When drummers are playing, horn players should color the way we color behind them.
To me, it’s a matter of imagination, and it also has something to do with humility. Drummers have a great deal of humility in order to stay underneath somebody all the time, give them support constantly, and get little reward for it.
I notice that in the history books, when they talk about new trends and things that happened, they say, “This is the period of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker; this is the period of Miles Davis; this is the period of Louis Armstrong; this is the period of fusion; this is the period of rock….” They never say anything about the drummers! But for every one of those things, the reason that there is a change is rhythmic things. It has nothing to do with the horns. They’re still going from C to F, or just doing an A minor mode or whatever it is. The rhythm [is what] changed.
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