This week’s edition of Mondays with Morgan is an interview between jazz journalist Morgan Enos and Adam Deitch, a venerated drummer who plays in the long-running psychedelic funk band Lettuce, as well as Break Science and the Adam Deitch Quartet.
The Adam Deitch Quartet released their second album, Roll the Tape, on 10 November. The release features Deitch along with organist Wil Blades, trumpeter Eric “Benny” Bloom, and saxophonist Ryan Zoidis, as well as guitar legend John Scofield (on the single “Mushroom Gravy”).
Links to purchase Roll the Tape, and to Deitch’s website, can be found at the bottom of this article.
The funky drummer and producer Adam Deitch has been around for decades, in a number of acclaimed projects, and picked up two GRAMMY nominations for his trouble. But to make him listen to even a semi-recent version of himself, you’d have to tie him to a chair.
“I can’t watch videos of myself from even five or six years ago. I’m just like, What was I doing?” Deitch admits to LondonJazz. As he explains, he came up playing joints like New York’s Mercury Lounge, where he threw himself into the kit by necessity. “The sound guy doesn’t turn my snare up,” he explains, “and I have to make the crowd feel the drums.”
Old habits die hard: up to the late 2010s, Deitch continued to play with a wallop. That changed with his first Adam Deitch Quartet album, 2019’s Egyptian Secrets, featuring Blades, Bloom, and Zoidis. With its follow-up, Roll the Tape, he’s grown even subtler, vibier, more dynamic.
“I’m in a dynamics switch at this point in my life,” Deitch says of Roll the Tape — which imbues the great jazz-organ sound of yore with a hip, modern twist. (Think those ageless records by Jimmy Smith, or Jack McDuff, or Dr. Lonnie Smith, tossed up with the groove-monster funk and neosoul of the ensuing decades.) “Right now, my evolution is learning to break it down.”
Read on for an interview with Deitch about the state of his drum philosophy, where the quartet sits in his musical universe, and much more — including a timely tip or two about miking your drums for success.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
LondonJazz News: Like some who may be reading this, I’m new to the Lettuce world. How would you describe where this quartet and album fit into your extended universe?
Adam Deitch: It kind of just happened at an afterparty. I ran into [organist] Wil Blades in San Francisco, when Lettuce was playing the Fillmore. We booked the Boom Boom Room, which is across the street from the Fillmore.
I think we had [saxophonist] James Casey and [trumpeter] Maurice Brown that night. The idea of just doing me and Wil and two horns was born that night. Rest in peace, James Casey; he was there at the inception of this whole thing.
It was just a way to explore some different harmonies, and another chance for me to get writing and try some different things that I can’t do with Lettuce. And something smaller that I could play — more of a jazz kit, more of an Idris [Muhammad] tuning type style kit, and just explore that world.
LJN: You’re privy to so many grooves and influences. What did you pull from? What was the nucleus?
AD: It’s the Jimmys, the Lonnies — my favorite funky organ stuff. When I was at high school parties, my friends would have Pucho and His Latin Soul Brothers — shit like that they’d be playing, and I fell in love with that music.
I just really wanted to show my respect for it, and keep that kind of dirty, loose, funky stuff happening. In today’s society, everything’s perfect; everything’s so clean; everyone’s playing with click tracks and everything.
I wanted something that was super organic musically, recorded on tape and that sort of thing. That was the goal with this.
LJN: Some of the best music I’ve ever heard is, by some standards, extraordinarily sloppy. It’s rubbery; it ebbs and flows. I’m sure that human touch is at the center of what you’re trying to do.
AD: Yeah, it’s stuff that’s in the cracks, as they always say. It’s not necessarily swinging or straight time, and nothing’s really planned or overworked.
Basically, the guys had never heard the tunes before we got in the studio, like they might have. Because we had just cut the [2022] Lettuce record Unify, and everybody was dead tired. I write a lot for Lettuce also; their brains were shot.
And I said, “Guys, I know we just cut this whole record. But we’re going to hold the studio, and we’re going to cut this Deitch Quartet record. They’re rolling their eyes, like, We’ve got to learn all this shit, too?
I don’t write charts; it’s all by ear. I have demos that I do on my Pro Tools, and I play a little bit of keys; it’s just enough to make the demos.
We had the demos on everyone’s phones. And [trumpeter] Benny Bloom, being the genius he is, would put his ear to the phone, hear the line, learn it, and jot it down. And then he would help out with showing [saxophonist Ryan] Zoidis the harmonies. Wil came super prepared — ready to rock.
It was just a situation where it wasn’t that planned or perfected. Part of me wanted to look at this record as a rough draft, almost. But it became this imperfect thing, like what you’re talking about. I’m just glad it’s out, and I’m glad you dig it, man.
LJN: Can you talk about your kit on this record? You can get nerdy if you want.
AD: You know, I have to play an 18-inch kick drum for this. It’s all jazz tuning — 18 and 12-inch rack and 13 inch floor, which is not what I play with Lettuce. I play much bigger drums.
It’s just two rides: no crash cymbals, no stack claps, just a very simple kind of bebop kit. Something that Idris would play, or Bill Stewart, or Billy Martin, or those kinds of guys that really get a lot of the drums, from just having a four-piece kit. So, luckily, I have these beautiful Tamas, and Zildjian rides — the warmest ride cymbals I could find.
The goal was not even to have the drums that forward in the mix; everyone thinks that when a drummer makes a record, the drums are going to be loud, and there are going to be all these effects on the drums. I was like, Let me just put a little reverb on it, and let it be natural and organic.
I’ve got to give props to John Davis, an amazing engineer who helped to mix the record. And my friend Joshua Fairman, who recorded the record correctly, with the right mics and the right vibes. Without those two guys, this record wouldn’t sound like that.
LJN: I feel like with any great groove, it’s what you don’t play. Perhaps the crash cymbal would overwhelm.
AD: Yeah, yeah — just two rides, man. I wasn’t going for that Lettuce drum sound.
You know, people try to put you in a box, the older you get. You realize people know you for one thing; they know the Lettuce records, or my fans who just know my Break Science stuff with [keyboardist] Borahm Lee. They assume I’m a one-trick pony.
We’re more than that; we’re more than what people try to put us in a box for. This was just a way of expanding what I’m capable of doing.
LJN: What are your mic preferences onstage?
AD: For the quartet stuff, I like a minimal mic setup. I don’t like tom mics, really, for this stuff. Let the overhead take a nice overall picture of the kit — a snare mic and a kick mic, and that’s it. Simple miking techniques. None of that 30-mics-on-a-snare-drum shit.
Bernard Purdie said that back in the day, they only had two or three mics on the kit, and you had to mix yourself while you were playing. If the hi-hat’s too loud, you don’t have a hi-hat mic to turn that tdown. So, you’ve got to play the hi-hat quieter, going to tape.
That always stuck with me: mix yourself, don’t expect to play everything super hard, and then go in and start adjusting. You kind of think about the snare and hi-hat levels before you go in, and try to get a nice, complete sound that has dynamics and vibe, going to tape.
LJN: Where are you at regarding the evolution of your drum thinking, and how is that reflected on Roll the Tape?
AD: I’m in a dynamics switch at this point in my life. I played really hard for a long time, growing up in New York and trying to get people’s attention and make a room full of people really feel the drums — before I had a good soundman that could really mix the drums right.
Now, I’m using in-ear monitors. I have a good mix in my ears, and I don’t have to hit that hard anymore. I’m choking the mics if I’m hitting that hard, so I’m really learning how to relax and just get a great tone out of the kit without having to slam the drums, like I used to.
I can’t watch videos of myself from even five or six years ago. I’m just like, What was I doing? In my mind, I was still 20 years old and playing a club like the Mercury Lounge or something like that; the sound guy doesn’t turn my snare up, and I have to make the crowd feel the drums.
Right now, my evolution is learning to break it down. In Lettuce, if someone’s taking a solo, I’m going below the volume level of the soloist to the point where they have to go down with you.
So, that’s where I’m at. It’s a whole dynamics thing — and simplicity, also.
