Crafts And Arts
When I teach, and in my own musical evolution, I have a guiding principle: Learn the instrument and the rest is concept. Like any workable Guiding Principle it is simple at its surface and wide enough to cover a lot of ground. Its depth is its substance. The basic idea is that the instrument is the medium and music is the canvas. Pick a metaphor, really. Essentially, as it relates to teaching, my intention is to develop drummers and musicians; not so-called rock drummers or jazz drummers for instance. Address the drumset first and apply concept to adapt and thrive in all musical styles and settings. Simple at the surface.

Musical Ethnology
In my own playing this principle has kept me open-minded and open-eared and I’ve found it relatively smooth to transition on the instrument conceptually when entering varied musical environments or exploring different styles. But developing concept is no simple matter. When I first discovered the modern Klezmer music coming out of New York’s avant garde and then the traditional stuff from Eastern Europe, for instance, it was a musical culture shock. I just never heard music and drumming that way before. There were foreign codes.

The plain fact that music emerges out of cultures bespeaks the complex challenge of effectively understanding—conceptualizing—musical styles. Try assimilating in Paris after a semester of French Lit. Try playing Klezmer convincingly after digging a few old records. Personally, I put considerable time into digesting and shedding the concepts and gained a working fluency. Added it to the bag. Still, it tested my simple principle. Concept is deep, man.

Language Barrier
When I first moved to L.A. and became exposed to the killing Brazilian music and—naturally—musicians here, besides an instant attraction, I sensed the same cold-sweat building that I remembered from the first Klez record. I felt this music on a deep level; I didn’t really understand it. I couldn’t sit-in on the gig. It made me a bit nervous. This clearly wasn’t simply about making the grooves feel good. This was a new language. Same tongue, different concept.

Leo Costa speaks it brilliantly. A Carioca (Rio de Janeiro native), his father led a samba school and Leo (pronounced [Lay’-oh]) was immersed in the culture and traditions of Brazilian drumming from a young age. He so happened to be good. With a growing affinity for American music, he moved to Boston to attend Berklee before settling in L.A. Leo understands the power of Concept, and is a fully-rounded drummer and musician.

The Rio Deal
I first heard him with L.A.’s omnipresent Carioca ambassador, the exemplary and lovely Katia Moraes and her group Pure Samba. It was immediately evident that this cat was For Real. I had to laugh at what passed for Brazilian drumming at my own fancy music school. It was equivalent to making it through Chapin’s Advanced Techniques book and thinking you could play jazz.

I hadn’t taken a drumset lesson since college. I soon called Leo. I wanted to learn this stuff from the source. In a handful of lessons I learned more about authentic Brazilian drumming than I had in all the years before. Put it in the bag.

Now I like to go check Leo out when I can. Soak-in that concept. He was playing Zanzibar in Santa Monica last night with a group called Muamba and I was free. Done.

Samba School
Zanzibar is a walk-down music venue and dance club with a lounge-y Bedouin motif, over-priced whiskey, and a positively batshit staff on this night. The stage and PA are good and they bring in a decent roster of live Brazilian, salsa and world-rhythm bands. Just bring a flask. Special shout goes out to opener Quetzal Guerrero’s self-named band, Quetzal. They were tight, groovy, and authentic Afro-Brazilian goodness.

Muamba took the stage nearing midnight. Also tight and groovy, but in a more “Brickhouse” kind of way. It was bigger, less intimate, and pop-ier than the soulful Quetzal. There wasn’t a whole lot of conceptualizing to be done hearing Leo in this setting, but it was still decidedly Brazilian-leaning and Leo is consistently a joy to watch and hear. With deceptively stiff-looking technique at times, he is relaxed, in control and musically present. And, man, can this guy bust out some serious right hand 16ths—a hallmark of Brazilian drumming. He also has serious feel—a hallmark of good drumming.

On Words
The craft can be taught. The art is more elusive. Aspects of art are innate; conceptual; pursued and earned; and cosmic. Define it how you will. Or don’t. It’s all words. You’ll know it when you hear it. I heard some last night.

Now for some pandeiro lessons…

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Movin’ On Upstairs
I like my vibey neighborhood dive bars. No fuss. No pretense. No twelve-piece bands. A couple blocks from my house, Upstairs at Vitello’s is not among them. Downstairs, maybe. The upper room is fast becoming one of L.A.’s finest jazz clubs with a consistently strong and growing schedule of some the best local and touring heavy-cats. This past Friday, fifteen bucks got you escorted to a table in the closed-door listening room for the early or late show of Bernie Dresel’s BERN. All twelve of ’em.

If the dives are my favorite pair of patched-up Levi’s, my neighborhood jazz clubs (plural—pretty sweet hood) are that stylin’ fitted vintage suit just off to the side of the closet. Vitello’s is a perfect fit. An old-school Italian ristorante in Studio City’s Tujunga Village, the once upstairs banquet room has been transformed into a dialed-in, intimate, and somewhat magical music venue. A mere floor but a total world apart from the ground-level red Sicilian dining room, the darkened performance space along with its inviting reception area, hostess stand, and showtime marquee could be anywhere beneath the buzzing streets of Manhattan. It just feels like a jazz club.

No Hipstamatic used in the making of this photo

Of Many, One
Bernie’s a friend of HollywoodDrum.com. He regularly updates his dates for the calendar. He works a lot. There’s good reason—we’ll get to that. Though I’ve seen BERN before at regular Cafe Cordiale gigs, when he invited me out to the Vitello’s show featuring guest bassist, Neil Stubenhaus, I had a sense that this setting might offer a bit different perspective on the band and make for an ideal Hittin’ review. The verdict is in on that first point. Seeing BERN in a dedicated performance venue showcased the band beyond the limits of a relatively chaotic restaurant and bar. Despite arranged renditions of Tower of Power, Earth Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder and James Brown staples, this is not simply a good-time party band; it is a seriously grooving, stylistically diverse, improvisational ensemble comprised of some of the best players in town—which is to say, around. BERN doesn’t just withstand the scrutiny of an attentive audience, it warrants it.

With full rhythm, four horns, a percussionist, and three singer/entertainers, there are plenty of individual options for an audience’s attention. Or, as it occurred to me, a band this big, tight, and intuitive naturally directs focus on the whole of its parts. Kind of like the best symphony orchestras, it moves collectively as one mass organism. In the same way that David Blaine can make the illusory real, while the roaming magician at a cheap steakhouse makes the feigned awkward, a band this large and arranged succeeds brilliantly or falls painfully short along with its level of mastery. With BERN you never see the palm.

Nice splice

Pieces Of Twelve
Horn players seem to thrive in herds. The section is to horns as the peloton is to cyclists or the gaggle to geese. These often dark-humored musicians seem content building chords among their like, and happy for the increasingly precious opportunity. So it was with this section anchored by Lee Thornburg—punctuating the music with concise and well-placed dots and dashes, and adding full-frequency excitement onstage. And oh! what joy to hear the real thing over synthesized artifice. These four men elevate BERN from a great band to an event.

The foundation of that great band on this night was Bernie on drums and one Neil Stubenhaus on bass. I understand that this was Neil’s first performance with the group and he was very near, if not totally, dry-reading the book. The ability to never allow the eyes to interfere with the ears is the stamp of a seasoned session pro. The notes were right, but more importantly—as always—they were in the right places. Rounding out the rhythm section were the super-hip Kay-ta Matsuno on guitar, Mark Le Vang on unimpeachable keys and vocals, and Walter Rodriguez on well-played and playful percussion.

The three singers are the face of BERN—and sometimes the rear-end. In a truly charming manner, these three often turned to face a soloist and cheer them on with varying degrees of writhing, hip thrusting, and air punching. When stage-forward they do indeed have serious voices. It might be interesting to experience two versions of BERN: BERN, the restaurant-bar party band with the energetic and entertaining singers; and BERN, the instrumental big-band-esque ensemble fully spotlighting the stellar musicianship of this lineup in listening rooms such as Vitello’s. The thought did occur.

Bernie, Neil. Neil, Bernie.

BERNie
Bernie Dresel is a smart drummer. Yeah, the guy is studied and can nail a chart; but there is more to making wise musical decisions. Aspects of wise musical decision-making are subjective to be sure; certain primary others are less so. Allowing sonic space and avoiding clumsy redundancy within dense orchestration. Confidently driving a large band with solid high-res time, set-ups, and articulation. Controlling the live mix with deliberate and contoured dynamics. A commitment to feel. Bernie does it all with a grace and style his own. And I’m not just referring to his rock-a-billy (however muted these days) pompadour. He’s not all about support. His rhythmic flair was displayed on samba and salsa interludes, and his funk syncopation is Oakland Bay greasy.

For some drummers, fronting a self-named twelve-piece band could be considered pretentious—afterall, there are some humbling precedents. For Bernie Dresel, it simply seems fitting. There is a sense watching this band that is poised to continue evolving and expanding—not necessarily into thirteen or more pieces, but simply into its vast potential. After the remarkable show I saw Friday night, that will definitely be something to write about.