One of the first patents for a flyswatter with the potential to become what drummers would call brushes is from 1912. The application for a “fly killer” was created in 1912 and patented on March 18, 1913. One of the later patents for what would become the brushes used on the drumset was created in 1921. This was called a “combined fly-swatter and brush.”

The impact that the brushes had on the pattern was immense. For the first time in drumset history, drummers could play exactly what they wanted using a tool that had a softer attack than the drumstick. Drummers could also play legato or long notes. Instead of the one-note attack that the drumstick utilizes, drummers could play long notes with their left hand by sweeping over the drum head. While this occurred, the drummer could play rhythms with the right hand. The pattern can be heard as the main rhythmic component to numerous examples of brush playing from the early recordings of drummers playing with brushes.

Alongside this new tool, the use of the pattern was beginning to dominant in the later 1920s. Some of the earlier sonic examples that demonstrate brush playing show that it was typical to play the pattern for certain sections of a tune or behind certain soloists or instruments. Not only were drummers using the pattern with their brush playing, but I argue that playing brushes encouraged the use of the pattern over a longer duration of the tune. Playing “time” with the pattern is much more present through the use of brush playing.

Not only did Baby Dodds and Zutty Singleton work with the same riverboat bandleader in New Orleans but would later work with Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong in Chicago as well. Dodds beat Singleton to the punch of recording the pattern with brushes. On three tracks from two different recording sessions that were six days apart, Dodds’s playing behind Jelly Roll Morton on “Hyena Stomp” and “Wolverine Blues”were among the earliest representation of brushes playing pattern throughout entire sections of tunes.

On “Wolverine Blues” Baby Dodds employs brushes behind the clarinet solo from 2:09-2:23, 2:25-2:38. Dodds also played pattern on a small cymbal from 2:59-3:12.

Another important example can be heard on the track entitled “Funny Feathers,” which is basically the Louis Armstrong Hot Seven plus singer Victoria Spivey. Singleton begins playing brushes at 0:00-0:09 and 0:13-1:26. He again plays brushes from 2:26-3:15.

“Funny Feathers” was recorded on July 10, 1929. Zutty Singleton played brushes on this track and it is evident that he could have been influenced by Dodds by the way he played the brushes with the heavy backbeat.

THE BRIDGE TO CYMBALS

I consider a bridge track the transition from the pattern solely being played on the snare drum with brushes to the pattern being played with brushes on the snare drum and the cymbals.

“Mournful Serenade” is another Jelly Roll Morton track, in which Tommy Benford is solely dedicated to playing the pattern and does not alter the pattern at all. Benford employs the pattern with the brushes on the snare drum and with the brush on the choked splash cymbal. This is the first complete track that I consider to be a “bridge” to the migration of the pattern towards the hi-hat and cymbal. The total time playing pattern with the brushes is the entire track because Benford uses the brushes to play the pattern on the cymbal.

Another bridge example comes from Stan King and his playing in the Frankie Trumbauer Orchestra. “Futuristic Rhythm” begins with brushes on the snare drum at 0:10-:45 and 0:47-1:33. The pattern stops at 1:33 for a piano solo break. King reenters with the pattern on the cymbal.

Although there are ensemble shout sections, King plays the pattern throughout much of the track. He begins the track playing ensemble hits and then once the tune begins he plays the pattern with brushes on the snare drum.

King plays the final portion of the track with pattern on the cymbal. The pattern then continues on the cymbal from 1:35-2:12, 2:34-2:44 and 2:45-2:55.

The pinnacle example of the transition of the pattern played with brushes, integrated with the cymbal, is Oliver Tines’s playing behind Louis Armstrong in 1933. Tines spent little time on the bandstand with Armstrong other than the performances in Europe.

Prior to touring with Armstrong, the Armstrong, drummers other than Tines, had clearly been playing the pattern in ways that would lead to the eventual use of it throughout the duration of a tune, as can be heard in “Dinah.” Tines plays the pattern from 0:10-0:54, 0:56-1:17, 1:18-1:20, 1:23-1:40, 1:42-1:48 with the brushes. He plays press rolls for the first chorus behind Armstrong. Tines then plays pattern on a choked splash cymbal from 2:15-2:16, 2:17-2:34, 2:36-2:41.