Sticks Evans

• Active: '40s, '50s, '60s
• Genres: Jazz
• Instrument: Drums

Biography

Performing on hundreds of records, often uncredited, Sticks Evans' nickname makes it easy to guess what he does, but not with the ultimate degree of accuracy. It is sticks as in drumsticks, and it is true Evans was a drummer. But he was something many other drummers are not, however, as in a skilled practitioner of the entire range of orchestral percussion instruments including timpani and vibraphone, neither of which are played with sticks. He was a skilled music teacher who passed along his skills to one and all, high and mighty, big and little. Evans taught junior high school music classes and he taught the hotshot drummer Bernard Purdie how to read music faster when it seemed like the pretty guy wasn't catching on to his jingles fast enough.

Born Samuel Smith, this drummer's abilities reading and arranging music helped him confront a range of opportunities that were expansive even by the criteria of a session percussionist. He became involved in the third stream orchestral jazz adventures of composer, conductor, and arranger Gunther Schuller, taking part in several radical performances and concerts featuring Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. The drummer's credentials, however, are just what are needed in a typical argument about whether participants in avant-garde music can really dig the roots. Evans had played straight-ahead organ trio music with organist Milt Buckner; he also recorded with country blues stalwarts Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, about as rootsy as one can get. There are also his pop, rock, and soul credits: the drummer can be heard on recordings by Tim Hardin, Mickey & Sylvia, and Aretha Franklin, among others. He made one side under his own name, the wild "Go Go Go Blow," one of very few records with the word "go" in the title more than twice. Evans also wrote and produced several singles for the obscure soul singer Paul Sindab in the mid-'70s. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide