Pete La Roca - "Out-of-Strict Tempo"

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The widely respected young veteran drummer discusses his career, methods, and goals with Down Beat Associate Editor Ira Gitler.

I really enjoy thumbing through old Downbeat magazines, especially from the 1950s and 1960s, a time when I was coming of age in the music and subsequently working as a professional Jazz and studio musician.

Given my predilection for all things drums, not surprisingly, I’m most pleased to discover features in the magazine that highlight the work of drummers.

The following profile on the then, up and coming drummer, Pete La Roca [aka Pete Sims] was of particular interest to me because although I was familiar with his playing through some of the recordings noted in Ira Gitler’s piece, I didn’t know much about his background.

My first impression of Pete was that his sound on drums reminded me of the “snap and crackle” approach favored by Roy Haynes and his licks, fills and accents were reminiscent of Tony Williams and Clifford Jarvis, both of whom were students of master drummer Alan Dawson who taught at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, MA.

Pete employed a hard driving, emphatic pulse that created a very energetic time feel; this is sometimes described as playing on top of the beat. His trades and solos often crossed bar lines, were “out-of-strict-tempo,” something relatively new at the time, and his phrasing was often interrupted by surprising and abrupt “changes in direction.”

I first heard Pete on Jackie McLean’s 1959 Blue Note recording New Soil  [BLP 4013].