The legendary session drummer has never lost his jazz smarts.
Jim Keltner is, in two words, a legend, since the 1960s one of America’s most in-demand session drummers, lending not only impeccable chops but an unequaled touch and tact to a ridiculous number of records, from 1965 (Gary Lewis and the Playboys’ “Just My Style”) to 2020 (Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher). He’s probably working as you read this.
Always based in Los Angeles, Keltner hit his stride in 1969 with Delaney & Bonnie’s Accept No Substitute, which led to Joe Cocker’s sprawling Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour and double album (1970), Carly Simon’s Anticipation (1971), Randy Newman’s Sail Away (1972) and Bonnie Raitt’s 1973 classic Takin’ My Time. Keltner has recorded extensively with every ex-Beatle except, for some reason, Paul McCartney. A long association with Bob Dylan began with the 1973 single “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” (“the first time I actually cried when I was playing,” Keltner recalls, “it was such a touching song”), continued through the Christian years, continued to continue with Empire Burlesque (1985) and the Traveling Wilburys albums (1988 and 1990), and finally, but then again maybe not, with Time Out of Mind (1997). In 1972, Jim began a collaboration with Ry Cooder that spans 40 years, perhaps both musicians’ most fruitful association, including John Hiatt’s breakthrough Bring the Family (1987) and the abortive supergroup Little Village (1992). And of course that’s Keltner on Steely Dan’s “Josie” (1977), including the garbage-can lid in the bridge.
And the road goes on, from Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine (2005) through John Mayer’s Born and Raised (2012) to Diana Krall’s Wallflower (2015). And on. That’s Jim, brother.
What is not generally known is that Keltner began his career as an ardent, up-and-coming jazz drummer. The best albums on which to hear Jim’s jazz are Gábor Szabó’s Bacchanal and Dreams (both 1968) and Gabor ’69 (1969). His chops are self-evident on these records, especially Bacchanal, but his smarts, taste, and boundless love of the music shine through equally in his extensive reflections below. Did Jim walk away from jazz too early? You could say he’s never really walked away. That hip musicality is evident in every note, every flam, on the many thousands of records Jim Keltner has brightened.
1. Frank Sinatra
“I Get a Kick Out of You” (Sinatra and Swingin’ Brass, Reprise). Sinatra, vocal; Earl Palmer, drums; with big band arranged by Neal Hefti. Recorded in April 1962.
BEFORE: Is that with the Basie band? Neal Hefti, hmmm. I grew up on that stuff. Is that Irv Cottler [Sinatra’s main drummer for more than 30 years]?
Nope.
All right, who is it?
AFTER: That’s Earl? I would never have guessed it, never.
Earl said that when Neal Hefti asked him to be on the record, “that’s when I knew that I’d arrived.”
I can hear him saying that.
He prided himself on being better than everybody else. It’s that Black exceptionalism—you have to be better.
Well, in music, it’s like, the poor white guys just don’t have it like the Black guys do. I hate to admit it, but that’s basically true. And that’s why you celebrate someone like Irv Cottler, who’s like your Jewish uncle, but is killin‘ in his way.
Earl wasn’t a chopsmeister, just like Irv wasn’t. You wouldn’t want to be a chops guy playing Sinatra’s music, unless you’re one of those guys who know how to control it. Buddy Rich could swing your butt right down in the ground, and with no use of those amazing chops. Sonny Payne had all kind of chops. He could play real disciplined, but then he’d let it go and you’d go crazy. I’m glad you played this for me.
2. Chico Hamilton
“Passin’ Thru” (Passin’ Thru: The New Amazing Chico Hamilton Quintet, Impulse!). Hamilton, drums; Charles Lloyd, tenor saxophone; Gábor Szabó, guitar; George Bohannon, trombone; Albert Stinson, bass. Recorded in September 1962.
BEFORE: That’s Chico, right? Nobody played like that. Chico’s sound and the way he approached the drums was completely unique. He didn’t play the ride cymbal in a conventional way, and he utilized the drums in a way that people just don’t do. There are young players today who are doing things kind of similar, and they probably don’t know who Chico Hamilton was. He never got the love, the appreciation, that he deserves. Chico Hamilton. Bad-ass drummer.
That’s Gabby. And Charles, obviously, and Bohannon. And that’s Albert Stinson. He was my very, very best friend. He was the guy I told them to hire for this little band that played up in the mountains. The Aristocats. All I knew was when I played with Albert, I sounded great. The whole band sounded great with Albert. He was this strange kid. He was younger by three, four years. He had the mustache going all the way down to here, and the Eric Dolphy beard sticking way out. He wanted to look like no one else. So he didn’t.
We were just kids! But Albert was a monstrous musician. You hear the word kicked around a lot, but he was a true genius. He built his own bass. He died when he was 25, and by that time he had already played with Miles, who asked him to be in his band, and Albert turned Miles down! He subbed for Ron Carter when they were playing in Berkeley, and you can hear that all over YouTube.
3. Miles Davis
“Stuff” (Miles in the Sky, Columbia). Davis, trumpet; Wayne Shorter, tenor saxophone; Herbie Hancock, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Tony Williams, drums. Recorded in 1968.
BEFORE: Don’t tell me that’s Tony.
That’s Tony.
AFTER: I would never have guessed that! Wow.
As far as I know, that’s the first song where he played a rock beat.
I don’t own this record and it was probably for that reason. I didn’t want to hear Miles playing like that.
You played me something here that’s important on several different wavelengths. Remember when I told you that I’m a different person now, reading Sartre? I read it in my twenties and it didn’t hold my attention. It’ll be interesting to listen to this again and see how I feel about it today.
Tony insisted that he invented fusion.
I’m not gonna argue with that. But I didn’t listen to any of that stuff in those days. That jazz snob part of me in those days didn’t allow it.
Too much of a purist.
That’s exactly right.
You’re playing straight jazz on that Gábor Bacchanal record from ’68. I love your playing on that.
Well, that’s really nice of you. I have friends who say the same thing, but I can’t listen to that record. I love Gábor, but my playing isn’t connected. I was set free too soon! They loved what I was doing and so I just kept on doing it until I said, “Wait a minute, this is not what I wanna be playing.”
You didn’t make enough jazz records. You left too soon.
I was snatched right out of the jazz world. I shouldn’t say snatched, I went willingly. I ran. From $85 a week to $250 a week, that gets your attention. It was after we did “Just My Style,” by Gary Lewis and the Playboys. I was a jazz player that did some pop sessions, for the bread. They didn’t know whether to use Hal [Blaine] or me on it. Hal had just played on “This Diamond Ring.” When I played “Just My Style” I was fortunate to be able to lock in on that little track, and on the playback is when Leon Russell turned to me and said, “Hey, you’re gonna make a great rock drummer.”
I remember I suddenly felt 10 feet tall. Because by that time I had begun to realize that rock & roll was not just dumb-ass playing a backbeat on two and four. I think I heard Bernard Purdie and realized what real pop/rock could be. And when I sat down to play it I said, “Wait a minute, there is way more to this than I thought.” That’s just a simple shuffle on “Just My Style.” But I realized that just a simple shuffle is harder to play than a lot of stuff. That session was a revelation.
4. Elvin Jones
“Gingerbread Boy” (Puttin’ It Together, Blue Note). Jones, drums; Joe Farrell, tenor saxophone; Jimmy Garrison, bass. Recorded in April 1968.
BEFORE: Is that Elvin? Oh man!
What was special about Elvin to you?
Oh, God. The fact that he didn’t play like anybody else. I’ll go way too long on this, because there’s so much I feel about it. When I first heard Elvin Jones, I had been loving real clean, pretty-sounding drumming. Charli Persip did a small-band thing for a while and he was playing really clean and perfect. And then, and then, by some twist of fate, a friend of mine in Pasadena turned me on to a J.J. Johnson record called Dial J.J. 5 [Columbia, 1957] and I discovered Elvin. I wasn’t sure what was going on. Like, why would he play so loose? And then it just started to rub in on me and it took over and I didn’t want to hear anything clean anymore. It changed my whole thing.
And that was way before Elvin joined Trane. He wasn’t playing polyrhythms. He wasn’t playing the thing that everybody loves with Coltrane. This was Elvin playing his thing. His style. Which was completely loose and totally different from anybody else. It wasn’t swinging in that cool, precision way. It was wider. It wasn’t up here, tight. It was African to me.
When he played on [Coltrane’s] My Favorite Things [Atlantic, 1961], that was the first record with Elvin and McCoy. And it was what I expected from the Elvin I had already been turned on to. And then I went to see them at the Crescendo, on Sunset. I got there early, and I had a perfect view, looking right up at the drums, and I saw an extra pedal, there was one on the [bass] drum and there was an extra one sitting there. I said, “What the hell is that for?”
They came on and played and it was like a freight train ran through the building. I hadn’t heard rock & roll yet, but it was that volume. Loud. They were playing the same songs from the My Favorite Things record, but in just that short time on the road, it had developed into this other thing. That’s when it became Elvin and Coltrane. They had gone from this thing where they were playing neat and confined to where they were letting it explode. Remember when they used to talk about Coltrane’s “sheets of sound”? He had been doing it before, kind of hinting at what he was going to do, just like Elvin was hinting at what he was gonna do. But when they went out on the road, their whole thing changed. And it changed everything. People in my little group, Bobby Hutcherson and people like that from Altadena, everybody said, “We’re never gonna be the same again.” The other time that happened was when Miles came to town with Tony, Ron, Herbie, and Wayne, down at the It Club in South Central. They had the same effect.
So did you ever find out what the other pedal was for?
It was because he was breaking them!
Every time after that show that I saw Elvin, he reminded me of an African prince. Everything about him was Africa. And Thad and Hank, his brothers, were not like that at all. They were classic-sounding jazz guys. Elvin was from some other continent.
5. The Band
“Ophelia” (The Last Waltz, Warner Bros.). Levon Helm, vocals and drums; Robbie Robertson, guitar; Garth Hudson, keyboards; Richard Manuel, piano and vocals; Rick Danko, bass and vocals; horns arranged by Garth Hudson. Recorded in November 1976.
BEFORE: Obviously that’s Levon. I thought it was two drummers at first, which just proves how brilliant Levon was. There was nobody like Levon. Levon Helm—just perfection. And then on top of that, to be playing with those soulful guys, Robbie, Rick, Richard, Garth—just the most soulful dudes.
6. Zach Danziger
“Solo” (YouTube video recorded live at Tamtam DrumFest, Sevilla, Spain). Danziger, drums, percussion, and electronics. Recorded in 2019.
[Ed.: Zach Danziger, a bona fide drum prodigy in the late ’80s and early ’90s, grew up on Steve Gadd, Vinnie Colaiuta, and others, and often plays with guitarist Wayne Krantz. In the late ’90s he got interested in augmenting his acoustic kit with electronics, and that’s largely what he’s been doing since; for the video linked to above, he has pickups on his drums and cymbals so he can trigger samples of notes, chord sequences, melodies, and random sounds.]
BEFORE: Triggering’s been done for quite a while now. With your drums, your pads, and your laptop, this pad here, or this drum or cymbal, can trigger a bass line, and the next pad can trigger the keys, and you can manipulate all of that on your laptop. The only thing about his sonic palette here is that the snare sound is a little one-dimensional. I’d have wanted it to have been a little more adventurous.
AFTER: I’d have to hear more of this guy before I could understand what he’s trying to do. I was doing this years ago with Ry, not so much on records, but live, and in movie work. I was triggering things from my drums, and having the pads play other crazy little sounds. But I don’t like triggering other instruments. I love the interaction, with the other player listening to what I’m doing, and reacting from that. I came up playing with people, live. And that’s what I want to do.
7. Ghost-Note with JD Beck and DOMi
“Drum Cam” (YouTube video for Zildjian LIVE!). Beck, drums; Robert “Sput” Searight, music director and keyboards; Nathaniel Werth, percussion; Dywane “MonoNeon” Thomas Jr., bass; Sylvester Onyejiaka, baritone saxophone and flute; Jonathan Mones: alto saxophone and flute; Mike Jelani Brooks, tenor saxophone and flute; Xavier Taplin, keyboards; Peter Knudsen, guitar; Mike Clowes, guitar, DOMi, keyboards. Recorded in 2020.
BEFORE: [Keltner turns his head away from computer screen as video plays] It sounds like Vinnie [Colaiuta] playing. Who is it?
It’s a 16-year-old kid named JD Beck.
AFTER: Sixteen? Well, that’s sick! He sounds like he’s been playing for 50 years. The technique is impeccable. If he’s 16 years old, that’s God-given and some DNA thing and a lot of study. Sixteen?
Actually, I think he’s 15 on this.
Okay, so he was 15. He’s not just a technician. I keep wanting to avoid the word but I can’t—this kid is soulful. There was some deep shit going on there. The music is not my cup of tea. But I’m blown away by the art, by the level that this kid is taking drumming to. I mean, it’s sick. I wanna turn Vinnie on to this. If he was in his twenties or thirties I could say, “Okay, he’s been this, he’s been here, he’s been listening.” But to be that young—that’s extraordinary, beyond what I’ve seen. Wow, thank you for that.
He doesn’t have enough of a pocket.
Doesn’t have enough of a pocket? Are you kidding me? Tony! He is a bad-ass. This is some kind of extraordinary genius stuff. Well, they come along like this once in a while. It’s gonna be fun for me to turn people on to him. Just for this last thing alone, I’m glad we did this.
Before you split, I’ve always wanted to ask you: How many sessions have you played?
Good Lord. Well, think about it like this. I’ve been doing this since 1965. And that’s all I’ve done. I’m getting to the stage now where I’m like Hal and Earl. I was 20 years old and I’d ask them questions and they’d go, “Uhh, ahh, I don’t remember that one.” I would say to myself, “Man, I will never be like that. I will always remember everything I’ve done.” And now I’m just like them. I can’t remember shit.
You’ve had one of the longest runs of anyone, period, a half-century-plus. How have you done it?
It’s really simple. You gotta keep yourself in shape. Drums is like a dance with all your limbs, so stay healthy. Nothing to it but that.
by Tony Scherman
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