Stephen Kendall Gadd (born April 9, 1945) is an American

jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as jazz rock, jazz-rock fusion, or simply fusion) is a popular music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric gui ...

drummer, percussionist, and session musician. Gadd is one of the best-known and most highly regarded session and studio drummers in the industry, recognized by his induction into the '' Modern Drummer'' Hall of Fame in 1984. Gadd's performances on

Paul Simon Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter known for his solo work and his collaborations with Art Garfunkel. He and Garfunkel, whom he met in elementary school in 1953, came to prominence in the 1960s as Sim ...

's " 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"(1976) and " Late in the Evening"(1980),

Herbie Mann Herbert Jay Solomon (April 16, 1930 – July 1, 2003), known by his stage name Herbie Mann, was an American jazz Flute, flute player and important early practitioner of world music. Early in his career, he also played tenor saxophone and clarinet ...

's "Hi-jack"(1975) and

Steely Dan Steely Dan is an American rock band formed in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in 1971 by Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). Originally having a traditional band lineup, Becker and Fagen cho ...

's " Aja"(1977) are examples of his style. He has worked with other popular musicians from many genres including Van McCoy,

Simon & Garfunkel Simon & Garfunkel were an American folk rock duo comprising the singer-songwriter Paul Simon and the singer Art Garfunkel. They were one of the best-selling music acts of the 1960s. Their most famous recordings include three US number-one sing ...

James Taylor James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. Taylor achieved his breakthrough in 1970 with the single "Fi ...

Chick Corea Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea (June 12, 1941 – February 9, 2021) was an American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader and occasional percussionist. His compositions "Spain (instrumental), Spain", "500 Miles High", "La Fiesta", "Armando's Rhumba" ...

Chuck Mangione Charles Frank Mangione ( ; born November 29, 1940) is an American flugelhorn player, trumpeter and composer. He came to prominence as a member of Art Blakey's band in the 1960s, and later co-led the Jazz Brothers with his brother, Gap Mangione, ...

Randy Crawford Veronica "Randy" Crawford (born February 18, 1952) is an American retired jazz and R&B singer. She has been more successful in Europe than in the United States, where she has not entered the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 as a solo artist. However, sh ...

Eric Clapton Eric Patrick Clapton (born 1945) is an English Rock music, rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is regarded as one of the most successful and influential guitarists in rock music. Clapton ranked second in ''Rolling Stone''s l ...

, Michel Petrucciani, and

David Gilmour David Jon Gilmour ( ; born 6 March 1946) is an English guitarist, singer and songwriter who is a member of the rock band Pink Floyd. He joined in 1967, shortly before the departure of the founder member Syd Barrett. By the early 1980s, Pink F ...

Early life

Gadd grew up in Irondequoit, New York. He started playing the drums at a very early age. At age 11, he entered the Mickey Mouse National Talent Round Up contest and was one of the winners; he won a trip to California, where he met

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney ( ; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the Golden age of American animation, American animation industry, he introduced several develop ...

and appeared on '' The Mickey Mouse Club'', where he played the drums and did a tap dancing routine. Gadd graduated from Eastridge High School, then attended the

Eastman School of Music The Eastman School of Music is the music school of the University of Rochester, a private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. Established in 1921 by celebrated industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman, it was the ...

, graduating in 1968. He was then drafted into the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

, where he served the next three years playing drums in the United States Army Field Band stationed at Ft. Meade, MD.

Career

In 1968, Gadd made his first studio recording on Gap Mangione's album ''Diana in the Autumn Wind''. In 1973, Gadd formed the short-lived

band L'Image with Mike Mainieri, Warren Bernhardt, David Spinozza and Tony Levin. Also in 1973, he started playing on numerous albums for the jazz label CTI Records, backing artists like Milt Jackson,

Chet Baker Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations in cool jazz that led him to be nicknamed the "Prince of Cool". Baker earned much attention and ...

Art Farmer Arthur Stewart Farmer (August 21, 1928 – October 4, 1999) was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet–flugelhorn combination especially designed for him. He and his identical twin brother, doub ...

, Jim Hall, and Hubert Laws. Late 1970s, he formed

group Stuff with

Eric Gale Eric Gale (September 20, 1938 – May 25, 1994) was an American jazz and jazz fusion guitarist. Biography Eric Gale was born in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York. His grandfather was English, and Gale had relatives in Venezuela and Bar ...

, Richard Tee and other members. Gadd played drums on the title track of

's 1977 jazz-rock album '' Aja''; the drum solo he played at the end of the song has become "the stuff of legend", according to a 2019 ''Jazziz'' article, with its "explosive tom-tom runs and crisp cymbal grooves". Other notable recordings from the 1970s are Van McCoy's hit " The Hustle" (1975),

's " 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" (1975),

Rickie Lee Jones Rickie Lee Jones (born November 8, 1954) is an American singer, musician, and songwriter. Over the course of a career that spans five decades and 15 studio albums, she has recorded in various musical styles including rock, R&B, pop, soul, an ...

' " Chuck E.'s in Love" (1979) and the

's album " The Leprechaun" (1976),

Herb Alpert Herb Alpert (born March 31, 1935) is an American trumpeter, pianist, singer, songwriter, record producer, arranger, conductor, painter, sculptor and theatre producer, who led the band Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass (sometimes called "Herb Alpe ...

's album "Beyond" (1980), and Marc Cohn's album "Marc Cohn" (1991). In 1981, he played drums and percussion for Simon and Garfunkel's Concert in Central Park. Gadd was a member of the Manhattan Jazz Quintet from its founding in 1983 until he left in 1987, replaced by Dave Weckl, although he has reunited with the group several times since then. The group has only officially released its albums in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, and is best known there. Gadd toured the entire year of 1991 with Paul Simon. He recorded and toured with

in 1994/1996 and again from 1997 to 2004. 1997 also saw him on a world tour in a trio with the French jazz great Michel Petrucciani and his long-time band colleague, bassist Anthony Jackson (captured on the ''Trio in Tokyo'' live album). Gadd played on the blues album '' Riding with the King'' along with B. B. King, Eric Clapton, Jimmie Vaughan and a few others. In 2009, Gadd returned to Clapton's band to play 11 nights at the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London, England. It has a seating capacity of 5,272. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres ...

and was part of Clapton's touring band throughout May 2009. Also in 2009, Gadd reunited with L'Image, and the group performed at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York City, toured Japan and Europe, and released the album ''L'Image 2.0''. Gadd has toured for many years with

. Since 2014, Gadd has played in a soul-jazz trio Blicher Hemmer Gadd with four-time Danish Grammy winner Michael Blicher (saxophone) and Dan Hemmer (Hammond organ). Blicher Hemmer Gadd has released four albums. Gadd has written a book about the rudiments of drumming entitled ''Gaddiments'', which was released on Hudson Music in 2021.

Influences

Gadd's influences include Buddy Rich,

Elvin Jones Elvin Ray Jones (September 9, 1927 – May 18, 2004) was an American jazz drummer of the post-bop era. Most famously a member of John Coltrane's quartet, with whom he recorded from late 1960 to late 1965, Jones appeared on such albums as ''My Fa ...

, Tony Williams, and the "less is more" style of Rick Marotta.

Equipment

Gadd endorses and uses Yamaha drums, pedals and hardware, Zildjian cymbals,

Remo Remo Inc. is an American musical instruments manufacturing company based in Valencia, California, and founded by Remo Belli in 1957. Products manufactured include drum kits, drumheads, drums, and drum hardware, hardware, and various percussio ...

drumheads, Latin Percussion, Earthworks microphones,

Vic Firth Everett Joseph "Vic" Firth (June 2, 1930 – July 26, 2015) was an American musician and the founder of Vic Firth Company (formerly Vic Firth, Inc.), a company that makes percussion sticks and mallets. He was also known for his association ...

sticks and brushes and Beato bags. Gadd uses the Steve Gadd Commemorative kit, which Yamaha made for the 30th anniversary of his collaboration with the company. The kit consists of a 22"×14" maple bass drum and 10"×7.5", 12"×8", 14"×12" and 16"×14" birch tom toms. He uses his 14"×5.5" Yamaha Steve Gadd signature steel snare drum with wood hoops, which also comes in birch and maple versions, and he has started to endorse the newer Yamaha Recording Custom series. Gadd has also used a Yamaha Club Custom drum kit in a blue swirl finish. Gadd also has

sticks with his signature on them. The drumsticks are very light and thin, black in color, and have normal "wood color" on the tips. There is also an identical model with nylon tips. The stick is slightly shorter than the American Classic 5A, and features a barrel tip for improved recording sound. It is long and the diameter is . In addition to having his own signature stick, he has his own signature brushes. These brushes are intended to solve the problem of wire brushes snagging on new coated drumheads by slightly angling the wires in the top of the playing end. The wires glide across the head, allowing a smoother sweep and a velvet swish sound. Gadd uses a variety of

heads: a Coated Powerstroke 3 on the batter side of the snare with a Hazy Diplomat on the resonant side of the snare, Clear Pinstripes or Coated Ambassadors on the batter sides of toms, and Clear Ambassadors for the resonant sides. He is using a Coated Powerstroke 3 both on his snare and kick drum. He also has an LP Steve Gadd signature cowbell, modeled on the LP Mambo cowbell that he has used since the 1970s. According to

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

, Gadd has been credited with playing surdo, kalimba,

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, thoug ...

congas The conga, also known as tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are stave (wood), staved like barrels and classified into three types: quinto (drum), quinto (lead drum, highest), tres dos or tres golpes (middle), an ...

bass drum The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter usually greater than its depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. The head ...

bongos Bongos (Spanish language, Spanish: ''bongó'') are an Afro-Cubans, Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. The pair consists of the larger ''hembra'' () and the smaller ''macho'' ...

, timbales,

snare drum The snare drum (or side drum) is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often u ...

cymbals A cymbal is a common percussion instrument. Often used in pairs, cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys. The majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sou ...

and palmas in addition to a drum kit.

Awards and honors

* Honorary Doctor of Music degree,

Berklee College of Music Berklee College of Music () is a Private university, private music college in Boston, Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern Music of the United ...

, 2005 * Grammy Award nomination, Best Contemporary Instrumental Album, ''Way Back Home'', 2017 * Grammy Award, Best Contemporary Instrumental Album, ''Steve Gadd Band'', 2018 * Danish Grammy Award nomination, Best Instrumental Jazz Album, ''Omara'' with Blicher Hemmer Gadd, 2018

Discography

As leader

* ''Gaddabout'' (Electric Bird, 1984) * ''The Boys from Rochester'' with

(Feels So Good, 1989) * ''Together Forever'' with Chuck Mangione (Gates Music, 1994) * ''Trio in Tokyo'' with Michel Petrucciani (Dreyfus, 1999) * ''Steps/Smokin' in the Pit'' (NYC, 1999) * ''Super Trio'' with

, Christian McBride (Mad Hatter, 2006) * ''Live at Voce'' (BFM, 2010) * ''Gadditude'' (BFM, 2013) * ''Blicher Hemmer Gadd'' (C-Nut, 2014) * ''70 Strong'' (BFM, 2015) * ''Way Back Home'' (BFM, 2016) * '' Chinese Butterfly'' with Chick Corea (Stretch, 2017) * ''Steve Gadd Band'' (BFM, 2018) With Manhattan Jazz Quintet * ''Autumn Leaves'' (Paddle Wheel, 1985) * ''Live at Pit Inn'' (Paddle Wheel, 1986) * ''The Sidewinder'' (Paddle Wheel, 1986) * ''My Funny Valentine'' (Paddle Wheel, 1986) * ''Live at Pit Inn Vol. 2'' (Paddle Wheel, 1986) * ''My Favorite Things: Live in Tokyo'' (Paddle Wheel, 1987) * ''Manhattan Blues'' (Sweet Basil, 1990) * ''Concierto De Aranjuez'' (Sweet Basil, 1994) * ''V.S.O.P.'' (Birds, 2008) With Anders Wihk * ''Same Tree Different Fruit'' (Capitol Music Group AB, 2012) With Blicher Hemmer Gadd * ''Blicher Hemmer Gadd'' (C-Nut, 2014) * ''Omara'' (C-Nut, 2018) * ''Get That Motor Runnin (C-Nut, 2019) * ''It Will Be Alright'' (C-Nut, 2023)

References

External links

Official site

Steve Gadd 2014 Interview
- with Rochester magazine ''POST''

– contains discography and equipment list.

– contains video and sound clips.
Steve Gadd at OnlineDrummer
– contains video clips.
Steve Gadd Interview
at NAMM Oral History Collection (2015)
Official site for Blicher Hemmer Gadd www.BlicherHemmerGadd.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gadd, Steve 1945 births People from Irondequoit, New York 20th-century American drummers American blues drummers American jazz drummers American jazz musicians American male drummers American people of Italian descent American rock drummers American session musicians Bongo players Conga players Eastman School of Music alumni Grammy Award winners Jazz fusion drummers Jazz musicians from New York (state) Living people American male jazz musicians Manhattan Jazz Quintet members Manhattan School of Music alumni Return to Forever members Rhythm and blues drummers Soul drummers Steps Ahead members Stuff (band) members United States Army Band musicians White Elephant Orchestra members 20th-century American male musicians Drummers from New York (state)