Alan Dawson
Encyclopedia
Alan Dawson was a respected jazz drummer
and widely influential percussion teacher based in Boston
. He was born in Marietta, Pennsylvania
and raised in Roxbury, MA. Serving in the Army
for Korean War
duty, Dawson played with the Army Dance Band while stationed at Fort Dix from 1951-1953. During his tenure, Alan explored the post-bop era by performing with pianist Sabby Lewis
. After being released from the Army, Alan toured Europe with Lionel Hampton
.
Dawson is best remembered as an early teacher of Tony Williams. Other former students include: Terri Lyne Carrington
, Vinnie Colaiuta
, Steve Smith
, Kenwood Dennard, Gerry Hemingway
, Jeff Sipe
and many others. He began teaching at Berklee College of Music
in 1957. Dawson suffered a ruptured disc in 1975 which led to him halting his touring schedule, to leave Berklee and limit his teaching to his home in Lexington, MA.
His teaching style emphasized the music as a whole rather than concentrate on percussion alone. He stressed the importance of learning the melody and structure of the tune to better fulfill the role of accompaniment. For this purpose, he had students play over standards while also singing the melody out loud. He constantly strived for balance between musical ideas and strict technique. He was big on rudiments and wrote extensive exercises intended to be practiced with brushes. He believed using brushes with his "Rudimental Ritual" would reduce stick rebound allowing the sense of "picking up" the sticks. While teaching, Alan also maintained a prolific performing and recording career.
Dawson was the house drummer for Lennie's On The Turnpike in Peabody, MA from 1963 through to 1970. This gig allowed him to perform with a diverse group of jazz artists. Around this time, Dawson was Boston's premier jazz drummer for local acts as well as bigger name touring artists.
Throughout the 1960s Dawson recorded almost exclusively with saxophonist Booker Ervin
on Prestige Records
. In 1968 Dawson replaced Joe Morello
in the Dave Brubeck Quartet and continued until 1975. His performance credits also included stints with Bill Evans
, Sonny Rollins
, Jaki Byard
, Booker Ervin
, Sonny Stitt
, Dexter Gordon
, Lee Konitz
, Quincy Jones
, Charles Mingus
, Tal Farlow
and many other top jazz artists.
Dawson's teaching methods have been passed on by many of his former students. Books on his approach have been written by John Ramsay and Osami Mizuno, both former students.
Alan Dawson died of leukemia on February 23, 1996.
With Jaki Byard
With Sonny Criss
With Booker Ervin
With Terry Gibbs
With Sonny Stitt
Jazz drumming
Jazz drumming is the art of playing percussion in jazz styles ranging from 1910s-style Dixieland jazz to 1970s-era jazz-rock fusion and 1980s-era latin jazz...
and widely influential percussion teacher based in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
. He was born in Marietta, Pennsylvania
Marietta, Pennsylvania
Marietta is a borough in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,689 at the 2000 census. It is located on the east bank of the Susquehanna River just north of Columbia.-Geography:Marietta is located at ....
and raised in Roxbury, MA. Serving in the Army
Army
An army An army An army (from Latin arma "arms, weapons" via Old French armée, "armed" (feminine), in the broadest sense, is the land-based military of a nation or state. It may also include other branches of the military such as the air force via means of aviation corps...
for Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
duty, Dawson played with the Army Dance Band while stationed at Fort Dix from 1951-1953. During his tenure, Alan explored the post-bop era by performing with pianist Sabby Lewis
Sabby Lewis
Sabby Lewis was a piano player and band leader.-Biography:He started taking piano lessons when he was 5, and organized his first band in Boston in 1936....
. After being released from the Army, Alan toured Europe with Lionel Hampton
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...
.
Dawson is best remembered as an early teacher of Tony Williams. Other former students include: Terri Lyne Carrington
Terri Lyne Carrington
Terri Lyne Carrington is a jazz drummer, composer, record producer and entrepreneur. She has played with jazz legends Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Clark Terry, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Joe Sample, Al Jarreau, Yellowjackets, and many more...
, Vinnie Colaiuta
Vinnie Colaiuta
Vincent Colaiuta is an American drummer based in Los Angeles. Originally from Republic, Pennsylvania, he began playing drums as a child and received his first full drum kit from his parents at the age of 14...
, Steve Smith
Steve Smith (musician)
Steve Elliott Smith is an American drummer who has worked with hundreds of artists in his career, but is mostly known for being the drummer of the rock band Journey during their peak years of success. Modern Drummer magazine readers voted him the #1 All-Around Drummer five years in a row...
, Kenwood Dennard, Gerry Hemingway
Gerry Hemingway
Gerry Hemingway is an American jazz composer and percussionist.He has performed with Ernst Reijseger, Anthony Davis, Earl Howard, Leo Smith, George Lewis, Anthony Braxton, Ray Anderson, Mark Helias, Reggie Workman, Michael Moore, Oliver Lake, Marilyn Crispell, Christy Doran, John Wolf Brennan, Don...
, Jeff Sipe
Jeff Sipe
Jeff Sipe is an American drummer. He is a rock and jazz fusion drummer, however, he is proficient in many other styles which he has demonstrated in his decades of drumming. He is a founding member of Aquarium Rescue Unit along with Col. Bruce Hampton...
and many others. He began teaching at Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz, rock and popular music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including hip...
in 1957. Dawson suffered a ruptured disc in 1975 which led to him halting his touring schedule, to leave Berklee and limit his teaching to his home in Lexington, MA.
His teaching style emphasized the music as a whole rather than concentrate on percussion alone. He stressed the importance of learning the melody and structure of the tune to better fulfill the role of accompaniment. For this purpose, he had students play over standards while also singing the melody out loud. He constantly strived for balance between musical ideas and strict technique. He was big on rudiments and wrote extensive exercises intended to be practiced with brushes. He believed using brushes with his "Rudimental Ritual" would reduce stick rebound allowing the sense of "picking up" the sticks. While teaching, Alan also maintained a prolific performing and recording career.
Dawson was the house drummer for Lennie's On The Turnpike in Peabody, MA from 1963 through to 1970. This gig allowed him to perform with a diverse group of jazz artists. Around this time, Dawson was Boston's premier jazz drummer for local acts as well as bigger name touring artists.
Throughout the 1960s Dawson recorded almost exclusively with saxophonist Booker Ervin
Booker Ervin
Booker Telleferro Ervin II was an American tenor saxophone player. He was perhaps best known for his association with bassist Charles Mingus....
on Prestige Records
Prestige Records
Prestige Records was a jazz record label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock. The company was located at 203 South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them under the names of several...
. In 1968 Dawson replaced Joe Morello
Joe Morello
Joseph Albert Morello was a jazz drummer best known for his 12½-year stint with The Dave Brubeck Quartet. He was frequently noted for playing in the unusual time signatures employed by that group in such pieces as "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo à la Turk"...
in the Dave Brubeck Quartet and continued until 1975. His performance credits also included stints with Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
, Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
, Jaki Byard
Jaki Byard
Jaki Byard was an American jazz pianist and composer who also played trumpet and saxophone, among several other instruments. He was noteworthy for his eclectic style, incorporating everything from ragtime and stride to free jazz...
, Booker Ervin
Booker Ervin
Booker Telleferro Ervin II was an American tenor saxophone player. He was perhaps best known for his association with bassist Charles Mingus....
, Sonny Stitt
Sonny Stitt
Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...
, Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...
, Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz is an American jazz composer and alto saxophonist born in Chicago, Illinois.Generally considered one of the driving forces of Cool Jazz, Konitz has also performed successfully in bebop and avant-garde settings...
, Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...
, Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
, Tal Farlow
Tal Farlow
Talmage Holt Farlow was an American jazz guitarist. Nicknamed the "Octopus", Farlow's extremely large hands spread over the fretboard as if they were tentacles. He is considered one of the all-time great jazz guitarists. Michael G...
and many other top jazz artists.
Dawson's teaching methods have been passed on by many of his former students. Books on his approach have been written by John Ramsay and Osami Mizuno, both former students.
Alan Dawson died of leukemia on February 23, 1996.
As a sideman
With Dave BrubeckDave Brubeck
David Warren "Dave" Brubeck is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills...
- The Last Set at Newport (Atlantic, 1971)
With Jaki Byard
Jaki Byard
Jaki Byard was an American jazz pianist and composer who also played trumpet and saxophone, among several other instruments. He was noteworthy for his eclectic style, incorporating everything from ragtime and stride to free jazz...
- The Jaki Byard ExperienceThe Jaki Byard ExperienceThe Jaki Byard Experience is an album by jazz pianist Jaki Byard, originally released on the Prestige label in 1968, featuring performances by Byard with Roland Kirk, Richard Davis and Alan Dawson...
(Prestige, 1968)
With Sonny Criss
Sonny Criss
William "Sonny" Criss was an American jazz musician.An alto saxophonist of prominence during the bebop era of jazz, he was one of many players influenced by Charlie Parker.-Biography:...
- The Beat Goes On!The Beat Goes On!THE BEAT GOES ON ! is a jazz album by alto saxophonist Sonny Criss. Recorded on February 12, 1968. - also issued on Fantasy OJCCD 1051-2.-Track listing:#The Beat Goes On! #Georgia Rose...
(Prestige, 1968)
With Booker Ervin
Booker Ervin
Booker Telleferro Ervin II was an American tenor saxophone player. He was perhaps best known for his association with bassist Charles Mingus....
- The Freedom BookThe Freedom BookThe Freedom Book is an album by American jazz saxophonist Booker Ervin featuring performances recorded in 1963 for the Prestige label.-Reception:...
(Prestige, 1963) - The Song BookThe Song BookThe Song Book is an album by American jazz saxophonist Booker Ervin featuring performances recorded in 1964 for the Prestige label.-Reception:...
(Prestige, 1964) - The Blues BookThe Blues BookThe Blues Book is an album by American jazz saxophonist Booker Ervin featuring performances recorded in 1964 for the Prestige label.-Reception:...
(Prestige, 1964) - The Space BookThe Space BookThe Space Book is an album by American jazz saxophonist Booker Ervin featuring performances recorded in 1964 for the Prestige label.-Reception:...
(Prestige, 1964) - Groovin' HighGroovin' High (Booker Ervin album)Groovin' High is an album by American jazz saxophonist Booker Ervin featuring performances recorded in 1963 and 1964 for the Prestige label.-Reception:...
(Prestige, 1963–64) - The TranceThe TranceThe Trance is an album by American jazz saxophonist Booker Ervin featuring performances recorded in 1965 for the Prestige label.-Reception:...
(Prestige, 1965) - Heavy!!!Heavy!!!Heavy!!! is an album by American jazz saxophonist Booker Ervin featuring performances recorded in 1966 for the Prestige label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 4 stars and stated "The set matches Ervin with a remarkable rhythm section.....
(Prestige, 1966)
With Terry Gibbs
Terry Gibbs
Terry Gibbs is an American jazz vibraphonist and band leader.He has performed and/or recorded with Tommy Dorsey, Chubby Jackson, Buddy Rich, Woody Herman, Benny Goodman, Louie Bellson, Charlie Shavers, Mel Tormé, Buddy DeFranco, and others...
- Bopstacle CourseBopstacle CourseBopstacle Course is a jazz album by vibraphonist Terry Gibbs, recorded in 1974 for Xanadu Records.-Track listing:# "Bopstacle Course" - 4:39# "Body and Soul" - 7:06# "Waltz For My Children" - 4:42...
(Xanadu, 1974)
With Sonny Stitt
Sonny Stitt
Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...
- Tune-Up! (Muse, 1972)