_“You put that fuckin' mouthpiece into that bell again, I'm gonna take your fuckin' horn and break it across my knee!”_Big band leader Buddy Rich was regarded as one of the greatest drummers of all time. He also kicked his band's ass whenever the mood took him. And by all accounts, it took him regularly.I first heard of Buddy Rich through the Seinfeld DVDs. A misty-eyed Jerry Seinfeld spends an interview segment waxing lyrical about secret recordings of Buddy Rich berating his band being passed around from stand-up to stand-up on the road in the 70s and 80s. And now it's reached this comedian.It doesn't seem right that I should review the bootleg, exactly. Afterall it's just a poor recording of a guy going apeshit. But, being a comedy obsessive, I can't help marvelling at the musicality of Rich’s put-downs. He fairly beats out his sentences, starting quietly and building to big crescendo (“I ought to give each one of you motherfuckers a cut in salary!”) He was also startlingly quick-witted, as in:_Buddy_: What kinda setting do you got on the bass tonight?_Bass Player_: Setting?_Buddy_: I feel that's fairly much English.Rich does something else that I've always found highly amusing whenever I've been lucky enough to witness it: he gets so upset that he offers the whole place out for a fight. “If you don't enjoy it here, fuck you! And get off my band. Or we can find other ways to settle it.” Did Rich abuse his position by behaving like a tyrant? Perhaps. I’ve no truck with bullies yet I did wonder what makes him rage in such an explosive way. Dude had a temper, no doubt. But the underlying conflict seems generational. An old pro whaling on cocky young bucks, “I'm not accustomed to working with half-assed fuckin' kids who think they wrote the fuckin' music business." After further listens, I reckon Rich's big problem was with fakers. Soulless people, or more precisely, people who take no pride in their work, who phone it in, who let others pick up their slack. As Rich puts it, "You jived me for the last fuckin' time." I can also imagine that the old firebrand feared losing his own edge, and was in some way berating himself.Whatever the reasons, such is Buddy's style and skill with a zinger, I wouldn’t have minded being on the receving end of one of his Biblical rages._“All I hear is noise. If you get any fuckin' closer you'll electrocute yourselves. What do you think I got a man with a sound system out there for? Sit down and play some fuckin' music! You afraid you won't be heard, is that it? I'll turn the motherfucker off all of you, then see what kind of a band you got up there, without all the assistance. You can't play shit!"_Okay, maybe not.......- I was reminded of Buddy Rich by "this recent post by Bartleby":http://mog.com/Bartleby/blog_post/126557.- You can read the transcripts of all three tapes on "this site.":http://www.cis.rit.edu/~ejipci/buddy_rich2.htm - Unfortunately, I’ve only been able to track down an MP3 of the first tape. If anybody out there has the other two, and could pass them my way, you'd make an old comedy nut very happy just in time for Christmas. UPDATE: 18/12/07A certain Mr. Young People With Faces has contacted me to pass on the three remaining Buddy Rich Tapes, plus a link to the full transcripts: http://www.musketeers.org/thud/buddy/buddy.htm. Thanks very much, mate!
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