"One thing I miss about older styles of music is the “human“ element. The vast majority of today’s popular music is created using loops and samples, then “perfected“ in ProTools or other editing software."

Daniel Glass:

Classic American Drummer in Motion!

Daniel Glass is an award-winning drummer, author, historian and educator based in New York City. Daniel is widely recognized as an authority on classic American drumming and the evolution of American Popular Music. Since 2011, he has been the house drummer every Monday night at New York’s legendary Birdland Jazz Club. Daniel is highly in demand as a drummer, working more than 200 gigs annually. He has recorded and performed all over the world with a diverse roster of top artists, including Brian Setzer, Bette Midler, Liza Minnelli, Royal Crown Revue, KISS front man Gene Simmons’ swing project, Jose Feliciano, Freddie Cole, Marilyn Maye, Gunhild Carling, the Hot Sardines, the Budapest Jazz Orchestra, Michelle Shocked, Melissa Manchester, Mike Ness, Air Supply’s Graham Russell, and Luann De Lesseps from the Real Housewives of New York. He also leads his own group, the Daniel Glass Trio. For two years running, Daniel was voted one of the top five drummers in the world by readers of Modern Drummer and DRUM magazine. As an educator, Daniel has published five books and three DVDs, including the award-winning titles The Century Project, The Roots of Rock Drumming, and The Commandments of Early Rhythm and Blues Drumming. His online curriculum on American Popular Music, From Ragtime to Rock, is used by music educators at over 1000 schools across the U.S. and Canada.                           (Daniel Glass / Photo by Matt Baker)

Daniel contributes regularly to publications like Modern Drummer, DRUM and Classic Drummer. He has performed hundreds of clinics and master classes globally, appearing at many of the world’s top educational institutions (such as U of Miami’s Frost School of Music), conferences (such as JEN, the Jazz Education Network) and music festivals (Percussive Arts Society Int’l Conv, Modern Drummer Festival). In 2016, Daniel created an annual 4-day Jazz Drumming Intensive in New York City, which draws an international student base, and features renowned guest clinicians such as Carl Allen, Kenny Washington and Sean Pelton. In 2021, Daniel brought the Jazz Intensive concept to Europe, and to date has hosted three annual events at the Groovekiste Musik Akademie near Frankfurt, Germany. A pioneer in online education, Daniel works one-on-one with an average of 50 private students each month (who hail from five continents). His online educational portal – Drumming In Motion – offers a wide range of courses, all based in Daniel’s unique, proprietary method of teaching known as the Motion Based System. In 2013, Daniel co-curated an exhibit on the history of the drum set at the Rhythm Discovery Center in Indianapolis, IN, for which he was awarded the Percussive Arts Society’s “Distinguished Service Award.”

Interview by Michael Limnios

How has the music influenced your views of the world? What is the driving force behind your continuous support for your music?

Music has been a huge part of my life since I can first remember. We didn’t have a TV in my household growing up, so we substituted with a LOT of music. Many of my earliest memories relate to songs that were popular on the radio when I was 2 or 3 years old, or music that I heard in my daily life or sang as a child with my family.

Initially, I never thought I would become a professional musician, but my obsession with music and drumming was so strong that I eventually had to accept that this would be my path. Once I made that decision, I fully gave myself over to a life in music and all it requires (both the positives and negatives). For me, music is my religion; it is a “Faith“ that I practice every day, and it demands that I practice a life of integrity. It keeps me humble, and helps me connect and reconnect with the things in life that are joyful, positive and beautiful. It’s very important that we have some outlet for this in a world that is so full of anxiety, depression and animosity.

How do you describe your sound and music philosophy? Where does your creative drive come from?                                           (Daniel Glass / Photo by Matt Baker)

The best way I can describe my musical philosophy is “eclectic.” I grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, a place filled with many different cultures and languages. As a result, I was exposed to a lot of different music as a child, and I’ve ended up as the type of person who requires a lot of variety. They say, “Variety is the spice of life,” and I couldn’t agree more. People always ask me, “Who’s your favorite drummer?” or “What’s your favorite band?” My answer is always, “Whatever I’m listening to right now.”

Throughout my life and career, I have always played many different kinds of music, and worked hard as a drummer to master these styles deeply, not just on a technical level, but also in terms of understanding their greater historical context. My time in Royal Crown Revue, the Swing band I was with in the 1990s and early 2000s, really helped to strengthen that process. Playing with RCR really opened my eyes to the music of the whole 20th century: styles like Ragtime, Early Jazz, Big Band Swing, Bebop, Rhythm and Blues, Rockabilly, Ska and Rocksteady, Exotica, and also Early Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Each one of these styles holds a very unique place in history, and has a particular vocabulary that must be included in order to play it correctly. This is particularly true for drummers, because the drum set as an instrument was in constant evolution for more than 100 years, so new elements were being added with each new style, which completely changed the way a drummer would keep time.

In my efforts to learn more about these historical styles, I began to research them as well as perform them. Since we were traveling endlessly during those decades, I had the chance to befriend and interview many of the legendary musicians who had invented and pioneered these styles in the first place. Drummers like Earl Palmer, Hal Blaine, Louie Bellson, Panama Francis, Don Lamond, Buddy Harman - guys who had played with legendary artists of the 1930s-60s, and were the very first ones to play certain beats that are at the core of a modern drumming vocabulary.

Not only did these legends of drumming share some amazing stories about what life was like in those earlier times, but they also were able to answer all kinds of technical questions about their gear, the recording techniques, etc. Imagine being able to ask Little Richard’s drummer to describe his experiences being in the studio while recording “Tutti Frutti”? Imagine having the chance to be a fly on the wall at Sun Studios in Memphis, the very place where Jerry Lee Lewis recorded “Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On” and watching the very drummer who recorded it play the same exact beat with a group of contemporary rockabilly cats? Without a doubt, those were certainly life changing experiences.

So my eclectic interests helped me expand beyond “just” being a musician and into more academic realms. Since the early 2000s, I have written five books and produced three DVDs, all dedicated to the evolution of American Popular Music and drumming. My expertise extends extends from the time of the American Civil War (around 1865), through the late 1970s and the birth of punk rock and hip-hop.

As a historian and a jazz musician, I had always dreamed of living in New York City, and when I fell in love with my now wife (who had been living there for many years), the transition from Los Angeles just seemed to be the next logical step. Relocating to a new city is never easy, but I would say that my extensive knowledge of musical styles and their historical context allowed me to be much more employable in one of the most competitive music environments on the planet.

These days, I work more than 200 gigs every year (both in NYC and on the road with various artists), and I’ve also developed a very successful teaching practice as both an educator and a lecturer/clinician. I’m super busy and over-exerted most of the time, but I’m living life the way I like it - with a schedule that’s full of variety and is never the same from day to day. So yes, I guess you could say, eclectic is about the best way to describe what I’m all about in the world of music.

"Music has been a huge part of my life since I can first remember. We didn’t have a TV in my household growing up, so we substituted with a LOT of music. Many of my earliest memories relate to songs that were popular on the radio when I was 2 or 3 years old, or music that I heard in my daily life or sang as a child with my family." (Photo: Daniel Glass with Royal Crown Revue. Daniel joined Royal Crown Revue in 1994. As the original house band at the Derby Club, RCR quickly became the hottest live attraction in Los Angeles. They also appeared in the Jim Carrey blockbuster "The Mask" and Jon Favreau’s "Swingers")

What moment changed your life the most? What's been the highlights in your life and career so far?

I have had so many life-changing moments and experiences in music, it’s a bit difficult to focus on just one. Here are a few that come to mind off the top of my head:

• Touring Egypt with Royal Crown Revue as guests of the United States State Department.
• Playing two sold-out nights at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles with Royal Crown Revue and the 117-member Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.
• Producing and recording a Japanese rhythm and blues band called the Travelers, an experience that resulted in four tours of Japan and a trip to China.
• Appearing as the special guest on a Buddy Rich tribute concert with the Budapest jazz Orchestra (the top big band in Hungary). I got to perform seven of Buddy’s most challenging charts, which was a thrill and demanded many weeks of practice beforehand.
• When I joined The Brian Setzer Orchestra, my “audition” consisted of my first two gigs. Here I was, getting the chance to work with one of the best big bands in the world, but there was no rehearsal other than a quick sound check. If I didn’t cut it on those gigs, they would go on to someone else. Saying yes to that offer was a real gamble, because it required about three months of preparation to learn the show, and it could have turned out to just be two concerts. But I worked crazy hard, passed the audition and ended up working with Setzer for two years. Two lessons learned from this experience: 1) No risk, no reward, and 2) I knew that even if I didn’t get the gig, three months of preparation would make me that much of a better player for when the next opportunity came along.

 What's the balance in music between technique and soul/emotions? What is the role of music in today’s society?                                      (Photo: Daniel Glass)

No fair, these are two separate questions ha ha!

#1. My teacher, Freddie Gruber, always used to say that when you are in the practice room, you must focus intensely on the material to be learned, and not just pointlessly jam. The message, “be in your head, not your heart.“ Conversely, Freddie also said that when you are performing, you must be completely in your heart, and not in your head at all. Just play what you feel and be in the moment. So this is the rule that I have always lived by.

That said, it’s not so easy to follow this rule in either setting (practice or performance). Sometimes it’s hard to maintain the concentration required to practice for hours at a time. And similarly, it can be very difficult to “get out of your head” on a gig, especially if you are reading music or playing in a new situation with a group of people for the first time. The goal is to learn how to access that “soulful“ place, so you can flip that switch as needed. But like any kind mindful practice, it’s something we must work on constantly. 

#2. In its purest form, music exists to get a response from the audience. Sometimes that response is in the form of an emotion: it makes the listener happy, sad, angry, or whatnot. Or maybe the music inspires a call to action that inspires the listener to act in some way. Either way, in my opinion music is about creating connections that have the potential to change lives. It certainly has done that for me.

If we think a little more cynically, music can also become commodified, created with the sole goal of manipulating people's emotions to make a profit. But at the end of the day, there’s really no objective way to evaluate whether music is good or bad. Once it’s put out in the world, no one really knows the impact it will have. But hopefully it will have SOME impact.

Why do you think that Royal Crown Revue’s music continues to generate such a devoted following?

I’m glad to know that people are still inspired by our music. It’s been over 10 years since the last RCR gig, which is truly a shame. But right now, for a variety of reasons it’s just not possible for us to be performing.

That said, I always believe in looking forward, so I don’t really spend a lot of time thinking about the band's legacy. I would certainly say that RCR was a very special project. The way we blended classic music and style with a very modern rock-type of presentation was truly unique.

No one had done so in that way before, and we created a great body of work that I think will still sound good twenty years from now. I am very proud to have participated in RCR, both as a drummer and as a songwriter. And like the band, I was able to bring a lot of “eclectic“ influences to the picture to create a drum style that was unique and very influential in its own right, so I am proud of that as well.

"In my efforts to learn more about these historical styles, I began to research them as well as perform them. Since we were traveling endlessly during those decades, I had the chance to befriend and interview many of the legendary musicians who had invented and pioneered these styles in the first place." (Photo: Daniel Glass,  an NYC -based award-winning drummer, author, historian and educator)

What do you miss most nowadays from the music of the past? What are your hopes and fears for the future?

One thing I miss about older styles of music is the “human“ element. The vast majority of today’s popular music is created using loops and samples, then “perfected“ in ProTools or other editing software. There’s so much processing that instruments lose their acoustic quality, and the same goes with the vocals. Rhythmically speaking, just about every song in every style is recorded to a click, and while that may help the music sound “perfect,” it can also make it sound lifeless and generic.

So, as a teacher, my number one goal is to teach my students using a methodology that not only helps them gain better technique, but also a more organic way to “feel” the music, the way older musicians did in a time before click tracks. When it comes to drumming, employability is almost always about feel, and almost never about fancy “chops.” So I always make sure to stress that the reason I “get the call” for more than 200 gigs every year is specifically because my feel has so much “humanity” to it.

I also stress that this feel is not limited to “older” styles of music. One of my current touring gigs is with “the Countess” Luann De Lesseps (one of the Real Housewives of New York). Several of her hits have a rigid, dance club-type vibe, and her show is set largely to a click track. That said, my goal remains to make the music “groove” in a way that audience has come to expect. The reason I’m still part of this show after six years is because I help the artist connect with the audience. At the end of the day, I guess music is music and you can always incorporate that human element to it.

What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experience in the music paths?

As I said earlier, I believe that if we practice the “religion“ of music every day it keeps us focused, disciplined, inspired, and filled with joy and hope for humanity and the planet. (something that is not easy to do these days). Like so many other people, I spend hours every day at the computer, running my business, teaching, etc. I am super grateful that after all that, I can head off to the gig and do something very primal (hitting drums and cymbals) that allows me to connect deeply with other human beings. It centers me and roots me to something very ancient and powerful. That kind of non-verbal communication is part of the essence of humanity.

"Throughout my life and career, I have always played many different kinds of music, and worked hard as a drummer to master these styles deeply, not just on a technical level, but also in terms of understanding their greater historical context." (Photo: Daniel Glass, an authority on classic American drumming)

Do you think there is an audience for jazz music in its current state? or at least a potential for young people to become future audiences and fans?

I think there is a large audience for jazz music. But I think the size of that audience changes depending on how we define jazz in 2024. Today, the music on the jazz charts or at jazz festivals has little resemblance to the great American songbook or standards that are played with a swing feel. Instead, the feel is more related to funk and soul music. That said, other elements of jazz, such as complex chord progressions, odd time signatures, and high-level improvisation all remain, so I don’t want to give the impression that I’m putting down this particular way of defining jazz.

I also think that there are many great bands and artists out there today creating music that could be defined as jazz. The problem is that music in the 21st Century is so stylistically diverse it’s hard to bundle it all up as one genre and present it to the world as such (as opposed to styles like “pop“ or “rock,“ which tend to be more narrowly defined).

Succeeding as any kind of musical artist in 2024 really comes down to developing one’s own internet following through streaming platforms, YouTube, social media, etc. There are many artists who have created highly successful careers taking this route, but they may not be well known outside their particular ecosystem. The problem is that the artist must not only create their art, they must also book, promote, market it as well, which becomes a truly exhausting endeavor.

The project I’ve been most excited about in the last several years is my own group the Daniel Glass Trio. We released our debut album (entitled BAM!) in 2022, and work around the New York area with an annual trip to Europe (as part of a jazz drumming intensive I host in Germany). Trying to grow the audience for this project has been an enormous challenge, but for me it’s a good fight because having a musical project “in my own image” is a tremendously satisfying experience. I hope that your readers will check out the Daniel Glass Trio website, where they can listen to BAM!, watch some live videos of the group, and see where we will be playing next. I’ve also just released a brand new compilation album called Journey of a Thousand Miles (2024), which I’m giving away for FREE for a limited time. The album contains an eclectic mixture of tunes from different bands I've led throughout my 30+ year career (including some RCR material). Your readers can access and download it HERE.

(Daniel Glass / Photo by Matt Baker)