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Steve Fidyk
(September 2005 Issue)
The Beauty Of Big
Band An impressive feature of Steve Fidyk's drumming on the new CD A Perfect Match
by The Taylor/Fidyk
Big Band is the wide range of styles covered. In
addition to contemporary big band tunes by composer/arranger Mark
Taylor,
the disc features such classics as "Chelsea Bridge" by Billy
Strayhorn and "Kansas City" by Lieber & Stoller.
Fidyk
says he
had to know some drumming history in order to approach such charts
authentically. "It's so important to listen
to the great drummers,"
Steve says. "We all stand on their shoulders when we play."
Steve not only listened, he
transcribed. Some of his transcriptions of
recordings by Max Roach, Roy Haynes, and Joe Morello appear in the Hal
Leonard
publication Drum Standards, and Fidyk did the transcriptions for Peter Erskine's book The Drum Perspective,
also published by Hal Leonard.
Fidyk says he learned a lot about the importance of dynamics and color
from studying
the work of Mel Lewis. Steve applies those lessons well
on A Perfect Match,
complementing each chart's
structure and supplying the appropriate
backing, whether aggressively kicking the full band during shout
choruses or providing
tasty brush accompaniment behind a piano solo.
For information on Steve and A Perfect Match, visit www.stevefidyk.com.
Rick Mattingly
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