BILLY HIGGINS –

Eight classic drum features from the ever-smiling Billy Higgins. 

Don’t you love this picture of Billy Higgins? It was taken at the Skeppsholmen festival in Stockholm around 1990 by jazz fan Jan-Erik Karlsson. You can see the happiness of creation and interaction. Typically, many of the rhythms of Billy Higgins were spirit-uplifting, the equivalent of a broad smile and a hearthy laugh.

The versatile Los Angeles-born drummer made no qualms about switching between in and out, gaining exposure as the drummer of free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman’s quartet in the late 1950’s. Higgins went on and defined hard bop drumming with Lee Morgan, Hank Mobley, Dexter Gordon, Donald Byrd, Jackie McLean, Teddy Edwards, Herbie Hancock and Cedar Walton. Higgins further played with Charles Lloyd, David Murray and Pat Metheny.

Here are, in chronological order, influential beats by Billy Higgins:

His double time beat against Charlie Haden’s bass on Ornette Coleman’s Lonely Woman (1959): http://MIQsmP(OngL31GBwjl

His hip take on Afro-Cuba on Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man (1962): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QkGAaYtXA0&list=RD_QkGAaYtXA0&start_radio=1

Dexter Gordon’s Soy Califa (1962): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkuG7CbgZvQ&list=RDFkuG7CbgZvQ&start_radio=1

Boogaloo-ing uniquely on Lee Morgan’s big hit The Sidewinder (1964): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJi03NqXfk8&list=RDqJi03NqXfk8&start_radio=1

Minimalist proto-funk with Ron Carter on Eddie Harris’s Freedom Jazz Dance (1964): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDrH5urtCbQ&list=RDiDrH5urtCbQ&start_radio=1

Booker Ervin’s Gichi (1968): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDrH5urtCbQ&list=RDiDrH5urtCbQ&start_radio=1

Clifford Jordan’s John Coltrane (1974): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znr4KRw2au8&list=RDZnr4KRw2au8&start_radio=1

George Coleman’s Amsterdam After Dark (1979): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdhdsjXpldI&list=RDIdhdsjXpldI&start_radio=1