John Densmore may be the greatest
drummer in rock n’ roll history. He’s certainly one of the most
underappreciated—okay, Lars Ulrich and Ringo get hated on a lot more; but John
could actually play, man*…for one
thing, and this is the most important, his timing was impeccable, I mean he was
so deep in the pocket his nails scratched lint, but as a jazz musician he knew
when to ride behind the beat to add drama or come in ahead to build tension,
when to accent an unexpected syncopation with a well-placed rimshot. I know Jim
Morrison sometimes complained about John’s drumming, and part of this was Jim’s
egotism and musical ignorance but I think a major point of contention was
sometimes he played a little faster onstage than Jim wanted and Jim, with hand
gestures and sometimes verbal cues, would try to get John to slow the band
down. Of course it’s normal for a band to be nervous or excited and play faster
live than they do on record, and usually after the first number or two this
would even out, for the Doors at least, more so than other bands. In any case
John had perfect rhythm and tempo in the studio and set the atmosphere on many
tracks, much as bop great Art Blakey did with his Jazz Messengers or sidelining
for legends like Miles Davis.
John’s favorite jazz drummer was Elvin
Jones (as were Mitch Mitchell’s of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Ginger
Baker’s, of Cream), famous among other things as John Coltrane’s drummer for
years. As a performer Jim Morrison had much in common with Coltrane; they were
both spontaneous and unpredictable, yet repetitive to the point of obsession,
capable of transcendent lyrical beauty or profound philosophic depths but also
prone to loud obnoxious shrieks of rage and unquenchable pain and searching.
They both had a sympathetic soul in their drummer, who responded intuitively
through the highs and lows of every performance, matching each note or word
with its exact percussive complement.
Densmore had his own distinctive beat
with tom-tom eighth-notes on ‘2 &’ and a clipped snare on the ‘4’, used on
songs such as ‘The Crystal Ship’ and ‘When the Music’s Over’. I cannot be sure
where he got it but nearest I can tell the earliest example of this particular
beat was on Mary Wells’ ‘You Beat Me to the Punch’. The real amazing thing about
John in the Doors was not how he set such a great beat for the musicians but
how he could incorporate an almost extra-metrical sense of dynamics to
emphasize, not only the cadence but the feel of Jim’s poetry, its sonance and
meaning. In this he is wholly unique and I do not think Morrison could have
conveyed his voice so authentically with any other drummer.
From the opening number of their first
album, ‘Break On Through (to the Other Side)’ which Densmore kicks off with a
jazzy bossa nova for the verse, switching into a straight backbeat in the
chorus, to the structural development and emotional emphasis he builds with
cymbals during the last verse of ‘Summer’s Almost Gone’, from marching beats
and 12/8 flamenco rhythms to the pulse with which the Doors helped lay the
foundations for prog, punk, heavy metal and even proto-hip-hop, John Densmore
shall be heard as long as there is rock.
*Actually I love Ringo and Lars; I don’t think the
Beatles or Metallica could be what they were without them and in fact I had
started writing a piece about them several years ago, but never finished it.
