FAME? Ben Riley doesn’t ever recall having had the feeling of being “famous.” It’s a word he avoids. Although he says a friend once called him “jazz’s best-kept secret,” the jazz drummers’ community holds his authoritative playing in the highest respect. It is true, however, that Ben never received his fair share of media attention. His face wasn’t often found in the music magazines, but musicians who demanded superb drumming already knew what the public was slow to discover.
In the first half of his career, from the mid-’50s through the late ’60s, many of the great figures in jazz were supported by Ben’s graceful talents, including Sonny Rollins, Junior Mance, Ahmad Jamal, Stan Getz, Roland Hanna, Eric Dolphy, Woody Herman, John Lewis, Kenny Burrell, Walter Bishop, Jr., Sonny Stitt, Billy Taylor, Kai Winding, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Nina Simone, and Johnny Griffin. But the crowning gig that secured him a […]

September 1986 Issue