October 1977 - Modern Drummer - Lenny White

Lenny W h i t e was born in Queens, N. Y. and travelled to Forever. Excuse the forced pun, but it was with Chick Corea's Return to Forever, that Lenny made the reputation that engendered his foray as a solo act. "I got a call from a different guitar player every day for about a month," Lenny related. "When they heard about the breakup of R T F , they all wanted to play with me. There were some people who played better than others, but I was looking for versatility." That's the key word as far as his direction is concerned - versatility. Lenny wants the group - which was formed in the beginning of 1977

"to mesh into different kinds of styles, and to play any kind of music like post bop, space bop, jazz, rock - anything." That led to the discovery of different musicians who were at home in various phases of the music. Caught up in a busy schedule, Lenny and I sat down in a borrowed office to discuss some of the finer points of his musical career.

W A L D : Are your musicians schooled? Do you look for that? W H I T E : I don't necessarily look for that. One of my guitarists went to Berklee and didn't like it. It's a different thing today because younger musicians are into all kinds of music. You have the fusion groups that play music with diverse roots. They come from traditional jazz music, or from rock and roll. The kids that started out listening to guitar from the Ventures are listening to George Benson. You have a cross reference, a meshing of styles. W A L D : Will you be diluting the effect if you seek to touch all bases? W H I T E : Oh, we'll basically have a concept. I write for the group and I'll concentrate on certain things. Alex Blake writes for us, and the whole group put a tune together. So we have a direction - but we won't be limited. I brought in a theme and had the whole group work on it and find out what kind of influences they would bring into this piece of music. I wanted to see what it would sound like if we all composed a single piece of music. We all use our roots and it's all individual. W A L D : Where did you get your harmony training? WHITE: I listen to a lot of records man, let me tell y o u . (laughs) If you mean did I have formal training - no. When I was young, the music played around the house was Duke, Basie, Trane, Miles and Bird. My father was a Lester Young fan. I listened to classical music in school, and I listened to more of it on my own - everyday. Even today I take a cassette player wherever I go. It's a thing about conditioning. I have a very young son and everytime I turn on the music, he's right there and moving. When my wife was pregnant, she was always around music. Maybe there are vibes who knows. My harmonic approach to music is a lot more limited than someone who's studied piano or whatever, but I don't think it's all that bad. It's a matter of ears. W A L D : I assume you were a drummer to start? W H I T E : I don't remember. I wanted to play trumpet, but the next thing I knew I was playing drums in the school orchestra. They'd have had me playing tuba unless I had two years training on drums. I told them I did and faked my way through it. To this day I don't know whether my teacher knew, or I was lucky. W A L D : Did you ever have any formal drum training at all? W H I T E : No, not sitting down with a teacher. I know about flams and paradidles, but I learned how to do them by watching people play, and by buying a book that told me what to do with what I saw. I still do some things that are incorrect technically. I lived down the street from a club called the Club Ruby and I saw Max Roach and Philly Jo. I'd look in the window and try to do the same thing. I'd listen to records and hear things, and try to create the same sound. Tony Williams was my idol. He would take Philly Jo's style, Max's style, and Roy Haynes, and he'd put his own thing to it. He would do things that were unorthodox. Opening the hi-hats and splash at them. Hit the stick here and there - drag the stick. Roy would hit on all four corners of the beat, not necessarily the downbeat.

His hi-hat wouldn't be on two and four all the time. W A L D : Wouldn't you give the credit for all that to Art Blakey who experimented like that before Haynes? W H I T E : Art played in the middle of the beat. Philly Jo and Tony played on top of the beat; Elvin played a little bit behind, but Art played right in the center, like the pulse. Of course I listened to Art. I could play one of his solos, pressed tolls and all. He was the first person I heard play K. Zildjian cymbals. I didn't know what it was, but the sound on those old Blue Note records

. the crash would be like (makes a sound of rolling surf). Those K. Zildjians were different from the A's. K's are made in Turkey. They're darker sounding with more overtones. I remember getting my first K's and sounding like Art Blakey. W A L D : What do you use now? W H I T E : I use mostly A's, due to the nature of the new music. K's don't cut. I was using K's when I first went with RTF and beating them to death. They wouldn't project.

They're softer and they would split and crack. I did a little research and listening and bought some A's which are brighter and a little bit heavier. They also project more. You need that with all the other electronic instruments up there. We drummers don't turn up an amplifier. It's all pressure we put in the drum or the cymbal. Out of the frequency range they rate near the top. You can get a synthesizer to play notes that are above that, but you can't hear them. There are overtones that you can't hear from cymbals, too. I use A. Zildjian because of the amplification, and because they're brighter and they cut through more. WALD: What about your drums? W H I T E : My first set was an $80 special - didn't even have a hi-hat; just a bass drum, snare and cymbal. Later, a friend of the family - Brad Spinney - gave me a Gretsch set my first real set. It was THE thing to use Gretsch because of that little insignia on the bass drum, and all of the people I admired played them. I still use Gretsch. I use one 22" bass with both heads. All my drums have two heads. I use 12" and 13" mounted toms, and three floor toms; 14", 16" and 18 x 16". My snare is 5 x 14". I have a few snare drums, but the one I use live and on recordings is a Gretsch wood. It has a special strainer on it, and nylon snares by Hinger. I also use an A. Zildjian 24" high buffed heavy