I’ve never spoken at length with Lewis Nash. When I introduced the Tommy Flanagan Trio at the Litchfield Jazz Festival 15 years ago, he sought me out after their set to thank me for giving Flanagan a proper introduction, and told me that while the esteemed pianist deserved to be lauded everywhere they went, it happened too infrequently. I was already a big fan of Nash, whom I’d first heard with Betty Carter in 1982 and had come to appreciate as one of the most stimulating and unselfish of drummers; that he took the time to seek out an emcee whom he otherwise didn’t know to say something out of respect for his employer seemed perfectly in keeping with what he routinely displayed behind the drum set.
Today is Lewis Nash’s 55th birthday. In addition to Bet-Car, I’ve seen the Phoenix native with an array of bandleaders who fairly define the modern mainstream of jazz. They include Ron Carter, J.J. Johnson, Stan Getz, Kenny Barron, Joe Lovano, Diana Krall, Steve Wilson, Anat Cohen, and Flanagan, whom he worked with for the better part of a decade before the pianist’s death in 2001. I saw Nash most recently when he played the Hartford Club with Renee Rosnes, Peter Washington, and Steve Nelson. There I learned, not to my surprise, that Jonathan Barber, the most impressive young drummer on the Hartford scene, is a student of Lewis’s.
Nash has made only a handful of recordings as a leader, but he’s appeared on hundreds of others as a sideman. That may strike you as an anomaly, but it’s not that unusual for in-demand bassists and drummers. And where it may frustrate some players, Lewis seems almost preternaturally suited for what he calls the work of an “accompanist.” He explains why he prefers that term over “sideman” in this video, which is one of a multi-volume series in which Nash illustrates and illuminates what he does and the thought that goes into it.
In this segment, he points out that because drummers are required to pay attention to “someone else’s concept,” they often make good bandleaders themselves. It’s also fascinating to hear him delineate the differences between what John Lewis and Tommy Flanagan wanted from drummers; the different kinds of accompaniment bassists Ray Brown (“closed hi-hat”) and Rufus Reid (“open ride”) preferred when soloing; the practice rituals of Sonny Rollins; and the importance of having a balanced approach as a drummer, a yin-yang that serves others as well as oneself.
Nash’s most recent recording as a leader is The Highest Mountain, which he made two years ago at the Cellar Jazz Club in Vancouver, B.C., with Rosnes, Jeremy Pelt, Jimmy Greene, and Peter Washington. We’ll hear “Goodbye” and “Blues Connotation” from that set in tonight’s Jazz a la Mode, as well as Lewis’s work with Cedar Walton, Karrin Allyson, Cyrus Chestnut, Ken Peplowski, Charles McPherson, and several of the aforementioned jazz greats.