Keith Carlock (August 2005 Issue)
Mississippi Man, Steely Dan Fan

Some successful drummers are born into a musical family. Others are raised in an urban hub where the arts flourish and nourishing work is available to the skilled and talented. But if you're like the vast majority of aspiring drummers, you're probably holed up somewhere in Middle America. Keith Carlock hails from Clinton, Mississippi, decidedly not a hotbed of musical activity. But just as the last two democrat presidents hailed from the "New South," Keith Carlock's achievements prove that talent, skill, and determination is no respecter of locales.
Since his arrival in New York City from Clinton via North Texas State University, Keith Carlock has scurried up the drumming food chain with an inventive style that is equal parts Zigaboo Modeliste fire, Jon Christensen finesse, and Bernard Purdie funk. Tried in the fusion flame of the groundbreaking Wayne Krantz Trio, Carlock has held court for six years with the trio at New York's premier jazz dump, Christopher Street's 55 Bar.
This gig, this band, is like no other. Every Thursday the 55 is packed with cheering fans who come for some of the most innovative improvisation to be found anywhere in the world. Playing tracks from the albums Long To Be Loose, Greenwich Mean, and Your Basic Live, The Wayne Krantz Trio performs musical magic with guitar, bass, and drums. In this electric improvisation, the trio deconstructs jazz, funk, blues, and rock themes, exploding expectations as they wail. A theme is presented, then vamped on and extended in bright, sharply hewn chunks of sound.
At Wayne's cue, the trio moves into double-time or even triple-time funk, or drops back into half-time, or switches gears into a weird amalgam of waterfalling tempos and thunderstorming melodies. The musicians blow and fry over extremes of hot and cold, light and dark, but the music remains gorgeously funky, beautiful, and accessible.
Unpredictable, powerful, lightning fast, and graceful, Carlock performs his own kind of magic. As the music flows, builds, and blasts, his sticks, telegraphing their motions like a boxer, move in fast whipping motions. As the trio's improvisations sizzle and mutate, Carlock's wide-open, ringing bass drum drops funk bombs a la John Bonham that groove below the guitar melodies like an unstoppable bullet train. Simultaneously, his unusual ride cymbal approach drives the music with a tactile physicality.
Displaying unerring taste and massive talent, Carlock pushes crescendos past the breaking point, incorporating full-set waves of rhythmic response. Just as unexpectedly, he drops in volume and dances with graceful snare and bass drum interplay that recalls a frenetic Jack DeJohnette.
With his talent for burning complicated figures, you'd think that a four-on-the-floor groove would be the last thing on Keith Carlock's mind. But he is a groover first, a show biz rhythm kid second. His list of groove gigs is impressive: The Blues Brothers, David Johansen, Grover Washington, Paula Abdul, and Bette Midler, to name but a few.
To top it off, Carlock has recently been admitted into that illustrious mantle of drummers who've established the contemporary pop-rock template. The drummers of Steely Dan include Jeff Porcaro, Bernard Purdie, Jim Gordon, Hal Blaine, Steve Gadd, Rick Marotta, Ricky Lawson - and now Keith Carlock.
With his drumming on Steely Dan's latest, Everything Must Go, and on one track of 2002's Grammy-winning Two Against Nature, Carlock steps into one of the most pressurized gigs around. But his groove on the new album is deep and popping, from straight-8th-note tracks like "Pixeleen" and "Blues Beach," to the shuffling "The Last Mall," to funky greasers like "Godwhacker" and "Green Book."
How did Carlock handle criticism from two of the most challenging composers in rock? Did the Dan's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen make the kind of demands that caused Bernard Purdie and Rick Marotta to pull out their hair? Did being the only drummer on an entire Steely Dan album give Carlock ultimate satisfaction or endless aggravation?
Polite as only a good Southern boy can be, Carlock answers questions of technique, musical politics, and ongoing aspirations with the quick-wittedness that makes his drumming a revelation.

MD: You play so many different gigs. Steely Dan is nothing like David Johansen, and Wayne Krantz's gig is even more disparate. The Blues Brothers is different again. You're not a drummer who has made his mark playing one style. How do you do it?
Keith: I have really tried to study what makes each style unique. With The Blues Brothers, for instance, it's more of a groove gig, and I'm trying to give it that Stax element as much as I can. Studying different styles at North Texas really helped me to learn about other kinds of music.
MD: If I saw you on both the Wayne Krantz and Steely Dan gigs, would your technique look the same?
Keith: I think so. The only thing that would change is the volume. Sometimes it's an illusion as well; I don't know if I'm actually hitting as hard as it looks. It's just the stroke, that whipping motion. My goal is to play at all different levels with the same intensity and keep the same sound.
MD: How did you come to play on Steely Dan's Two Against Nature?
Keith: Through Wayne, who played their tour in 1996. Donald [Fagen] and Walter [Becker] came to the 55 Bar to see us play a few times. They even sat in, and that was amazing. So they gave me a shot at "Two Against Nature." I also played on "West Of Hollywood" and "Negative Girl," but those didn't make the cut. The demo was basically a drum machine, almost like a Casio, and a bass line. It was pretty bare-bones. I played along with the drum machines on "Two Against Nature" by myself. I didn't know the machines were going to be on the track, or at least not that loud.
MD: When did you get the call to work on Everything Must Go?
Keith: Getting the call after Two Against Nature, well, I was surprised. I figured I'd blown it. Since they didn't use much else of what I played, I didn't feel I had done my best. But in 2001 they called me to do a track for a Joni Mitchell tribute record that never came out. It was all the same guys on the album. We got the whole thing down in one day. Then they called me for more sessions. I was surprised every time they called; I figured I would only be on one or two tunes. But they kept calling me back.

Ken Micallef

Back