Drums

Carter Beauford is a truly ambidextrous drummer who plays left-hand lead on a right-handed kit à la Billy Cobham. He’s famous for his distinctively intricate hi-hat patterns, yet, like Cobham, he can groove, and like Dennis Chambers he has a great ‘pocket’. And what’s more, he’s a pretty mean vocalist as well! 

When he was young, Mickey Curry dreamed of being a top session player, like his heroes Jeff Porcaro, Steve Gadd and Jim Gordon. He’s achieved that aim, playing with many top artists over the past twenty years. But during that same time he’s also maintained a high-profile and fulfilling gig with Canadian rocker Bryan Adams.  

Anton was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and started playing the drums at age four. He moved to Boston in the USA when he was 17 and studied both jazz and classical music at the New England Conservatory, graduating in 1975. The following year he moved to New York and began making his name as a freelance musician. He soon met Letterman show MD Paul Shaffer on a session for Joan Armatrading, but it was almost ten years before he got the chance to join Shaffer on the Letterman show. 

Steve Gadd is the most acclaimed drummer’s drummer of the past quarter century. From the early 1970s he forged a new era in studio craft with his phenomenal technique and emotionally intense playing. Whatever the music, be it jazz, pop, RnB or fusion, Gadd was simply the best. 

Emerging from the vibrant late-1960s San Francisco East Bay music scene, the mighty Tower of Power eleven-piece soul-funk machine featured the famous Tower of Power horns and the devastating rhythm team of Francis ‘Rocco’ Prestia on bass and David Garibaldi, purveyor of some of the slickest funk beats ever heard. 

Ralf began playing at the age of 10, first experimenting with selfmade drum sets composed of tin cans and a soap containers. He started out by playing to the music of the local American radio station AFN, who aired a lot of R&B, Rock, Funk, Jazz and Soul. 

A player with remarkable technical skill and energy, Akira Jimbo has in recent years become the first Japanese drum set artist to achieve worldwide acclaim on the clinic circuit. His amazing ambidexterity and musical command of both acoustic and electronic sounds always brings the house down. 

Parisian born Manu was a respected session player in Paris before coming to international recognition through his stylish work with Peter Gabriel on the influential 1986 album ‘So’. He combined percussive brilliance with an unmistakable groove in a manner not heard before and overnight became the drummer everyone wanted. 

Larry Mullen is an instinctive drummer who, like the rest of U2, plays what comes naturally, directly from the heart. Larry has never liked to clutter U2’s songs with busy drumming – he’s always understood the value of drama-laden space. When U2 first made it big in the 1980s Larry already had a mature style which belied his youth. 

Like Steve Gadd before him, Dave Weckl spawned an army of imitators with his breathtaking playing on Chick Corea’s first Elektric Band album, released in 1985. Playing elegantly structured, complex compositions alongside sequenced accompaniments required a new level of technical mastery. Dave became a role model for a new generation of fusion drummers with his invention, uncanny precision and beautifully tuned Yamaha drums.