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Rolling stones drummer charlie watts12/29/2023 ![]() His most adventurous work, though, was a sweeping tribute to jazz drummers, in collaboration with drummer Jim Keltner - who has played with Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder, Delaney & Bonnie, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and Gábor Szabó, among numerous others. On the vocal albums, Watts muted his rhythms into a faded heartbeat, guiding songs of longing and loss. In addition, he has issued recordings with a tentet, a quintet, plus a big band (which played versions of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “Paint It, Black”) has recorded two Charlie Parker tributes and has released two luxuriantly scored sets of American Songbook standards - Warm & Tender and Long Ago & Far Away, both featuring longtime Rolling Stones backing vocalist Bernard Fowler. It was abundantly arranged, and some of it - “Lester Leaps In,” with a massive tenor conflagration - was played at breakneck clips. ![]() Watts has recorded 10 jazz albums on his own, in a wide variety of styles, starting in 1986 with Live at Fulham Town Hall, by the Charlie Watts Orchestra - an oversized orchestra that included seven trumpeters, four trombones, three altoists, six tenors, a baritonist, a clarinetist, two vibraphonists, piano, two basses, Jack Bruce on cello, and three drummers. But he could play a New Orleans second line because he was from New Orleans.” Ed Blackwell was a revolutionary drummer with Ornette Coleman’s quartet, and he was what we would call a jazz player, that’s what he did, that’s what he was. He could play bebop but also could play second-line rhythms. Watts came to see how jazz and rock & roll emerged from similar backgrounds, sometimes played by the same players: “It’s quite a normal mixture in New Orleans for the drummers - somebody like Zigaboo. “Another New Orleans drummer, Earl Palmer, always thought of himself as a jazz player - and, in fact, he was he played for King Pleasure.” Earl Phillips kind of played like a jazz drummer,” he says. “Like Earl Phillips, Jimmy Reed’s drummer. Watts also began listening to New Orleans musicians who played rock & roll and R&B as well as jazz. Obviously, I’d heard ‘Hound Dog’ and all that, but to listen to him properly, Keith was the one who taught me.” Keith taught me to listen to Elvis Presley, because Elvis was someone I never bloody liked or listened to. That’s what I was into when I joined the Rolling Stones, that’s what I used to listen to. It was Richards, Watts tells me, who taught him new ways to hear rock & roll: “While they were all going on about John Lee Hooker and all these other marvelous people Muddy Waters, I’d be putting Charlie Parker and Sonny Rollins in. He was absolutely central to the Rolling Stones’ history, sound, and identity. They have carried indelible ghosts before, but Watts’ passing is a crushing loss. The piece raises a question: Are the Rolling Stones still the Rolling Stones without Charlie Watts? There can be no doubt that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards feel this demise immensely, since they have loved the man and have appreciated - for well over half a century - what he meant to their sound and history. Now, on the heels of Watts’ death at age 80, I offer it in full. I got to do that, but the section I wrote about him didn’t make the final story.Īfter I learned Watts would not be joining the Stones on tour this fall due to a health issue, I went back and reread the section, expanded it with some more passages from the interview. ![]() I was excited by the prospect: For more years than I could count, I had wanted to be able to sit in a room and talk with him about jazz. I’d talked to Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ron Wood before, but never Charlie Watts. "Devastating news, those in the know know he was the heart & soul of the band.I n 2013, I interviewed the Rolling Stones for this magazine as the band prepared for the next leg of their 50th anniversary tour. There are no words, every groove has spoken for itself." "Not a rock drummer, a jazz drummer really, and that’s why the Stones swung like the Basie band!!” "No matter what song the Stones played… it always had a deep groove… that was Charlie Watts…he will be missed." There’s so much to say about Charlie, but for now we will listen to the gift he gave us all - his music." A consummate performer and an even better human. "For those of us that love music, we’ve lost one of the true pioneers of rock-n-roll. Once they locked onto each other, things happened. Nothing happened in the studio each night until Charlie found the rhythm to whatever riff Keith was unearthing. "Exile On Main Street is a messy rock'n'roll masterpiece. He played exactly what was needed - no more - no less. "Charlie Watts was the most elegant and dignified drummer in rock and roll. ![]() One of the true timeless icons and the backbone of the Stones.
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