures here and talk about like I know It's like the certain like he has felt it looks like it's doubled up a picture. Yeah, we've got tape on the bottom Yeah, I was in intact. It's sort of again famously becomes It does chewed up right right right away. So you mentioned the tape there. There are numerous photos Such as this gretch ad where you can see there's a little strip of tape on the bottom of the symbol Now in this photo, it looks like it could be black tape almost like electrical tape, but it's a very thin strip There are other photos like this one from 63 July 63 you can see now that might be a different strip of tape. It's possible. That's a different symbol even It's also a 22 inch cave But that's obviously a white piece of tape it goes all the way from kind of the almost just Just past the bell hole all the way almost to the edge But it's a thin strip but Tony was obviously using that to kind of fine tune the symbol to his taste Now if we look at this photo from a year or so later October 64 May or may not be the same symbol, but we also see a white strip of tape roughly the same You know placement and on the a as well. Yeah, exactly on the 18 on his left We also see a piece of tape and that piece of tape actually becomes on the 18 becomes a good sort of Identifier of how late in his career He actually continues to use that symbol because we see it in 72 and we can identify it by probably that same piece of tape and There aren't a lot of other photos where you can see the the front of the symbol the side of the symbol that faces the Audience at least not that I have here From later than 64, but some other interesting identifiers if we go to this photo again by Harrison from October 64 and Copenhagen if we look at Around the edge of the symbol about two inches in from the edge We see a very obvious tonal groove that seems to kind of extend It's almost like you know sort of looks like the rings of Saturn or something The tonal grooves come from the lazing of the symbol again if you want to know what lazing is There are lots of videos you can watch about how symbols are made but lazing can create these what they call tonal grooves and There's a very obvious sort of tonal groove band that as I said is like maybe an inch or two inches in from the edge of This symbol and we can see that consistently in a number of photos Here is a photo from the Village Vanguard in September or October 1965 If you zoom in right around the point where he's playing the symbol you can see That same sort of tonal groove. Yeah, and the where yeah, yeah in the past But the where spot in which I found interesting to learn about how Certain The edge of one side of the symbol might be a little bit heavier to make it always kind of lean towards that direction Right, right, which gives that consistent. This is the spot you're hitting every time and man That symbol has some serious wear on it Yeah, I've heard rumors refer to that as the sweet spot which could refer to you know The the spot in the symbol where it sounds the best But it's also the spot, you know Where if there's a spot where it always sort of lays because of the weight and you're always gonna end up playing that spot And you can see that He's almost sort of worn away the patina By hitting that spot with a stick so many times and you know, it's interesting I talked to so many people about symbols and you know symbols are are hammered Whether by machine or by hand You know most symbols are are hammered to kind of tune them to fine tune them to make them sound the way that they sound and Hammered also to to change the shape and to change the pitch and all of these things. But you know once you get a symbol hitting it with a stick is sort of a very very very mild form of hammering, you know It does change the symbol maybe just microscopically, but it can actually change the symbol and you can see here It's visually changed the symbol It's actually like almost sort of worn away a little bit of the metal or something And I've seen other symbols like this my my teacher in high school the great Roger Humphreys in Pittsburgh Used to play an a zilch and that he got in the 60s and what I used to Hang out with him in the early 90s. He had played every single gig since 1965 until about 1995 on this symbol and We're talking about a guy who was playing pretty much every night of the week and that symbol had that same sort of patch of like sort Of worn away, you know, it's almost slightly shinier from it's almost like the stick sort of buffed the symbol slightly or something Yeah, but his symbol had the same sort of wear on it Well, that makes me think too and I don't want to jump ahead past things you want to talk about but all right So you're so so he was playing your teacher was playing that symbol for so long And it sounds like it didn't get cracked whereas Tony symbol has like a famous crack that happens right and my in my experience I don't you know, I I've cracked or you know, I've cracked or I had like a little hairline crack in crashes and even some high hats Do you think and this is total speculation? But I look at these straight stands that are kind of thin with these heavy rides And I'm like did maybe the ride fall over and start a crack at some point. I know we will never know that Right, that's possible. I mean these were not the most heavy-duty simple stands, you know Nothing It's the best hardware he had in 1965 was he's Gretch or Ludwig or Slingerland whatever flat-based stands now Rogers had slightly heavier stands, maybe but they were still prone to falling over You're right or a wingnut would slip and the whole thing would come down, you know Or yeah, that's possible. That is maybe how that crack started. We'll get to the crack in a little speculation Yeah, it's it's possible, but also Tony, you know as you get into 67 And certainly 68 Tony is playing harder and harder He's sort of playing louder with the band and the band gets some you know Well by 68 at least in the studio. They start using some electric instruments. They start using electric bass and Electric piano and things just kind of are getting louder So it could have also just sort of been you know, I guess user error that he maybe was hitting the cymbal pretty hard and it Could have cracked because of you know for that reason too another thing to notice while we're on this picture from the vanguard in 65 is that he has he does have a felt on top some drummers Particularly jazz drummers will play without the felt But Tony every photo I've seen of Tony using this symbol. He's got a felt on it and he's got it It's not particularly loose. He's got you know, the wingnut is clamped down somewhat tightly Actually, the next photo we'll look at has Even a little more of an extreme In fact, let's look at the photo from 1967 in Seattle. You can see here Well, first of all in this photo, you can see that same tonal groove About an inch or so in from the edge of the symbol Now again, who knows maybe he had two symbols that had the exact same tonal groove But that's a good fingerprint Ironically because this symbol is covered in what looked like finger Yeah, that's a good good identifier This is a couple years later after that last photo we looked at and this symbol is more tarnished for sure And now we see that crack is starting to happen that we talked about But also you can see that the the wingnut there is um, you know, it's tightened down Somewhat tight onto the felt and and what that does for anybody who doesn't know Well, first of all, it keeps the symbol from moving a whole lot Which may or may not be what he was going for but it also will just ever so slightly mute the symbol You should experiment with this with your ride symbols See what it does if anybody hasn't tried this to really tighten the wingnut down on it because you're pushing that felt against the You know the bellhole and the and some of the bell of the symbol and it'll kind of it's not as extreme as putting tape on the Symbol but it does have an effect of kind of muting the symbol a little bit and it's actually an interesting thing Sometimes I'll do that in a room where you know, everything is very loud And I need to kind of lighten up and play a little softer I'll do that to just sort of takes a little bit of the edge off a symbol So I'm not as permanent as not permanent but as getting gunk of tape on the yeah, right and stuff like that Right, I mean am I is it fair to say that like I'm looking at photos from like 65 66 I mean it seems like seems like 67 is when that damage happened if I'm not Yeah, yeah, well this photo of him and Elvin in Japan in November of 1966, which we went over in the first Episode Photoshopped. Yeah. Yeah, right. It's not Photoshop people that actually happened Tony and Elvin and our Blakey played a drum battle in Japan together and we're on the same stage They apparently were on drum risers and yeah, anyway Watch that episode for the full story But the symbol if it is in fact the same symbol and we also can see that wingnut tightened down on the felt We can also see the 18 has that strip of tape and that strip of tapes looking a little worse for the wear too Yes, but we don't see any damage on that ride symbol yet as far as I can tell it still looks more or less Like it's intact, but if we look at the next photo, which I believe is from Chicago in 1967 but I could be wrong on that date But we see again. We've got this symbol I can't really make out the tonal groove But I see a lot of the same patina that you see at the bottom in that Seattle photo but now we see this chunk taken out of it and It almost looks like somebody got hungry and like actually took a bite out of the symbol Yeah, it's sort of a mouth-shaped chunk And yeah, you know and this was you know the symbol started to crack and this was sort of an early attempt I guess it trying to repair a Crack in a symbol and it looks like it maybe wasn't that well repaired It's it's hard to say and who knows who who may have done the repair Maybe Tony tried to do it at home with some you know some sort of like heavy shears or something I don't well That's an interesting and we don't need to go down this road too far But the interesting thought of if you have a crack starting that the idea then would be to cut a non Yeah, I get like like a like a semi like a half circle to just stop it from but but it this does look still a little jagged So I happen to and I'm lucky enough to actually have a 22 inch old K That I got from Jess Burch at good hands drum shop And it actually has a lot of them sort of cracks And damage to it, but it has this this this chunk So this was a series there were series of cracks here and Jess actually did this work Looks cutting the cutting the cracks out and he did an amazing job. You can kind of see you know how smooth This is I mean I can actually put my finger on it. It's not cutting me or anything But this is this is really really good Crack Symbols still sounds really good. It still sounds amazing. Yeah, I mean, this is like yeah, it's a really special symbol Yeah, cool. It doesn't sound like Tony's particularly. It's it's more of kind of art Blakey sounding Okay, but um, but yeah, it's a really nice one and Jess did an amazing job Unfortunately, Jess was not around in 1967 to help Tony with his simple Yeah, and then you know Again, I don't know exactly when this is but I do know that this next photo from either we looked at a minute ago Is from Seattle in 1967 and you can see that the crack is actually bigger at this point More of the symbol. I guess the crack sort of continued Beyond where he had cut it out and then he or whoever tried to cut more more of the symbol out and You know that this is it can kind of be a thing I mean, I know people who have symbols. I mean, like I said mine, you know Jess did this about four or five years ago and the crack hasn't spread. I've been very lucky I don't use it all the time like Tony seems to have used his symbol all the time but But I do you know, it hasn't it hasn't spread but this symbol obviously, you know really had problems with that I have one last photo that I believe is of the same symbol It's it's it is a photo from the from the front of the symbol. So you see the underside. This is from I believe in New York I think it might be the village gate in 1968 when we see miles. I Believe Wayne shorter behind them. It's he's pretty obscured We definitely can recognize herbie Hancock waving at the camera or maybe saying no photos. No photos But we do see Tony and we see his a little bit of his silver sparkle floor Tom And if you look at if you really zoom in on on this symbol repair and I actually Actually, I have a photo here that I I took a couple of these photos and put them together The photo on the left is is from the Istanbul Mament literature And that's what Tony's symbol looks like today and then on the right is this photo from 68 I just showed you and it's a pretty similar I mean, I would I would actually argue that is definitely the same symbol. It's the same crack It's the same like amount of symbol cut off At this point so it the symbol really seemed to just continue to crack and continue to have pieces cut out of it And this is where you know We we get you know, basically this is the point where Tony had to retire the symbol and I want to play Now I have this quote from this is actually an audio clip of Tony in an interview with a gentleman named Ben Cedron bed Cedron is a Jazz vocalist who did a series of interviews with a lot of jazz musicians called talking jazz And you can actually find it on Ben's website This entire interview is excellent, but he asks Tony about About his symbol about this famous symbol and this is what um, this is what Tony has to say about it No, that's sound and I had the the symbol I got that that was given to me by Max Rudge Is that right? Yeah, that original symbol on the on the records those all those records I did it early on on Blue Note in Columbia. That symbol was given to me by Max Still I have it, but I can't play it. It's Years ago it became broken repaired and broken again, so I have it in my In my safe at home. Maybe that was the broken symbol. Yeah You can hear that Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. He that's that's it and Garrison I don't want to jump too much between what he said in this And that but he said he went in his garage Kind of music, you know space with full of gear. He said he picked up an old army green Bit like symbol bag that I believe matches actually one of those Japan Pictures of them outside of the hotel. He's got a snare case that looks very similar or a drama or a drum bag But it's the same, you know, whatever That might have been a Gretch Gretch. He made like sort of yeah lap Yes, burlap or I don't want to say them with something something like that yeah wax canvas Yeah, yeah, anyway, he said he picked it up and he was like put it down I don't want to talk about it and he said oh, it's the symbol It had it was completely chewed up. Yeah, it was these three symbols or four, you know the hi-hat, but So yeah, that's That's the stuff of dreams for me, but yeah, you'll hear that episode. So I can't wait. I can't wait man Anyway, so yeah, that that's that's the last photo I know of of that symbol until we get into the you know when Mamet copied it You know very recently, but so I also want to address the Nefertiti ride So this is a symbol that Wallace Roney owned and That he got from Tony so anybody doesn't know I mean again like Google Wallace Roney Wallace Roney was a amazing trumpet player and amazing musician and a really important mentor to a lot of younger musicians and and and Just a really really wonderful guy who sadly passed of COVID early on in the pandemic died terrible much too young Yeah, very tragically and He so I mentioned that record earlier on for an intrigue Tony's return to acoustic jazz Wallace Roney is the trumpeter on that record and on all of Tony's Acoustic quintet records of the late 80s early 90s and they're all brilliant and and Wallace was a very very important part of that band and then also went on to Play with basically the Miles Davis 60s Quintet who reunited as the tribute to Miles Quintet and and Wallace kind of came in and played the trumpet parts with those guys in 92 or 93 and He was very very very close with Tony He just absolutely loved Tony and and got to know him very very well and He was interviewed in modern drummer magazine in February 1999 And this is the first place where he recounted this the story talks mostly about Tony in this interview it's a great interview done by the writer Bruce Whitted who is a friend of mine and a really really marvelous writer who wrote a lot for modern drummer magazine and There's a lot that That Wallace says about about Tony's symbols and this story is really amazing because so I'm gonna read from this Modern drummer interview with Wallace. He talks about Being at Tony's house basically I guess similar to what what you just told me Garrison described, but yeah so he says This quote from Wallace He opens up this huge crate about six feet long and three feet wide It's full of brand new Never used old K's from the 40s and 50s. My heart stopped. I mean I can imagine My heart stopped he's laughing saying go ahead pick a set which I love that Wallace's heart is stopping and then Tony is just laughing at him because Tony knows how much of a Nerd Wallace was for this stuff and how much you reviewed Tony and pick a set Yeah, go ahead pick a set meaning pick a set of symbols. I started feeling guilty. I didn't want to take his symbols Right at the end of the crate were the older old K's I felt better about taking them because they were retired and he wouldn't miss these as much as the ones He hadn't got to yet. I picked three ride symbols two sock symbols a very thin 15 inch pair and a 14 inch pair and a 20 and an 18 inch the ones I like best Were the three 22 inch rides and he let me take them. So think about that You know, he's he's he's picked out three 22 inch rides from Tony's stash of old K's Craiceless. Yeah, as I was going he asked me. Do you want to see the foreign more symbol? He was very proud of that symbol max had picked it for him at the Gretz factory I hid it looked at it studied it all the things a fan would do it was tarnished almost black and it had a crack in it But it had that same sound it had a smaller bell than most of the K's have now Matter of fact all his symbols had small bells almost like a mini cup the crashes were mediums and medium thinns The sock symbols were heavy. I took a thin 15 inch, but the others were heavy The ride had a pretty sound pretty and dark with a crystal character to the stick sound When zilgin describes K's they describe them as dark and trashy, but you had some with a pretty sound Tony had both the pretty sound and the dark sound I Love the way he describes the sound of these things because it's it's similar What's basically the same as Tony described it the high and the dark sound simultaneous? Yeah and It's amazing to think of him, you know being able to pick these these symbols When when he talks about the smaller bells, I wonder if he's you know the photos that we've looked at I don't feel like Tony symbols have a particularly small looking bells But maybe right because in the he's talking about the 90s, you know Zilgin at that time were making symbols particularly their K's at the time did have larger bells That old K's tended to have But a mini bell is really sort of another thing and well, I don't know. Maybe some of these symbols did have mini bells but So what we want to focus on is those three 22 inch rides that Wallace is given by Tony Williams So He Ended up loaning so Wallace was very very good friends with the great drummer Lenny white and again Please look up Lenny white if you don't know who this guy is he's a legend He's an amazing drummer also played with Miles Davis has played with so many of the jazz greats and he's a really really really marvelous drummer and I love him very much and Wallace and Lenny were very very close and Lenny played in Wallace's band a lot in the in the 90s And I remember going to see Wallace at the Village Vanguard with Lenny playing drums and it really blew my mind I still remember it as being a real, you know, one of the best gigs that I remember seeing That's awesome. Yeah, and I think at the time Lenny was probably playing one of those old K's I didn't know it at the time, but Wallace had loaned Lenny one of those 22's and Wallace says elsewhere in this interview from modern drummer. He says Tony's symbols Were not thin. They were all medium heavy I would venture to say that the one he played on four and more was heavier than medium heavy I mean, you always have to worry about articulating anyway, but I could definitely hear the stick not just stick But beautiful warm undertones underneath Lenny thinks the one I loaned him is the one on Nefertiti It looks like that one on a video with rivet holes and it's medium heavy, too So he's talking about the symbol he loaned Lenny and Lenny Apparently thinks that that symbol is the one on Nefertiti. It looks like that one on a video with rivet holes So I wanted to kind of find out more about that, you know, sort of that identification process Now there's an interview with Lenny in modern drummer July 2008 We have an interview with Lenny white also done by Bruce Widditt the same gentleman who interviewed Wallace And Bruce knows all of the right questions to ask versus a good drummer himself and always asks the guys the right questions So he's talking about the Nefertiti ride That Wallace loaned him Wallace has a bunch. This is Lenny speaking Wallace has a bunch of Tony symbols and that one sticks out. I played it for a long time Wallace and I deduced that it was the symbol Tony used on Nefertiti If you go to YouTube and see videos of the 60s tours, it's the symbol that has the rivet holes So presumably we're talking about the Miles Davis band the 60s tours so There are three videos of what actually sorry there are four videos That you can see of the Miles Davis quintet with Tony Williams playing in the 60s The first is from the Steve Allen show and in September 64 and the next is from Milan, Italy in October 1964 and on both of those Tony is playing his own drums and He is not using a symbol. He's using this what I think is the same symbol we've seen in these pictures But it doesn't have rivet holes. So it's the one that the the classic Max Roach given I think so. Yeah. Yeah, well, it doesn't have the cracks yet Not yet. Not yet. And then the next vid the next video is the only other videos that you can see on YouTube Are from the 1967 European tour, which we talked about in the previous interview That's the tour where Tony was not allowed to bring any of his own gear and All of the photos that we see from that tour virtually every night. He's using different drums and different symbols This is where he talked about. He's using Don Le Mans kit. He's using Hollywood drums on some of the Italian dates He's using different Ludwig drums There's a video from Germany where he's playing premier drums and we think maybe Stamble of symbols But no rivets in the ride or the crash the Stockholm video from 1967 does have a ride with rivets and We can look at some photos of that again, we talked about this in the In part two, but I'm pretty sure this is an a and Because of the the lack of hammer hand hammer definition that you would normally yeah Yeah, you know that but more for me. It's more the shape of the bell It's a little bit of a pyramid shaped bell with a flat top and If we put these together This is this is the Nefertiti symbol. This is this is Wallace's You know Kay that Tony gave him that that looks different to me. Well, you know, it has rivet holes It's has roughly the same amount of rivet holes. Although to me if I'm really getting Anal they look like they're spaced a little bit differently But mostly I think the bell looks pretty different and the lazing looks pretty different You see deeper lazing deeper tonal grooves on the Nefertiti ride Yeah, and and and and this ride from Stockholm Doesn't I mean it has some tonal grooves, but they're not as deep basically Now that this is not to say that that's not that the symbol that you hear on Nefertiti But the tune Nefertiti specifically was recorded on June 7th 1967 in New York and this this gig In Stockholm is actually October 31st 1967 so a few months later Here's an important fact about the Nefertiti ride. I have never played it I've never seen it in person and I've never played it It was at the zilchon factory for a long time where they were sort of studying it But it's back with Wallace's family now I know Two drummers very well who have both played the Nefertiti ride and That would be Bill Stewart and John Riley who are both Amazing drummers and I've been lucky to take lessons from both of them and both of them have told me that they've played this symbol and They were positive without a doubt that it was the symbol on Nefertiti because it sounds exactly To them like that symbol. It's that sound Now it's possible Tony had a whole bunch of 22-inch old K's that all kind of sounded like that Which I mean, you know, I've been looking for an old K that sounds like that for a long time And I haven't quite found one. I have some Tony took him. He took him off. He took them all apparently. Yeah I have some really good old K's But nothing that really sounds quite like that I have heard some that have some of those elements, but I don't know I mean, you know, Bill and John both said, you know, oh, yeah, that's got to be the symbol It really has that sound and maybe Tony had a bunch of symbols in rotation Maybe he took different ones to recording sessions My only argument is that I don't think unless we have some, you know, it doesn't sound from Wallace's interview in 99 It doesn't sound the way he describes the experience of getting those symbols from Tony It doesn't sound like Tony confirmed to him. Oh, yeah, this was the symbol I used on Nefertiti He did identify the foreign more symbol, but he didn't specify. Oh, yeah, this one you're taking is, you know I use that on Nefertiti There seem to be a little less. What's the word I'm looking for like Like holding that one and for himself like in high praise of like, I'm gonna this is my baby We're the max row. He was a kid. Yeah, I don't know just to let it go like that It makes you wonder but maybe for him. It was just another session. Yeah, I don't I yeah I mean they they literally went in and recorded, you know, that day June 7th They recorded the tune water babies and the tune Nefertiti A week or so later, they recorded a couple more and I mean that that there was there were four dates where they recorded Nefertiti and they did like, you know two one or two tunes per day And you know, they were going to the studio all the time and recording and Tony probably never knew what they were gonna do from From day to day. So yeah, sure. Yeah, I don't know I mean, maybe he just brought in a different symbol that day I mean there we can only speculate but I I do, you know, I Don't think that it's really been positively confirmed other than people using their ears, which is certainly very important But otherwise it hasn't exactly been, you know, like Identified as for sure be on the Nefertiti symbol But that hasn't stopped a lot of other, you know, symbol manufacturers from making copies of it And you know, well, for example, Lenny white is a Istanbul agape artist and Istanbul took The old K the Nefertiti symbol for a while and made a copy of it And then ultimately a variation on it with a bit of a smaller bell Which became Lenny's signature symbol, which is the epoch ride Which is a lovely symbol when I was with Istanbul agape. I had a couple of those and I used to love playing them A lot of independent symbol manufacturers Make a Nefertiti ride That is based on kind of what they what what I guess what they speculate this symbol from Wallace, you know, the weight and the profile and things like that But the important thing is is that people love Tony and people love the album Nefertiti and the way Tony plays on that album and particularly that track is is legendary And all of this talk about the symbol Keeps that legacy going it keeps people interested in it and keeps people checking out I think if there wasn't so much talk about the Nefertiti ride, maybe not so many drummers who weren't otherwise jazz Enthusiasts, maybe they wouldn't have gone and checked out Tony on Nefertiti totally I think it's what what's really important is that more and more people are and that's I think that's great But but as you said, that was just like a couple days at a session. It's iconic, but Where let's move forward there from like, I mean that would put us what at about 69 and one with Tony's 68 Is a transitional period. This is when Miles's group starts to go electric The music starts changing. There starts to be more straight eighth note grooves and um Using my ears as we talked about The last recording that I hear the classic Tony old K sound Whether it is the nefertiti symbol or whether it's the earlier foreign more symbol that's cracked. We don't know but That sound the sound that I hear You know on on those early recordings the last recording that I personally hear it on is on um field of Kilimanjaro Which was recorded in later 1968 well The first half of the record was done in june 68 And then was finished up um in september september 24th of 1968 That's the last Time that I hear it the next time they record is november 11th 1968 and they go in and do some stuff that Wasn't actually released until years later, but they do a tune called two-faced A tune called dual mr. Anthony tilman williams processed a very weird title And and then splash splash down come a couple days later Um, it's great music, but I hear a different ride altogether on that music starting with two-faced I I I hear a cleaner. It's still maybe a k, but it's a cleaner sound. I don't hear Kind of stuff, you know, that's really kind of cool Trash a bit of trashiness and and the stick is maybe a little bit more I don't want to say metallic, but maybe slightly slightly towards pingier rather than woodier And this photo that we've looked at in our previous episodes From san francisco in 1968 Um, this this photo was was listed on getty images as being from from 1968 at the both and and according to my timeline here, they played at the both and and october of 1968 october 8th to 20th 1968 and also interestingly this would be Around the time that mike clark talks about having first seen tony Mike clark, I believe grew up in the bay area or at least was in the bay area at this point and Went to see tony and he actually there's a great interview with with mike clark Again another drummer that everybody should go check out if you're not familiar with him another legend They're amazing drummer and very influenced by tony And there's a great interview with mike clark specifically where he talks about tony talks about his experiences seeing tony and knowing tony and he talks about seeing him for the first time at the Both and in 1968 and he talks about Seeing tony and that tony had a second ride symbol Down kind of by his hi-hat and that he was doing all of this fancy stuff where he kind of cross over and play this second ride And amazingly in this photo that I found You can actually see a second symbol over by his hi-hat. We see his regular 22 his 18 Yes, exactly. It looks like a symbol with rivets over on his left So this completely is you know consistent with my what mike's talking about but what we also see here Um besides the really nifty clothes that everybody's suddenly wearing they it seems like they threw away all of their suits And uh got some really cool Got some really cool clothes and this symbol that we see tony playing Is a different symbol. It's it's it's way less patinaed They're no cracks. This seems to be a new symbol. It seems like he finally retired The the symbol with uh presumably with the chunk taken out and then starts using this symbol And I don't know what this is. This could be an a it could be a k It could be a piste 602 for all I know but um It does on those recordings from this era to me. It sounds a bit like maybe a heavier old k But that's complete speculation. We just really don't know um I think he may be using the same symbol with lifetime in 1969 um, you know, again, we see in these photos from monoray in 1969 um A uh sort of a cleaner symbol. Um, this may be a 602. I just don't know. Um Anybody who knows Piste better than I do because I'm not anywhere near a piste expert like some people are if you want to Say in the comments. Tell us if you think that might be a 602 If we look at this other photo from monoray, um, we can see, um Tony's still using the same symbol on the left though. We see that a with that that grungy piece of tape underneath it um so Yeah, we get into 1970 And these may be new symbols altogether that looks like a very new symbol. It almost looks like an a zilgen to me I just you know, I don't know. I mean, there's just not enough photos and not enough detail here to really be able to tell But it's certainly a new Ish symbol or maybe an older symbol that he cleaned It also looks and we're looking at newport from 1970 Um, it looks like possibly that's a different left symbol for the first time Because it looks cleaner and I don't see that distinctive piece of tape Um on it, but once we get into Um 71 we see that old a pop up again on the left um Same thing with the photos from new york city in 1970 You know, it's some sort of cleaner symbol again. I think this looks like an a to me But just can't really be sure it could be it. It could be a k You know, it could be just sort of a clean old k without very deep hammering We get to 71 again looking at these photos from kopenhagen This I think is an all together new symbol and I do think this symbol is a 602 This is what it looks like to me. But again, please 602 experts come at me. Tell me what this is Do you think this is a 602? Do you think it's something else? Is it an a? I don't know I'm sorry. I don't have more definitive answers, but There's there's no like tony, you know, there's no interview with tony where he talks about his gear at any point You know the first interview I ever found where he talks a little bit about his gear He gives a rundown of his drum sizes in his uh, I think it's april 1978 modern no, it's january 1978 modern drummer interview um, he runs down his drum sizes And he says I use k zilch and symbols but beyond that he doesn't give any symbol sizes So that's you know, we don't have interviews like we have now where you know, you get a big gear list And you know, there's nothing like a layout with pictures. Right. Yeah, we don't get that in this era But you know again this photo from 71 and kopenhagen from the side we can see You know, I'm pretty sure that's the same old 18 inch a I can't really see them, but I I you know in 72 and 73 He's still using those old k hi hats that he's had since the beginning of his career Um, I think those stuck around um Now things do get a little squirrely when we get into 72 because he starts experimenting with some different things um and we have Video and photos from 1972 Where he suddenly has a it looks like a 20 inch zilch and swish a chinese symbol um, a chinese style symbol on his left to replace briefly to replace that 18 um And it's a it's a swish with rivets and you know, he uses it quite a bit on this video from 72 Um, it's a pretty cool sounding symbol actually this other photo. I have from 72 though He doesn't have it on the left Yeah, and this one he tries he yeah, it's it's an experiment Um, we do have this different ride symbol again. I think this is another yet another ride Um, he really doesn't seem to have settled on a ride or maybe he keeps breaking them and retiring them But this is a shinier ride. It looks like maybe a brilliant finish It could be an a with a brilliant finish or it could be Again, I've seen some 602s that look a little bit like this like pre serial number era 602s That can be kind of glossy like this but again on this 72 photo we see the uh The the same a we see that strip of tape and it looks like the same grungy old k zilchins There's another symbol that pops up in this photo with stan gets um from 72 And again the old a I see that strip of tape on on his left But then we have a smaller symbol with six rivets And it's it it's a smaller symbol and it also has a very small bell And I've wondered if this it now it's possible that this is actually that chinese symbol because I see Sort of another one of those it could be a Sure lathing, you know a tonal groove because there's another big one kind of in the center there But it could also be the sort of lip of the china where the edge turns up. Maybe that's that same a Swish and he just put it over as his main ride Interestingly, we also see another simple stand to the far right of that But unfortunately stan gets his uh saxophone is in the way and and we can't tell what that what that is Yeah, and again to continue the mystery When we get to 73 and he does this tony williams in africa film Um, which we talked about those drums a little bit This is a bizarre this is this could be that same symbol we see in 72 because it's another sort of shiny symbol And I originally thought when I saw this first photo um that that was another piste 2002 logo, but Looking at some other clips I now actually think that could just be some sort of sticker or something because it doesn't actually look Like the 2002 logo, it's I don't know. It's like Again piste nerds Tell me what you think this could be Dan garza did the piste multiple piste episodes with me So I'd love for him to chime in but garrison spoke to these a little bit and if I remember correctly It was a few days ago, but he said he said those are pistes. He said he said just looking at the logo and yeah, but I think he was not Speaking from 100% like, you know, look at the badge this it was more just looking at it. His gut said piste So, you know, I don't know the symbol on tony's left is definitely a piste We see the piste 2002 logo. We see on the other side of the bell. It says crash That's that's classic, you know piste 2002 and it's possible. That's the same 2002 that he got in mantra The year before that we talked about when he's playing with the gads kit. Exactly. It could be this exact same crash This is an area where I have done less research than on the stuff from the 60s Um, this era is really there's just not much documented Um, I can't tell you I'm pretty sure that he's using still using his old k 14s that he's used all through the 60s and into the early 70s Those look like the same symbols, but you know, otherwise I just can't I just don't know Things do get much more standardized by the time we get into 75 Just as the kit itself the drums get very standardized In fact into the setup that he would use for the rest of his career pretty much the big 1314 1416 1824 around the same time that we get into that we also get into a new simple setup That he sticks with basically for the rest of his career Which is old k's Still these are still old k's made in istanbul, but he expands the sizes He adds a couple more and he also changes the size of the high hats now Of course again, we we can't really see them because of the cool smoke in this photo in the back cover believe it But um, he does it this time start using 15 inch high hats Um, he keeps the 18 on his left the 22 on his right, but he adds a smaller crash in the middle Now by the time he gets Into the 80s when he's a zilgen endorser. He's using a 15 inch Crash, but in this era in the 70s. It may be a 15. It may be a 16 He may have had a couple different ones. I'm not exactly sure what the size is I've always kind of assumed it was always a 15, but that would be a little bit of a harder size to find I mean he has 15 inch high hats. So maybe it wouldn't yeah But um, I do know the the far right symbol beyond the ride is a 20 a 20 inch crash and um similar to what I said before he You know 99.9 percent of the time he rides only on the ride symbol But occasionally I hear it on a few points. I think on the um Great jaz trio at the village vanguard recordings He does occasionally ride on the left side symbol on the 18 But very very very rarely most of his most the ride action is done here on the 22 um So that is the setup that he stays with More or less through his whole career um, they are old kays through the 70s and um You know kays were still made in turkey. Um At a certain point, um the kays zilgin company, uh, the factory closed down in 1977. I believe yeah and Kays then started being made in the medutic new brunswick factory in canada That would eventually become the sabian factory, but at that time it was still owned by zilgin And they started making kays hand hammered in canada and these are referred to they were only made for a few years But they're referred to as canadian kays And there are a number of photos of tony in the early 80s where he's playing canadian kays And the way that you can tell is that canadian kays have this distinctive k logo Underneath the uh the symbol On the bottom of the symbol and this k this this particular k logo Was actually revived Years later when they when they introduced the corope line That was the k that they used for the coropes the same, you know the same logo And you see tony, you know in this photo with it with an 18 With it with the canadian k logo You can see him here with it with the 22 with the k and the canadian k logo interestingly in this gretch ad If you zoom in on the the little symbol in the middle you can actually see that that's an american made zilgin and a With that sort of classic 70s hollow logo On the bottom so that's an interesting thing And yeah, there's other photos here. You can see where tony's playing canadian kays But in 1982 83 is when zilgin in america started to develop their own version of the k and collectors refer to this as early american k's or ea k's Meaning these are the first run or first version of k's that they made in the norwell massachusetts plant and They were um at least somewhat hand hammered in these days They would eventually go to entirely machine hammering where they used a computer Program to replicate hand hammering, but initially they they were hand hammered And tony was you know sort of the well literally the poster boy here as we see in his awesome green jumpsuit for the new american made k's and by this point this is Basically what he starts using Um exclusively you just see him using American made k's As i'm pretty sure from this point forward except that we do see some photos and some video Where he's playing What to me Look exactly like american made k's But they have no logos on them and i've wondered if maybe prototypes. Yeah, that's exactly it I've wondered if zilgin gave him some prototypes to try out And he liked them so much that they didn't have logos on them But he liked them so much he continued to use them even after you know for a couple of years after In fact ironically there's a zilgin day video. This was a series of clinics put on by zilgin From i think dalis in 1985 where tony does a clinic and he's playing eak's But they have no logos and it's actually a clinic sponsored by zilgin And he has symbols that don't appear to say zilgin on them anywhere Yeah, try and stop them only tony could get away with that. I love it But certainly by this great photo in 1990 these are you know made in made in america K's and and again to to reiterate the size is 15 inch high hats. Now an interesting tidbit about the hats He Sometimes I think would use regular 15 inch high hats, but also at times would use two bottom high hats This is something that um different people have confirmed and there's actually a video From germany I think around 88 where you can see the logo Um and I think he might actually be using a's oddly for some reason instead of his usual k's But you can actually see the top symbol says bottom high hat on it So you would actually get two bottoms because he liked, you know, the bottom symbol is heavier He liked heavy heavy high hats Um left symbol is an 18 inch k zilgin dark crash Middle symbol is a 15 inch dark crash. The ride is a 22 inch ride It's not a heavy ride or a jazz ride or any of the different models It's the just ride 22 inch ride and then on the far right is a 20 inch dark crash And that's his setup Basically until we get to the era that garrison covered Where he did switch to a customs and I believe garrison covered all of that Yeah, yeah, and if if you're if people are listening to this out of sequence and going Oh, I want to listen to the symbols of tony williams part three was with His his drum tech from about 94 till 97 when you know the end of his life And garrison touched on that and the a customs and stuff And there was just a lot of stories in that one So go check that one out to pick up all the information from drums symbols Everything up to the the end of the unfortunate end of tony's life But um, he did experiment a lot and he did add some a customs, but but he was never like Like I remember like, um, who was it vinny caliuta would be like you'd see the old video the old vhs tape And it'd be like he's all a customs now. Yeah, or he's all pasty with tony. It's like no, no, there's a k There's an a custom There's my you know 19 whatever 59 k high hats He'd mix and match. So yeah, he was he was always experimenting and he was really interested in what Drummers were doing what other drummers that he liked were doing You know, he was always checking out new music And finding new music and new drummers that excited him and he wanted to experiment and try some of these new things A customs were the new Thing they were all the rage and and that's what drummers that he liked were using so He wanted to try them and I love that. Yeah, we don't we don't need to get into it because garrison talked about it But really the like hearing Like lars and wanting to try those symbols. I love it just really Yeah, the experimentation is is crazy and something you you don't think about but As we get closer to it seems like we're getting closer to the end of the symbols Should we talk about the istanbul memet? Yeah situation. Yeah. Yeah, so um in the mid I guess uh 2016 2017, um, tony's widow colleen Approached the istanbul memet company To make a replica set of tony's symbols and this is where we finally actually see some some photos Of these symbols from the 60s Again having not really seen them. I mean we see the Maybe the hi-hat in the left symbol and some of the photos from the 70s as I mentioned But you know, basically we haven't seen or heard from these symbols She actually went to the factory in turkey And took those symbols herself um Hand delivered them to them to replicate and there's some amazing photos of these symbols from um That they were put out, you know by istanbul memet on, you know, various social media and other sort of promotion platforms There's a photo of a gentleman. I apologize. I'm probably gonna butcher your name. Um, bulent akbe Who is a great drummer in in turkey who works for Istanbul memet and there's a photo of him posing with the symbols So these are tony's old k heavy hi-hats that we talked about the 18 inch a and you can really see some nice detail of that typical a machine hammering um Although actually sorry a's in the 50s were also hand hammered a bit so um, it may be a mixture and then the old k Um now they've kind of hidden the crack. We're gonna see that in some other photos but I did a lot of you know, I spent a lot of time comparing The photos of some of those early photos from the Copenhagen concert and also that photo from seattle And man, I mean this looks like the exact same symbol. You remember I pointed out that um, very thick tonal groove about two inches from the edge You see that here? Let's see. There's there's the entire um the the team with these symbols So this is um on the left is Collins scofield who used to work for zildjian Who I believe was the one who introduced colleen to the the folks at memet That is colleen holding the one of the hi-hats. There is um memet himself The founder of the company who used to work at the old k factory in the 60s and 70s and bulent again Posing with the symbols and then they put out a lot of great literature all these ads that showed amazing photos of the original symbols If you look at memet ad one, this is some great detail And you see the black and white photos of the um gentlemen at the factory Measuring these symbols and and and sort of making the the modern equivalent to them But the main you know, what we're really looking at is is you know, the photo the symbols as they look today So you can see if we go back to some of those photos from the 60s I showed you that one from 1968 Where he's got almost the sort of top corner of the symbol locked off the top you can see it matches It matches really really well. I mean, it's i'm almost positive This is the exact same symbol we see in those photos We can also see that the symbol has quite a keyhole in the bell And that he actually has put a little grommet in the middle to try to keep the symbol centered You can see sort of it's it's hidden by the hi-hats But you can see that same area of where that I pointed out where the symbol you can see where the symbol was Probably played most of the time Um, so what else do we see here? We see the hi hats um And we see in the a the left symbol Again, you see that detail of a very typical looking fifties a to to me to my eyes And you can see a pretty substantial crack in the body of the symbol Sort of on the on the right side of the symbol just to the right of the bell You can see a pretty nasty crack in the surface there If we look at this sort of montage I did of three photos where you can see tony's symbol in the 60s Where you can see that um tonal uh the the tonal groove I've been talking about that's kind of distinctive about an inch in from the edge And we can see this photo from the istable mammoth factory of the symbols sort of you know as they were being replicated You can see that exact same about one inch one and a half inches from the edge The same tonal groove happening Um, so that's a pretty you know clear identifier that this does seem to in fact be that same symbol How were these received? I mean were these were these well received as being a good replica in the In the community Um, I think a little bit mixed to be honest I I heard them at nam. Um, and I thought that the 18 and the hi hats were really really good Replicas they sounded to me like the 18 had that quickness Um And sort of sensitivity that his symbols seem to have the hi hats were a nice sort of chunky weight and had that same sort of definition Um, but the thing about the ride is that with that big chunk taken out of it I think the sound of the ride may have changed although Wallace said that it still had that vibe In in the interview with Wallace, you know, he said that he still had that sound But also that would dead in the symbol a little bit and maybe change the overtones The the the tony Williams 22 mammoth is a great sounding symbol But it's it doesn't quite have the same breathy kind of Those kind of overtones right that we associate copying and you're copying something that's been It's not the same as it was when it didn't have a gigantic like you said 5% of it is missing So that's a tough thing to do. But again, just getting these photos Yeah, unbelievable and the access to it now one thing I wanted to this is again We're going to get a little bit into the weeds with the weights But generally when a symbol company copies a symbol Besides measuring things like the height of the bell And other you know looking at the lazing they're they're going to record the weights They're going to they're going to they're going to weigh these symbols to know exactly how thick or thin they were And while they've never published In all this literature, they didn't publish the actual weights of tony symbols Which I kind of wish they did I also wish they would give us some detail on the stamps But they never did that either and you can't see the stamps in any of these photos In any sort of detail, but what I did do when these first came out I looked at the first couple of years Of um listings of these symbols on various retailers where they would list the weights of the symbols so things like um Oh, I forget the different dealerships, but you know different people would put them on ebay or wherever And they would list the weights and I collected the weights of a whole bunch of of This the set the 22 the 18 in the top and bottom hi-hats and the 22s um Basically, I don't really have them in order. Do I know the the thinnest one I found was 22 33 And the heaviest I found was 23 30 So that's a that's a range of about 100 grams on the 20 Sorry the 22 with the median I I I should have done the actual mathematic calculations But that would put them kind of like the average maybe like 22 Uh 80 22 90 some something in that range now granted this symbol it was missing You know Like I said about five percent of its of its body So that would change it may have originally been a little heavier But we could kind of guess that Tony's actual form or ride based on these weights That the main it copies were I could make an assumption That the original symbol is somewhere in that just slightly under 2300 range Maybe 22 80 to 22 90 somewhere in there Which to me It's that's possible I mean a lot of people insist that the foreign morse symbol is a heavy symbol And that the nefertiti ride or any of these recordings are a heavier symbol and it may well be but I've also played old k's and Modern hand hammered symbols that are in that 20 You know high 2200 low 2300 range that play a lot like Tony's symbol So Interesting it's it's all speculative, but this is some Evidence that may point to a weight range Now the 18s That I recorded the weights were between 1250 and 1299 So that's a a Shallower not a wider but a shallower range of weights a smaller range of weights with the median I guess being somewhere in the 1275 range So we could guess that Tony's left symbol the 18 may have been about 1275 grams The hi-hat tops ranged between 975 and 997 again not a big weight range So we could guess that the top was probably maybe around 985 ish The bottom ranges are between 1143 and 1163 So we could guess maybe around 1152 1153 for the bottom Which again is a little bit on the heavier side for jazz hi-hats Certainly not on the heavy side compared to like a pair of zilgen new beats or something like that But a lot of the zilgen k constantan opal pairs k constantan opal 14-inch hi-hat pairs are around that sort of like 9 and a half to 11 and a half range Which is interesting that they kind of came to that pairing maybe separate from actually weighing Tony's symbols, but Those are the weight ranges that I found those may be of interest to some people But that's kind of the averages that I found that those main signature symbols were Were we're coming in at so yeah Well, I mean if you're an hour and 45 minutes or two hours into this you're probably interested in the the gram weights of the symbols Yeah, you're probably a big enough nerd. Sorry. It took us so long to get to that Speaking of the time. I do want to talk a little bit about the sticks and the heads before we run out of time Yeah, let's do it. Let's jump over to sticks and heads You pick you want whatever you want to do first and then we'll let's close out this You know the series. Let's talk about sticks I mean, I can say that until he switched to the big kit meaning until 75 Um, it's just coated heads top and bottom on all of the drums without really any changes Um, obviously the bottom snare head would be a clear snare head, but um, I've never found there. Yeah, I've never found any Not calf. I've never found any evidence of him using calf All of the photos where you can see Um, the heads you can see, you know a lot of wear on the heads and you can see that distinctive sort of like Spot in the middle where the coating starts to wear away and you can actually sort of see the clear plastic Underneath the coating That's visible in a number of photos His his childhood radio kings were probably calf skinheads. I would it'd be to say but yeah Right, right and that's that would you know that photo probably dates from before the plastic head was really Invented or certainly before it was commonplace But when we're talking about his professional career and certainly his recording career where we have photos of him We're talking about plastic heads. Now. What I don't know is how often or not he was using Um Remo coated ambassadors or Remo coated heads or whether he's using gretch permaton coated heads most of the time Um, it's even possible. Maybe he had some evans heads those existed then But I do know I have this one photo from 1964 February At the recording session for eric dolphy's out to lunch If you zoom in really close, you can just make out what i'm pretty sure is a gretch permaton logo Just under his left hand there were were those white labeled like Remo heads you think certainly now And and I think probably at least since the 80s. They were made for gretch by Remo possibly to slightly different specs I think they might have a slightly different counter hoop um, but more or less the same as um Remo heads But in the 60s, they may have been made by evans for them or they may have been made by Remo or somebody else I don't know. I I don't think the gretch factory made them on site, but it's possible I don't know somebody comment. Please tell us about Gretch permaton heads and who made them for for gretch I would love to know now Famously when we get to the big kit era starting in 75 76 This photo that I showed you from the Keystone corner in 1975 is the first time we see The famous Remo CS black dot heads which tony became really known for using CS stands for controlled sound for anybody who doesn't know and it's a clear head basically an ambassador weight head with a black dot Which is sort of a reinforcement it acts as both a reinforcement Like it sort of protects the head and it also Mutes the head a little bit It's just a little bit of tone control to take off some of the highs and that's why they call it controlled sound And tony apparently just fell in love with this head Because he put them top and bottom on all of his drums Except kick. Well. Yeah on the on the on the 24 inch bass drum except the front head He has a clear Remo head on the front And you can see this photo from 76. He's got some tape on the top of the front head But otherwise it's all black dots all through the 80s except For one very interesting little affair that he had with a very new very short-lived and obscured obscure drum head company called compo C.o.m. P.o. And this is an ad from modern drummer tony williams. It's my latest new discovery Compo heads and these are woven fiber heads. It's a completely different technology than mylar than what um Remo and um evans and aquarium use woven fiber And I think the idea was that they sounded a little warmer and sounded maybe a bit more like calf skin But tony was briefly a compo heads endorser and there are Photos and I got some screenshots from a tour he did in europe in 1986 with herbie handcock and brandford marsalis on tenor sacks and buster williams on bass And he's got his regular yellow gretch kit now. These are not the best screenshots. I apologize, but he actually had compo make him heads That were not only Sort of black dot type heads or dot type heads, but they were actually black The head was black and the dot was yellow matching his yellow kit And they are spectacular It's hard to see but but you can kind of make out that that's a those are yellow dots now Oh, yeah, that's a great shot yellow. Yeah, this screenshot He does seem to still be using a regular remo CS black dot on a snare and maybe he was already, you know, kind of on the outs with compo by this point I'm not sure They didn't last long on his kit, but they are on this this whole tour All of the there's there's a couple of videos and everybody should watch them because the music's amazing But it he's also got these these really kind of strange heads Um on this tour So black heads with a with a yellow dot Um, so that's That's the drum heads. I will add and maybe I don't know if garrison mentioned this, but when he switched to dw um not maybe not initially but The the the the last time I saw tony play Was in uh late 1996 he played a week at birdland with a trio with mogher miller and ron carter And I went a couple of nights and tony had his big dw kit and he had the a customs He had the new set of a customs But on the snare drum, he had a coated head Um, because he played a fair amount of brushes with that trio and on that garrison said he said He said i'm putting i'm putting a coated ambassador on this thing right now Interesting he said verbatim he said i'm going to be putting this on because you're doing a lot of brush work because tony could make it sound good with a Clear c s dot, but I think garrison had a big Uh push for that to happen. That's amazing. That's great. That's great info. Yeah, I didn't know that so so yeah So that was garrison's idea. I love it. Thank you garrison. Yeah, tony sounded amazing I mean it was unbelievable to to get to see him. I saw him. That's the only time I saw him play with a band I saw him do clinics um A couple of times and then that was the only time I saw him With a band and it was uh, it was pretty spectacular So I want to cover some some some drumsticks Yeah, totally. Well, let me let me I want to read this real quick Actually really quick before we move on just because it's its own kind of history But I just quickly googled it and then ended up on drum forum.org which I love The user the dfo veteran Gutenberg said he's answering a question. I do have some kompo heads He says they're still in their boxes. He said Um kompo heads were produced by a sahi chemical cloth japan in the 1980s And were distributed in the u.s. By common k came in k a man tico torrez was an endorser They were sort of a fabric weave, but not mesh Some were similar to kevlar, which are the ones I have Uh, which Gutenberg is saying more suitable for marching the drum kit ones had an n prefix for natural I'm assuming so a little bit of info on kompo fantastic. Thanks to Gutenberg Gutenberg Yeah, and thanks drum forum That's great info. That's really interesting and interesting. There was a japanese company distributed by came in or come on which would later go on to Distribute gretch for a long time Um, but I yeah, actually after tony passed. Um, I think in the late 90s. They they took over Distribution of gretch until dw later did but all right. So drumsticks Tony is best known for using big sticks, particularly two bees but And some people kind of assumed that tony used two bees in the 60s as well And that that's you know, maybe part of his sound, but I have found absolutely no evidence. He was using two bees until around 71 at the uh at the earliest Is is the first photo that I've seen where he can be seen using two bees now This is another place where we get into a little bit of um conflicting information because um I'm going to refer to this interview with wallace ronnie again Um, well, it's not conflicting information. Just different information. So um Wallace in february of 99 modern drummer Um is talking about how big an influence max roach was on tony williams He says, uh He liked everything about max and he said that during the period of foreign more He was trying to tune his drums like max the sticks. He was playing at the time where the gretch max roach model all through the miles period so, um interesting that he mentions the gretch max roach model because um I in all of my research have never been able to find any other information about the gretch max roach model um, but wallace refers to it a couple other times and and um Lenny white also had made well, he didn't make mention of it But um, I mentioned that john riley had played the nefertiti symbol. He had he'd actually heard he John told me this story He heard lenny white play that symbol with wallace and was blown away by how that symbol sounded And he talked to lenny about it and lenny told him he was playing it with a gretch max roach model stick um now wallace All right, so we're going to jump ahead a little bit chris bennett who owns bopworks Was talking about a later stick that we'll get to in a second On facebook about this this later sort of variant of 5a that tony was using in the early 70s And when wallace was still with us, uh wallace commented on this facebook post that chris bennett made and um wallace says this is now five years ago That wallace made this comment wallace says Well guys, here's what it is in 1963 until 1971 Tony was using the gretch max roach stick. It was a 5 d not a 3 d Tony told me this himself I have never seen a max roach stick and I believe around 1965 max asked them to take his name off They were still called the gretch 5 d Okay, so then he goes on to talk about this later stick, but so he mentions the the max roach 5 d d for dog and um Again, I've never seen any any reference to a max roach 5 d now It's possible that gretch made That stick just for max and never put it on the market and maybe max Didn't want them to put a stick with his name on the market We don't we don't know. Um, I've never found anything about that But the 5 d was a model that gretch made And it was in the gretch catalog I'm going to refer to my notes starting in 1963. So before that in the 1961 gretch catalog We have a 1 d which is the art blakie model 2 d Charlie persip 3 d sunny pain 4 d louis belson and then we jump to 7 d Mel lewis and 8 d don lomond. So there was no 5 d um, but in six well in 63 We do have a 5 d, but it's called the philly joe jones model stick So this is very interesting. So it is That that was a model that gretch made Now interestingly by the 1966 catalog, it's no longer The philly joe jones model stick. It's called the 5 d progressive jazz stick So they took philly joe's name off of it for whatever reason Now it's possible that maybe philly joe had moved philly joe became a premier drum endorser Certainly by the late 60s. He was a premier artist So maybe he had left gretch by 66 and they took his name off the stick But they still produced it. So that was a stick that existed and maybe that's a stick that tony used but I have seen photographic evidence That tony was using at least in the early 60s and 63 64 Now i'm going to show you a photo um from The november 1963 session for gretchen montsour's evolution record, which is an amazing record And this is a photo where you can just kind of make out some writing on tony's left stick now i'm i've been lucky enough to see A sort of a high res version of this that unfortunately i don't have my own copy of But at the mosaic records warehouse in connecticut, which is now sadly closed They took a number of these negatives and made large prints of them including this photo of tony And on this large print you can very easily see that that stick says gretch 3d sonny pain and There uh That interview that i mentioned before with mike clark when he talks about seeing tony for the first time in 1968 Mike clark says he was playing the gretch 3d sonny pain model drumstick Well, there you go. Yeah, so at least it at this november 1963 and october 1968 Maybe just on those two dates, but we have evidence of him definitely using the gretch 3d Sonny pain stick now i just happen to have three Of these sticks that i um i think i got all of these on eday or reverb Um, i don't have three pairs i just have three sticks, but you can see here That this is the gretch sonny pain 3d sonny pain stick And this is a very interesting stick because it is very very small Um, it's about it's 15 inches long Although these are these are not all the same length, but they're about 15 inches long, which is very short. That's like a Firth uh 7a is 15 and a half inches long and that's a short stick That's a stick. Yeah, this is a real these are really really really small And you know they're they're the grip the grip is very thin And they have this you can kind of see if i put it up to my shirt Um, they have this tip that's sort of between A ball tip and a barrel tip. It's like a slightly extended barrel tip maybe but a little rounder You can see that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so it's and those are those aren't even that consistent between those No, you can see too these three sticks that are the same model or they're all a little bit different from each other. Yeah, but They're very very light Very light. Um, and they do get a very sort of precise sound on the symbol When i've tried these i i'm very careful when i try them, but i have tried these on my kit and You know they sound you get a lot of stick and it's interesting to think about his sound And his technique and the idea of him using these and how this may have affected his Sound on his ride symbol Um, but i think it's yeah, I think it's a pretty interesting thing And this is another little sidebar about the gretch 3d model stick, but um steve gad In interviews has talked about how throughout the 70s. He was using this exact same model stick There's an interview the sunny pain 3d. Yeah the gretch sunny pain model stick He talks about um, there's a vik furth interview where he talks about his signature model that He had been using a gretch sunny pain stick before that and um, his original Signature stick was actually made by yamaha in the late 70s yamaha made this stick This was the actually the before the furth stick came out this is the original steve gad signature stick and it is Not terribly dissimilar from if i take one of these I mean they're not that close, but It's kind of similar same neighborhood. Yeah, it's kind of it's inspired by now that the gad stick is definitely longer But it's in the same kind of family And then the original vik furth stick when that first came out around 83 Was basically exactly the same as the uh as the yamaha stick That proceeded it So you could say that steve gad stick is actually kind of a variation on tony's old stick From the 60s. So kind of which tony gets a signature stick. Correct. When does that when does that happen? It's well, it's interesting you yet you mentioned that because I mentioned um chris bennett and um From bopworks drumsticks. He did some research and this is on his website um He had found this This stick that is so it's basically it says it's a 5a the writing on it says gretch tony williams 5a But this stick is very odd because it has no tip It basically has a taper and then it's like the tips were just sort of like cut off or not applied to the stick And it's very very bizarre but If you look closely at the video that I talked about before of tony playing with stan gads in um 1972 at montra where he's playing steve gads kit and playing piste 2002 symbols You can pretty clearly see he's using these tipless sticks And also the video Yeah, the video with him with john lakpanti in 1972 you can also see he's using these sticks there So this was a stick that he used here's a photo of him. This was his vibe for a couple of years um, I don't know how long exactly um, but interestingly if we back up slightly There are photos from copenhagen in 71. There's one good photo where you can see Pretty clearly you can't see the logo, but if you know what the gretch 2b looks like That is definitely a gretch 2b. It's a it's a it's a meaty stick. It's a 2b It's a thick stick But the gretch 2b had a very very short and very extreme taper To this sort of arrowhead tip But you can see how thin the tip like just under the tip of the stick is very very very thin So I assume he would still get very good rebound from this stick So he's using that stick in 71, but then by 72 he has this completely different weirdo stick And then I'm not sure exactly when but certainly by the mid 70s He is back to using gretch 2b's And there are various photos of sticks that people have collected over the years that they got from tony Or that they bought from gretch, you know like because gretch put these out So this is technically a signature stick. It says gretch 2b tony williams just like that earlier 5a So this is sort of a custom Stick or at least it it's got his name on it. You can see that same sort of extreme Taper happening here Here is a an 80 stick that's very well used. It says gretch tony williams Same more or less the same model same sort of, you know thin taper up there You can see how much he was playing the back end of the stick to Yeah, really totally a lot of simple crashes. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty cool Here's another variant Here's an 80s or 90s version of the stick With the red late what we're red writing and then this one up above it That just says tony williams and doesn't say gretch on it anywhere for whatever reason Now the next The next the sort of final variation Or the final chapter in this story is his zildjian signature stick and I want to refer to My friend John de christopher who was very very kind in Giving me an incredible amount of information about his experiences with tony And his experience at helping tony develop this stick john de christopher Is an amazing guy who was Among many other things ahead of zildjian's artist relations in the late 80s into the 90s into the 2000s And he has a wonderful podcast Called live from my drum room, right? That's the name of the podcast. Yes. Yes. Yes. Go follow and subscribe Yeah, it's a really really wonderful podcast. He does amazing interviews Similar to bruce witted who I mentioned before it, you know being a drummer John de christopher knows all of the right questions to ask fellow drummers and the interviews are always very interesting so John told me the story about how He was managing zildjian's Drumstick division, which I think they started in sort of the mid 80s Mid to late 80s and they wanted to get They had some endorsers, but they wanted to get what he referred to I think as a flagship endorser um That you know, they wanted a big big big name to do a signature stick to have a signature stick and um, I guess it was decided that they would go after tony williams because tony was not with a major drumstick manufacturer so, um It was decided that john would talk to tony at tony's appearance at the modern drummer drum festival in september of 1990 So they arranged to have a meeting After his appearance at this festival and john talked to him And tony basically said if you can make this stick for me I will I will be a zildjian stick artist You know if you can make he gave him a pair of his gretch sticks and said if you can copy this Um, I'll play them. I I think what john told me actually was was the question that was asked and ed zildjian was Why doesn't tony have a signature stick? You know at this point like why why isn't he with a major drumstick maker so um, he became they they basically took that pair of sticks that he gave him and they copied it Got the spec just exactly right and tony was happy and said yeah, let's go ahead and they he became the first sort of major zildjian drumstick Signature artist and later like shortly after they got um finny kalyura. They got dennis chambers Um, they got great sticks. I they're fantastic sticks. I still I use the zildjian john riley stick a lot It's it's they're they're wonderful sticks and you can see from this ad that it is basically that same model um, it's that sort of to be with a pretty extreme a short and extreme taper um, and He the the the the type actually says in this um in this ad We started with our 2b and exaggerated the taper in the neck for a lighter feel at the top end An acorn shaped bead was added to bring out more definition from those signature ride patterns And to withstand a powerful style we designed our stick to carry more weight yet remain responsive So that's basically, you know kind of that's what we see from that gretch 2b as well And that is you know, that became his signature stick and and um, yeah, and that's that's the story of the sticks Man paul, this is uh incredible man. So We started talking about all this and doing this in july of 2023. It's november tomorrow's Thanksgiving Yeah, yeah It has been a happy Thanksgiving. It has been a journey. Um to do this but Just a huge thank you to you obviously for putting the amount of work And time into this and I hope you feel um, you know, I think people appreciate it very much from the comments But I hopefully you you know, this will live forever. So you should be proud to get this information out there I I hope so. Yeah, I mean this you know This stuff is not particularly well documented and it's all stuff that I've pieced together from all sorts of different resources and um Uh, and I think at the very least it's nice to have it all in one place and um Uh, I hope that my information that I've given you is is I mean I try to be as accurate as possible I'm trying really hard not to speculate. Um, I I again. I want to really thank um There's a lot of people to thank I mentioned john to christopher Um, I want to you know have to thank and give massive respect to wallace roney Um, and also to uh to lenny white to mike clark um Some of the writers bruce wittett rick mattingly Um, uh, there's just so much amazing info out there and so many great resources. So it was it was you know, I got a I got a credit jess birch And steve maxwell for their help with this um Yeah, um, yeah, i'm probably gonna forget probably forgetting somebody but you know, it's nice I'm hoping it'll be good to have you know, all of this stuff at least in It's four episodes, but all of this stuff. Hopefully we'll live on as long as youtube lives on We'll have this stuff exactly Well, thank you to your wife for letting you uh, you know to take up this portion of your house and and we man We've done a lot of them now hours and hours. Yeah, she's she's extremely patient Yes, and your cat. Thank you my cat my cat not so much. She's you know, he's kind of giving up I'm trying to get my attention at this point Yeah, that's good. Well, um, thank you to everyone for listening. Thank you to scott garrison for coming on on part three um If you have listened to all these episodes be sure to comment and let us know because I think it's cool when people have listened to the entire series Um, so it's been it's when this is released and out. It'll be a month of tony. So I guess this episode will conclude the month of tony. Um, but it's you know, tony's tony's worth it man. I mean, he's Absolutely one of the most important drummers of all time and you know, I I mean for me he's You know him and elvin kind of swap places is my number one favorite my number two favorite They're kind of constantly going like this and he's yeah massively important to me He's massively important to so many of us and I just think he deserves this sort of deep dive and it seems like people dig it so Really really happy that people are listening and and I really really really hope that it encourages people to go and listen to tony Williams listen listen listen to as much tony williams as possible And if you want to learn to play like tony williams The only way to do that is to listen to him Listen listen listen get that sound in your head and then try to replicate it It's it's you know, they're transcriptions. That's great You know, you can watch videos It's cool to see him But the your ears are what's going to tell you what you're hearing the ears getting that sound Through your ears into your brain is the way to really internalize it. So listen to tony. Listen listen listen He's the best. Absolutely. That's what garrison said to he said close your eyes and just listen Makes a lot of sense. So um All right, paul. Well, this has been an incredible man I won't say anything now, but you and I have something that we're kind of planning to do is another one Maybe in 2024 we'll we'll work on that one later. I'm sure you'll be back, but let's take a break for a while Yeah, yeah, I can use a little break, but yeah looking forward to uh to meeting again Yes, okay. Well, thanks to everyone for watching. Thanks to everyone who helped and was involved All the people paul listed and more, um, but uh paul Thank you for being here and have a great rest of 2023. Thank you bar. Same to you. Happy holidays