Drummerworld Interview
by Thomas Brumley of Drummerworld
(click photos to enlarge)

Joel Rosenblatt is best known as the drummer for Spyro Gyra, one of the most successful pop-jazz groups ever. Although their albums were consistent best sellers, critics often took them to task for their “superficial” approach to jazz.

The fans knew all along that it was the live shows that allowed the musicians to really open up and improvise, and Rosenblatt’s varied early work (including gigs with Dominican pianist Michel Camilo, bluesman Matt “Guitar” Murphy, jazz artist Paquito D'Rivera, and country-rock band Pure Prairie League) gave him a wide range of experience and styles to draw from.

The gig with Spyro Gyra lasted for 12 years, until the tragic events in New York on September 11th, 2001, caused Joel to redefine what mattered most to him. Feeling like he had lost his forward momentum as a musician, he finally left the band in early 2004, and the past two years have found him playing smaller gigs around New York, recording and mixing for other musicians, and expanding his versatility as a drummer.

I met up with Joel at the 2006 NAMM Show in Anaheim.

Here is the Interview:

DrummerWorld: I wanted to start off by telling you something funny that happened to me. On DrummerWorld we feature hundreds and hundreds of drummers, and whenever I tell my wife that I got to meet some famous drummer or I saw so-and-so at an invitation-only gig, she always says, “That’s nice.” You’re the first person that I told her I was going to meet that caused her to say, “Really? That’s so cool!”

Joel Rosenblatt: And that was because of Spyo Gyra?

DW: Yes, she caught you with Spyro Gyra at a jazz festival in Los Angeles some years ago…

JR: Oh, that’s a long time ago, yeah. Spyro Gyra wasn’t really a “musician’s band.” People who are not musicians know that band, which is why those kinds of things happen.

DW: Your affiliation with Spyro Gyra ended two years ago.

JR: Yes, two years ago this month. I just played last night with (Spyro Gyra bassist) Scott Ambush, but I don’t have any professional affiliation with them. It’s a band, so when a guy leaves or they replace a guy, there’s no weirdness. I have no qualms about that.

DW: Do you feel like the work you did in that band caused you to transcend the musical aspects of your earlier work and move more into the pop-culture aspect?

JR: Yeah, I think that was definitely a by-product. Unfortunately the critics really hate that band, and probably always will. And that’s not to say that we didn’t play really good music. In order to work in those kinds of venues, you can’t really push the envelope. The great thing about that band was all of the styles we got to play, but one of the bad things was we never got to explore any of those styles completely. We had a “flavor” of latin, and we had a “flavor” of jazz, and because of that legacy I’m sometimes now thought of as a “jack of all trades and a master of none.” If someone has a gig where they need a lot of styles covered, I’m going to get the call, but if they’re going to do a real funk gig or a real jazz gig, I’m not going to get the call. In some ways it’s frustrating, but I love playing all styles of music so the good part is that’s what I get to do. Now that I’m not in that band, I think that’s going to change; I’m trying to find my niche.

DW: So what styles or types of music do you see yourself focusing on?

JR: At this time I’m taking whatever looks interesting. I just did a Christian record, which was really fun. It’s going to come out good. It was a challenge for me, especially with my background, to play less. I’m doing something with Bill Evans now that has some bluegrass flavor to it.

DW: What do you mean when you say that with Christian music you played less?

JR: With that type of music, the lyrics are the important thing. It’s not about the drumming, it’s about the message. I got to just be a session drummer and have it be the right thing to play. A lot of times I get calls to perpetuate my reputation as the fusion chops guy, and that’s great and I appreciate it, but I want people to know that I do other things. I just did a gig at the Bitter End in New York with Chrissi Poland, who is a great up-and-coming R-and-B singer, and it’s great to play that funk/R-and-B thing because people don’t know that I can do that. That’s what I want to do now, be heard in other styles. I still want to do the things that I do, but I want to branch out.

DW: What are your suggestions for young drummers when it comes to practicing?

JR: I would say to play with music as much as possible, as many styles as possible. If you play along to the same thing over and over, by about the fifth time you’ve got it memorized and then it’s just an exercise. Also, there are not enough people playing together. It’s like this conversation that you and I are having right now. What you say influences what I say. If you’re playing with a record and you know that a part is coming up at the same place every time, then there’s no journey. Young players can be technically excellent, but they don’t always know what to do when curve balls get sent, and how to compliment somebody else. That only comes with experience. Time with sticks in your hands playing with other musicians and talking with them about the form and what you hear... these are tools that are going to help you as a professional musician. The gig I did with Scott last night, we tried doing a song that we’d never done before together. We talked about it before the show, but during the song someone else forgot a lick. But you know what? That’s the kind of thing that you have to make music out of. It’s not like we’re doing brain surgery. What’s the worst that could happen?

When you’re young, you want to enjoy practicing. Start slow, and what will happen is there will come something that’s too challenging for you. That’s when you turn everything off and think about it. “What do I need to do to get this right?” You’ll discover where the holes in your technique are. It’s a better motivator than just playing RLRR LRLL for four hours. Don’t worry about technique. If you can play a pocket, you’re going to work. I think technique is overrated. The only people who care about that stuff are other drummers, and other drummers aren’t going to hire you. Don’t be freaked out because you can’t play double bass like Virgil Donati. The best compliment you can get is when the musician who hired you comes up and says, “Man, I felt great tonight. That was the best I’ve played in a long time.” That’s a compliment to you that you made him feel that comfortable, and you won’t make him feel comfortable by over-playing. Work on your pocket.

DW: When a young drummer asks what “pocket” means, they often get an answer from an older drummer like, “If you don’t know it when you hear it, then I can’t tell you what it is.”

JR: It’s very simple. When you’re hearing pocket, it stops you and it draws you in. It’s the chemistry of playing with other musicians. When I’m alone in my studio, I think I have great pocket. It’s just me and the click track. But when you put me in with five other guys, you like to think that you can play like a click track, but you’re human. The way I like to play is to react to the other people. I don’t want to just plow on through. They can get a machine for that. A pocket is when it all just feels right. It’s the reason that musicians play music. When it happens there’s nothing better.

DW: When you practice, what’s the physical space like?

JR: I have a home studio, a square room, that was built about fifteen years ago. That was before recording equipment was so affordable, so it was basically just a soundproof practice room. Now I do a lot of recording there with pretty good success, but it’s still just my room. I don’t rent it out to anybody else. It’s in my house, so you know, you’re recording a track and the next thing you know someone’s upstairs using your bathroom.

DW: So you’ve been doing more recording at your home?

JR: I am. I’m venturing out. I had some time on my hands so I did some mixes for some other musicians. They send me the tracks, and I send them back with drums, and they just take them right to the masters, which is a big compliment. I’m learning as I go, but it’s something that I’m really interested in. Really good sounding stuff, having the drums mixed with less compression and more dynamic range. Having the drums be where you can hear them. There are so many Spyro Gyra records where I have the rough mixes and the drums sound great, and I can’t wait to hear the final track, and it comes back from mastering and I’m thinking, “Am I even on this record?” (laughs) But it’s not my band. When they were mixing those tracks, they were mixing them for radio. I had to become comfortable with signing off on it and saying “It’s not my project. You pay me to do my thing, and if you don’t want to hear what I did, that’s fine.”

DW: So when you’re doing producing now, I assume that people want you for your input, not just because you can press a button. You’ve talked with them and expressed these thoughts, and they feel the same way?

JR: Well, as we’re recording I’ll be mixing on the fly, they’ll make suggestions and I’ll accommodate them, I’ll say, “what would you think if we did this or that?” It comes back to the good relationship. This all really started by accident. Most of them came to me because I had a place to record, and then I’d do some mixes and they’d like them and ask me to do some overdubs, and we’d just keep building on what I had and before you know it it sounded great and was ready to be mastered right there. So it’s not that I was hired to produce; I was hired to play drums, but they like what I’m doing so it’s working out. I really love when someone brings a great tune in. You have a good tune and it comes to life, and I can add something that makes the composer happy, and it all happens in my little house. It’s nice to be able to work from home... but I need a bigger space. That’s a whole other can of worms that I’m afraid to open.

DW: Do you have any thoughts on drummers who are notorious for the size of their kits? Are you forced with a smaller kit to bring more out of it, or does a larger kit allow you more musical options?

JR: Yes, both of those statements are true. Simon Phillips has a great quote. A long time ago he would go somewhere to record a 30-second jingle, and he would bring his whole monster double bass-and-gong kit with him, but when you called Simon Philips that’s what you got. The engineers would freak out, and he’d say, “Just because it’s here doesn’t mean that I’m going to use it. I just want every option.” Which makes sense. If you have enough creativity in your head that you need all of that stuff to express yourself musically, great. But living in New York like I do, where there’s no parking and cartage is expensive, I do 99% of the gigs in town on a four-piece kit. In Spyro Gyra I had a guy setting up for me, so why wouldn’t I want to have all of my options? I remember when I got my first double pedal. I didn’t really play it, but I have a guy setting it up for me, so just throw one on here and I’ll learn as I go. And that thing grew. I started triggering because we lost our percussionist so then I was triggering percussion with pedals, and that was an opportunity for me to expand. Guys like Steve Jordan and Bernard Davis, they’ll go do a gig with a hi hat, a kick, and a snare, and kill it. That’s all you need. Your primary function as a drummer is to groove. You don’t need a bunch of stuff to do that. It’s nice sometimes to add some color, but it’s not necessary. I’m known as the chops guy, and I’ve recorded like that and I can play like that, but I’d also like to be known as the guy who can just play the pocket. That’s another reason that I do the gigs with just small kits. That’s all I really need and I’m very happy with that.

DW: What are your thoughts on competitions like the WFD?

JR: It’s exciting, and drumming is a very visual thing, so I can understand the validity of that aspect of it, but I can imagine a young drummer focusing too much on speed at the expense of musicality. Playing what you hear in your head, and have it be a seamless transition... I think any musician will tell you that they’re not there yet. Working on your stamina, putting time into practicing, playing in the pocket, those are things that don’t take practicing chops. Playing with other musicians, playing with a metronome, feeling what it’s like to play behind the beat...

DW: Are those the things that you spend time on?

JR: Definitely. For instance, my bass drum is usually 20 milliseconds ahead and my snare is right on the beat, and that kind of defines my feel, but I’d also like to be a John Robinson behind-the-beat, too, so I’m working on doing that. But I don’t want to mess with it too much. I’m getting hired because of the way that I feel.

DW: What does a working drummer need now?

JR: It’s very competitive now. You really have to have it together. You gotta have good time. Feel is coming back. If you can groove, if you can make the guy that you’re working for happy, you’re going to work. Even if we get replaced in the studio, no one wants to see a drum machine live. Everybody is always going to want to see an exciting show. Drums are always going to be here.

Special thanks to Drummerworld and Thomas Brumley
for their coverage. Click here to visit Drummerworld's
Joel Rosenblatt page.

-- Go to page 4 --