Whenever my German language skills begin to get rusty, I like to sharpen them by revisiting that country. The first time I played in Germany was while touring with the Stan Kenton Orchestra back in 1973, and as time went on my visits became more frequent. The early 90s found me traveling back and forth between Cologne and Los Angeles quite often as the invited guest of the WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln) Big Band to be their drummer for a decade on more than two dozen projects. Some other American drummers who also got the call included Dennis Mackrel, Adam Nussbaum, John Riley, and Jeff Hamilton; all of us following in the footsteps of Mel Lewis who was the band’s first guest drummer and mentor. The WDR Big Band finally found its own drummer, the excellent Hans Dekker (from the Netherlands), in 2005, at which point I retired my German-American […]

November 2025 Issue