The history of Black drummers is rich and deeply intertwined with the development of various music genres, particularly in the United States. Many incredible Black drummers have made significant contributions to music across various genres. The legacy of Black drummers is a testament to their enduring influence and the vital role they play in the world of music.
In this article, we will celebrate the talent and impact of some of the most famous Black drummers who have shaped the course of music history.
The Origins of Drumming in Black Culture
The origins of drumming in Black culture can be traced back to Africa, where drums were used for communication, ceremonies, and storytelling.
How Yoruba Drums Evolved into Afro-American Beats
Early Pioneers in Jazz
In the early 20th century, Black drummers were instrumental in the development of jazz. Drummers like Baby Dodds and Chick Webb were pioneers, introducing new techniques and styles that would influence generations of musicians.
Evolution Through Rhythm and Blues and Rock and Roll
As music evolved, Black drummers continued to innovate. In the 1940s and 1950s, drummers like Earl Palmer and Clyde Stubblefield helped shape the sound of rhythm and blues and rock and roll.
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The Rise of Funk
The 1960s and 1970s saw the rise of funk, with drummers like James Brown‘s Clyde Stubblefield and Jabo Starks creating iconic grooves that remain influential.
Contemporary Drummers and Their Impact
Today, Black drummers continue to be at the forefront of music innovation. Artists like Questlove, Sheila E., and Kendrick Scott are known for their versatility and ability to blend different musical styles.
Cultural and Social Significance
Beyond their musical contributions, Black drummers have played a significant role in cultural expression and social change. Drumming has been a means of resistance, communication, and community building throughout history.
Fife and Drum Music
The simplicity of a fife, often made of a reed or cane, a bass drum, and a snare drum, the classic construction of a fife and drum group, reminded me of Spasm Bands in New Orleans, and the pennywhistle-led Skiffle music of South Africa called Kwela-all involve cheap or home made instruments often taken up by street musicians. Fife and drum music itself is ancient. It is associated with militaries in Europe from the 1500s on. The fife is small and its sharp sound can be heard above a din. Drums have been used for communication in battle even longer. Outside of active engagement they are used to make marching lighter, to entertain in camp, and for patriotic public entertainments including parades.
Whites seem to have recognized and appreciated the skill of Black drummers in a military context as far back as the Revolutionary War. Though drums on plantations were often banned, military mustering for both free and slave was often required by the states, and Blacks were frequently given the roles of drummers in the decades before the Civil War. Some individuals even became well enough known, due to the popularity of martial entertainments directed at the public, to warrant naming in period newspapers.
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It is hard to determine when a distinctly African American style of fife and drum emerged, one that would be recognizably distinct to people of the time, but it became widespread immediately after the Civil War and Emancipation. So immediately that it must have been preexisting to some degree.
In the wake of Emancipation the black community began publicly asserting itself in the cities of Tennessee. Those first parades in Memphis were organized by the Sons of Ham and the Social Benevolent Society, two Black organizations that predated the war. Before modern life insurance, social aid and pleasure clubs, to use the familiar New Orleans term, were widespread in America, often but not always based on ethnic groupings. Members would fundraise and socialize, and when a member died they would help with final expenses. Many new societies formed after the war.
In the period after the war fife and drum bands were a prominent part of Black gatherings, with the more expensive-to-operate brass bands increasingly joining and eventually replacing them over decades. The quotation that leads this review mentions a brass band, but it goes on to celebrate, in the language of the time, the fife and drum, and it is likely the funeral described included both.
Looking back across the more recent period of segregation it is hard to picture the political power that African Americans enjoyed in the South in the years following Emancipation. While the Reconstruction period officially ends with the withdrawal of Federal forces in 1877, the process of stripping African Americans of their rights and codifying segregation occurred over an extended period. They still had to be considered as a voting bloc as late as the early 1890s.
Many know that there were Black members of Congress during Reconstruction but haven’t thought about what that meant on the ground. There were African Americans running for and winning local offices that have greater impact on daily life; you talk to your Ward captain more often than your Senator. White candidates had to appeal to Black voters in many districts. Beyond the Republican party that had led Emancipation there were third parties which, to have any chance, needed to draw in both white and Black members. Even the Democrats had to attract Black votes and met with some success.
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A remarkable thing that I notice is that the white newspapers in this period, while casually racist in their sarcasm, lacked the vitriol of the 1890s through 1920s. There is a sense conveyed that everyone was cautiously trying to understand the new social order. In 1866 Blacks held Independence Day picnics in public squares, “alone,” as reported by one newspaper. The white population wasn’t feeling like celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Union that year, and wouldn’t until WWII. These meetings were an assertion by the Black population of their right to use public spaces as equals.
Hiring a fife and drum band from one of the Black societies was one of the primary ways of conveying that your political party or candidate wanted the Black vote. Campaign events for even small offices like city council were highly public affairs with street oratory, and crowd size mattered. While fife and drum music was also part of parades, picnics, and society events, it most prominently featured in newspapers in relation to advertising a political rally or speech, frequently with all candidates having their own band.
Fife and drum became so tied to campaigns that letters to the editor lamented the racket that came with campaign season the way one might complain about wall to wall TV ads in an election year today. Some of these complaints do seem to be justified from a public nuisance standpoint. Drummers parading around your neighborhood day after day might become unwelcome even if you support their candidate.
As years progressed into the 1870s the fife and drum became a ubiquitous part of life in the cities of Tennessee, and less well documented, in the rural areas where the style would persist for a century. Many complaints about the prevalence of the music had to do with appearances. Throughout the 1860s and ’70s fife and drum music prompted discussion in the press. Shaw moves year by year following this discussion with extended excerpts from papers that are flowery and sometimes cheeky. Reporting from picnics and political rallies has the latitude to be irreverent. Reporting on a noise complaint invites poking fun at the complainant.
While the language used to describe the gatherings of African Americans is diminutive it is not, at least in the quotations Shaw cites, nasty. Letting these voices speak for themselves opens up the time period in a way no summary could. Reading these newspapers gives you the smell of the street. There were many papers, white and Black, and those supportive of specific parties. Some of the criticism throughout the period reveals an obvious resentment of the public display of political power that these fife and drum groups represented. This is especially true in the case of Black militias and the fear that they were off plotting rebellion in the woods.
It was, after all, a military music. The very existence of Black militias during Reconstruction is interesting. The primary place they come into the narrative in this book is when they are called into action in Memphis during the yellow fever outbreak of 1878. Around half of the population, mostly the white half, fled to the countryside and Black militias stepped in to run things. Blacks served as policemen, firemen, and guards at the quarantine camps. The city was so hard hit, and broke, that it lost its charter for a number of years. One thing to consider is that Tennessee was still the frontier.
That high point of autonomy during the pandemic came just as Black power was beginning to wane across the south. From that point on, year after year he finds fewer references in the newspapers to fife and drum groups. There are a variety of reasons. In some settings the presence of a band is simply assumed. More forebodingly, reporting on the particular music of an event, or covering a Black social event at all, wanes with Black political power.
He cites many proposals for ordinances banning fife and drum music in urban areas, though it is unclear how many are passed or enforced. The few references to fife and drum there are make it clear the bands were still common, especially in politics, and also in general advertising, into the early 1890s. After that point, with Black political power at its nadir, and brass bands starting to cut the first commercial records, he finds very little in the newspaper archives.
One exception is Nashville baseball. 1886 was the first year a fife and drum groups was used to advertise a baseball game, and it was between two female teams. At least in the city of Nashville the association of baseball and fife and drum would continue for decades. An African American fife and drum corp was used to announce home games of the Nashville baseball team. At one point the group was called the Spirits of ’76 though it was not often referred to by name. The Nashville team was called the Volunteers, and a 1915 reference calls them the “Vol’s ragtime fife and drum corps”. By the late teens the band was also hired for women’s suffrage and WWI events. 25 years after being seen as a Black menace fife and drum had become old timey and patriotic.
In 1917 the Nashville Rotary Club brought the band to an Atlanta convention where they paraded the streets with them. There are letters to the editor calling the band inseparable to Nashville baseball but at some point after 1929 it was no longer used. I hazard a guess not offered in the book that the form of advertising the band was known for, parading the streets to announce an event, had come to an end because radio and literacy combined to serve the purpose.
Shaw finds only one mention of fife and drum music in a Tennessee newspaper between 1929 and 1968. It is a 1948 reference to a man as a former member of the baseball band. The 1968 reference was to a fife and drum group discovered by Alan Lomax in 1958 that was from Mississippi but had members who had moved to Tennessee in the interim. They were appearing at a folk festival.
Blues enthusiasts descending on the area in 1960s and 1970s cataloged what remained of fife and drum activity. A Swedish man named Bengt Olsson even recorded fife and drum playing. Through their work Following the Drums tells the story of several groups that were playing picnics, bars, and horse races in rural counties into the ’60s and sometimes ’70s. A set list includes a run of sanctified standards to suit a Sunday morning program at a traditional jazz festival.
Several participants attribute the decline of the annual picnics to the inclusion of electrified music of the day, recorded or live. They say it overshadowed the small groups of old men with a fife and two drums who had entertained at them for nearly a century, and invited the wrong element. In these rural Black counties drums were used to announce the death of a society member as late as the 1950s, fading away only because everyone had phones. The drum would carry at dawn far enough to alert people who would act as runners to inform the rest of the society. This sort of thing sounds like hogwash, telling white folklorists what they want to hear. But in a small rural area with social life built around burial societies, why change it? Rituals around death tend to persist the longest.
Shaw makes an impressive case for fife and drum music as a central part of African American musical history. This is a period before the blues form, before ragtime-concurrent to only Black spiritual forms like ring shouts, brass bands, and string bands. It is a style focused on drumming, often played with rhythms outside the Western norms. Many oral history sources name the music “drum and fife,” or refer to it as “drum music” without mentioning the fife. There are decades between the predominance of fife and drum and jazz developing into a national craze, but there is a chain of influence. Picture the Sons of Ham, marching with a drum band in the 1860s, a brass band in the 1890s and a jazz band in the 1920s-within the lifetime of a member.
Notable Drummers and Their Contributions
Here is a list of some famous African American drummers who have made significant contributions to various music genres:
- Billy Cobham
Billy Cobham’s impact on drumming is irrefutable. Cobham’s influence remains just as strong today, with countless renowned drummers citing him as an inspiration.
- Chris Coleman
Chris Coleman reigns supreme in the world of drumming. His achievements include touring and recording with famous artists such as Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, and New Kids on The Block. Coleman plays with incredible power, precision, and creativity.
- Tony Williams
Known for his exceptional technique, musicality, and innovative approach, Tony Williams is often considered the first fusion drummer. Throughout his career, Tony Williams collaborated with numerous renowned musicians, including Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, and many others.
- Amir ‘Questlove’ Thompson
He emerged from Philadelphia in the late 1980s as the drummer and co-founder of the Grammy-winning band The Roots.
- Tony Royster Jr
He first gained prominence at a young age when he performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Royster Jr. His dedication to his craft serves as a shining example of what can be achieved through hard work and determination.
- Omar Hakim
Omar Hakim’s drumming style is heavily influenced by jazz fusion. Throughout his career, Hakim has collaborated with renowned artists such as Madonna, David Bowie, Sting, and Miles Davis.
- Steve Jordan
Steve Jordan is a highly respected and influential African American drummer. As a drummer, Steve Jordan brings an incredible level of energy and precision to each performance. In addition to being an exceptional drummer, Steve Jordan is also a talented producer and songwriter. He has co-written several hit songs throughout his career. Overall, Steve Jordan is not just a remarkable drummer but also an accomplished musician in every sense of the word.
- Larnell Lewis
Larnell Lewis is an exceptionally talented drummer who has made a significant impact in the music industry. His versatility is evident as he effortlessly transitions from jazz to funk, fusion to rock, and everything in between. In addition to his impressive technical skills, Larnell also possesses remarkable creativity.
- Elvin Jones
In addition to his technical prowess, Elvin Jones brought a deep sense of passion and emotion to his performances.
- Aaron Spears
Aaron Spears is a highly acclaimed modern drummer known for his incredible skill and versatility. From smooth R&B grooves to hard-hitting rock beats, Aaron can do it all. In addition to his work as a session musician, Aaron also conducts clinics and masterclasses around the world, sharing his knowledge and expertise with aspiring drummers. With his impressive resume and undeniable talent behind the kit, it’s no wonder that Aaron Spears is considered one of the top drummers in the industry today.
- Brian Blade
Brian Blade is a highly acclaimed drummer who has made a name for himself in the music industry. Brian’s ability to blend various genres such as jazz, rock, funk, and gospel effortlessly sets him apart from his peers. Not only is Brian Blade an exceptional drummer, but he also possesses exceptional skills as a composer and bandleader. Brian’s contributions to the world of music are immeasurable, leaving a lasting impact on both fellow musicians and audiences worldwide.
- Eric Moore
Eric Moore is a highly skilled and versatile gospel chops drummer who has made a name for himself in the music industry. Eric has played with numerous acclaimed artists such as Suicidal Tendencies, Bobby Brown, and Sly & The Family Stone. One of the standout features of Eric’s drumming is his incredible chops and footwork. This level of control and coordination sets him apart from many other drummers in the industry. Eric Moore’s contributions to contemporary drumming have earned him a reputation as one of the most innovative percussionists in the business.
- Darius Woodley
Darius Woodley is a highly sought after drummer based in Los Angeles. Woodley has phenomenal technique and creativity that can be heard on stage around the world.
- Bernard Purdie
Bernard Purdie left an indelible mark on the music industry. With a career spanning over six decades, Purdie has recorded and performed with legends such as Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Steely Dan, and Ray Charles.
- Will Calhoun
Will Calhoun rose to fame as the drummer for the legendary rock band, Living Colour. Beyond his work with Living Colour, Calhoun has collaborated with numerous renowned artists such as B.B. King, Mick Jagger, Paul Simon, and Wayne Shorter. In addition to his incredible musical abilities, Calhoun is also passionate about using music as a means of social activism.
- Clyde Stubblefield
Clyde Stubblefield was known for his unique and innovative style. His precise timing, impeccable groove, and creative use of syncopation made him a true legend in the world of percussion.
- Art Blakey
Art Blakey was known for his dynamic and energetic style of playing. During his career, Art Blakey collaborated with countless renowned musicians and recorded numerous albums that became jazz classics. Blakey’s influence extended beyond just drumming; he also mentored young musicians and provided them with opportunities to develop their skills in The Jazz Messengers.
- Max Roach
Max Roach’s impact on modern drumming cannot be overstated. His technical prowess and musicality set new standards for aspiring drummers around the world. Max Roach was known for his innovative approach to drumming, pushing the boundaries of rhythm and technique. Throughout his career, Roach collaborated with numerous jazz luminaries such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk. In addition to his contributions as a performer, Roach was an advocate for civil rights issues through his music.
- Anderson Paak
Anderson Paak is a highly talented and versatile musician known for his exceptional drumming skills. Paak’s energetic and dynamic drumming style can be heard on numerous tracks by popular artists like Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar, and Mac Miller. In addition to his impressive drumming abilities, Anderson Paak is also an accomplished singer-songwriter and record producer.
More Famous Black Drummers
| Name | Known For | Birthplace |
|---|---|---|
| Benny Benjamin | The Funk Brothers (Motown studio band) | Mobile, Alabama |
| Elvin Jones | John Coltrane Quartet | Pontiac, Michigan, USA |
| Lenny White | Jazz Fusion | New York City, USA, New York |
| Clyde Stubblefield | James Brown's Band | Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA |
| John "Jabo" Starks | James Brown's Band | USA |
| Art Blakey | The Jazz Messengers | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA |
