Drummer Profile: 01 - Vinnie Colaiuta

Brian Stephens
To start this feature section in the Drum Corner blog, I wanted to introduce those students who aren’t already fans to what I consider to be the greatest drummer alive at this moment: Vinnie Colaiuta.


(If you want a ‘quick and dirty’ walk through through his professional achievements, here’s his Wikipedia page.)

Vinnie first came into the public’s perview through his work with Frank Zappa somewhere around 1979. If you need a place to start, the most digestible (and coincidentally the most popular) Vinnie-era album would be Joe’s Garage. At its core, this concept album is one part comedy, two parts music. Many of the songs feel more commercial in presentation, with actual chorus hooks and other contemporary song tropes. While some of the material might be considered “blue” to some listeners, the story will be completely relatable to any musician.

WHAT MAKES VINNIE GREAT?

Even in those early days, Vinnie displays all of the things that he would later be heralded for:
  • Rock solid time
  • Infectious Groovability
  • Ferocious Chops (every song is a masterclass in vocabulary around the kit)
  • His ability to make Odd Time feel completely natural, almost even in its oddness.
  • A unique personality behind the drum kit

PARTIAL DISCOGRAPHY

In 1981, Vinnie left Frank’s band to begin an enormously successful career as a studio session drummer. His work in this particular area continues to this day.

As leader:

  • 1994 Vinnie Colaiuta (Stretch)
  • 2018 Descent into Madness (A-Tone Recordings)
  • 2021 Mother's Milk (A-Tone Recordings)

With Jing Chi (with Robben Ford and Jimmy Haslip)

  • 2002 Jing Chi
  • 2003 Jing Chi Live at Yoshi's[12]
  • 2004 3D
  • 2017 Supremo

With Mark Isham

  • 2019 Hard Candy (A-Tone Recordings)

As sideman

With Joni Mitchell

With Tom Scott

  • 1982 Desire
  • 1987 Streamlines
  • 1988 Flashpoint
  • 1999 Smokin' Section

With Sting


With Frank Zappa

With Others:

With Others:


THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS

(*Sorry to make you scroll down so far. Pretty amazing right?!)

The album that he's probably most famous for, with drummers and non-drummers alike, is Sting's "Ten Summoner's Tales"
I saw Vinnie playing with Sting a few years later, on the tour for the "Mercury Falling" album and as cliche as it sounds, that concert was life changing for me. There are things I learned from him about driving a band on-stage that I am still trying to replicate to this day in my own career. (One search on YouTube and you'll find plenty of live footage from that era).

The unifying moment for most of us drummers coming up in the 80's and 90's was Vinnie's appearance on the bill at the Buddy Rich Memorial Scholarship concert in 1989. If you hadn't heard of Vinnie before that VHS tape came out, he was permanently welded into your conscious for the rest of time after seeing him play that show. I remember seeing him play "Big Swing Face" with that band and finally understood that jazz music could also be played with an incredible amount of balls.

THE RIMSHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD

While in college in the early 90’s, I got to play with one of the guys in this video above, trumpeter Bobby Shew (who's featured in the solos section). My first question to him was “What was it like to play with Vinnie Colaiuta?” and Bobby humored me with a polite answer of “Well, what do you *think* it was like?!” 😉

But the thing that had all of the drummers in my town talking was the drum soloing trio of Vinnie, Dave Weckl, and Steve Gadd. People still debate over who won this “drum battle”, but in that moment, Vinnie showed everyone just how different he was from his contemporaries. (It also started every one of us practicing that single stroke lick between our right hand and right foot for the next 3 decades)
So, that’s a quick primer on Vinnie Colaiuta. There is so much content on Vinnie to be found currently on YouTube. I welcome you to spend a few weeks browsing through it all!
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