Chords for Steve Gadd: The DRUM SOLO That Changed Popular Music

Hey everybody, I'm Rick Beato and today's Everything Music we're going to talk about
the drum solo that changed my life.
I actually think it changed a lot of people's lives,
but it happened in 1977.
Now just to put it in perspective, I'd been playing guitar for a couple
years _ and I'd already been influenced musically by bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones,
The Who, Led Zeppelin, and then I began being influenced by progressive rock music like Rush,
Yes, Genesis, _ but this particular drum solo was on a pop record and that record was the record
Asia by Steely Dan and who was the drummer?
Steve Gadd.
Now the song features two drum solos,
the first with Wayne Shorter playing a sax solo at the same time and then the end of the song
has Gadd playing on his own and it is unbelievable.
Now I want you to put on headphones
to listen to this for the episode because I think it's really important because this stuff is
recorded so well and I don't think you can get the full experience without wearing headphones.
We're going to check out the first solo right now.
[G] _ _
[F] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _
[B] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [F#] _ _
_ [C] _ _ [C#] _ _ [F#] _ _ _
_ So that's just the first half of the first
drum solo, but what I want you to notice is the stick click that he does right at [Bm] the end there.
Check it out.
[F#] _ _ [C] _ _ _
[C#] _ _ [F#] Oh, _ _ [F] _ _
okay, so let's talk a little bit about this.
This particular session
featured Donald Fagan, obviously on lead vocals and synthesizer, Steve Gadd on the drums,
Chuck Rainey on the bass, _ Larry Carlton is playing the rhythm guitars, [N] but then you have
Walter Becker and Denny Diaz playing on it.
Denny Diaz playing the guitar solo on the track.
You have Victor Feldman playing the vibes, Michael Lamardian on the piano, Joe Sample on electric
piano, and Wayne Shorter on the tenor sax.
Now I happen to have a little inside information that
you're probably not going to find anywhere on this particular recording.
I'm friends with Steve
Carlton, who's Larry Carlton's cousin, and Steve was at the session.
As a matter of fact, Steve told
me that the session was actually done at a place called the Producers Workshop in East Hollywood.
Now one thing that you might not know or have never heard is that the day before they actually
tracked this with Jim Keltner playing the drums.
Now that's not unusual for Steely Dan to have
multiple musicians.
They'd bring in guitar player after guitar player to try solos on things and
they would do the same thing with drummers.
So Jim Keltner played it.
The next day, Steve said, they
showed up to the session and Larry saw the chart for Asia and saw Steve Gadd sitting there and he
thought, oh I guess we're doing Asia again.
Now these guys are all pro players, so by this time
they had already played through it the day before a bunch of times, so they really had it together.
And that entire rhythm track is all of them playing live, which is unbelievable.
Now they
might have done a couple takes, but Steve told me that this entire drum track was done in 20 minutes.
_ This is hard to imagine now when you think about recording sessions now.
He went in and that's
what he played.
I mean he played the whole track down reading off a chart and then played that solo.
Well actually there's multiple solos here.
We're going to listen to the next one in a second, but _
if you really listen to it, there is not one rushed hit anywhere during those chord strikes,
right?
When you hear this, [B] _ _ _
_ _ _ [Bm] it's a B minor 11 with a 9, _ _ [B] _ which is a really beautiful, tense
chord voicing to have while playing those stabs.
It makes this drum solo and sax solo have even
more intensity.
Okay headphones back on.
Now we're going to check out the second half of the drum
and sax solo.
Steve Gadd, Wayne [C] Shorter.
_ [F] _ [C] Here we go. _
_ _ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _
_ [F#] _ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _
[B] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ [C#] _ _ _
[F#] _ _ _ _ _ [B] Let's check out a couple of these fills like this one. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Cm] _ _
_ Okay first of all the drums sound phenomenal.
They're impeccably tuned and recorded.
They're so
fat.
Let's take a look at this video of Steve Gadd explaining one of these fills.
The pattern is like right [G#] foot, right hand, left, right. _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ All right now we're going to check out the
second solo that happens in the song that starts at 6 55 into it.
Here we [C#] go.
_ _ [C] _ _
Two tom hits.
_ _ _ [B] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ Listen to the keys right here. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ He _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Bm] goes into a samba pattern here when he starts hitting the bell of the cymbal
and check out the keyboards how weird they are.
They're really amazing.
That is Donald Fagan
playing synthesizer and they're way out.
He's playing, you hear him playing these Dorian.
_ _ You hear that G sharp come in there, that Dorian sound.
Let's listen to the ending again when he
goes into the samba.
_ [B] _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ Here we [B] go.
Right here. _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [N] I mean come on.
That is insane.
That is so good.
_ _ _ _ 1977.
There was nothing like that on a pop song ever at that time.
Honestly there's really
nothing that's been on a pop song really like that since.
I had never heard anything that was
exciting like that that was that kind of playing and that made me start to listen to fusion
drummers.
I mean that really actually was my entree into fusion.
I said I want to hear more of that.
I want to study Steve Gadd and then that led me to people like Vinnie Cagliuta, into Frank Zappa,
things like that.
It's just so exciting but I can't imagine that ever happening again.
Something like that.
Who's going to write a pop song, get together the greatest players,
the greatest session players to play and have guys play parts like that, play solos?
Who puts a
drum solo in a song that's a pop song like that?
I mean it's really really amazing.
I highly
recommend that you check out the Steely Dan Asia record.
It's absolutely incredible.
Not just the
hit songs like Josie and Peg but I'm talking about some of the album tracks on there.
It changed my
life.
It turned me on to a new style of music and a new style of drumming that I had never heard
before.
That's all for now.
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[A#] Thanks so much for watching.
_ [F#] _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ [A#m] _ _ _
_ _ _ [F#] _ _ _ [F] _ _