5 Buddy Rich Drum Solos That Cement His Status In Rock Music History

Buddy Rich is probably the single-most influential, history-making drummer who ever lived, one that every classic rock fan ought to know. Coming up in big band circles in the '30s before forming the Buddy Rich Band in 1966, Rich not only set the bar for all drummers to come in terms of precision, control, power, and technique, but also unbridled showmanship. He laid the bedrock for all rock, metal, punk, etc., drummers to come, down to solos that cement his status in rock music history.  

It's more difficult to whittle down our choices for best Buddy Rich solos than it is to cherry-pick our case. Rich left us with a mountain of studio releases, live performances, compilations, rarities,  bootlegs, and more, oftentimes featuring different variations of the same piece and/or solo. He also made enough regular appearances on TV shows like "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" that we've got whole compilations of said performances, all of which are designed to showcase his skill. 

No matter what, we've got to choose solos that not only demonstrate this skill, but also demonstrate that Rich's spirit was more rock 'n' roll than rock itself, right down to his behind-the-kit sneer and volcanic drive to prove himself at each and every turn, even into his late life. We're also opening our choices to any of Rich's solos across his entire career, with or without his band, from one-off improv sessions to refined studio recordings. So let's have a look at some of the best solos of a master that continue to inspire to the present day.

They don't call it the "Impossible Drum Solo" In 1982, five years before his death, Buddy Rich once again took to the stage for a performance that not only blew the socks off everyone present, but changed drumming and rock history forever. That'll sound like a hyperbolic statement until you watch the solo yourself, which not only cements Rich's status in rock history as a virtuosic, cross-genre influencer par excellence, but proves that he was first of the best.

Rich performed the Impossible Drum Solo, as it's come to be called, at the Concert for the Americas, a music festival in the Dominican Republic. The eclectic concert featured rock musicians like Heart and Santana as well as OG's like Frank Sinatra, who was in his mid-60s at the time. Rich was in his mid-60s, too, with his entire 50-year career behind him and absolutely nothing left to prove. He could have played the role of a legend cosplaying himself, strutting on stage and banging out some percussive nuggets to keep the crowd happy. Instead, he dialed it up to 11, so much so that there's a persistent legend saying that Rich had a heart attack while playing. That's how intense and gonzo he was.

Rich raged through his roughly five minute sequence like a hurricane — a hurricane of absolute, lethal precision and control, that is. He played one unique sequence after another, chained end-on-end, including a mind-blowing cymbal tap section, polyrhythmic foot and hand work, orchestrated and interlocking kick, snare, and tom sections, and more. Beyond such paltry attempts to verbalize Rich's playing, give it a watch, and you'll understand.

If you thought Buddy Rich would stop with his 1982 Impossible Drum Solo, think again. Two years later, in 1984, Rich was back with a terrifyingly virtuosic live drum solo from his jazz track, "Channel 1 Suite." This track originally appeared on the Buddy Rich Band's 1968 live album, "Mercy, Mercy," and featured drum fills that wouldn't sound out of place on any '70s classic rock album. Rich's solo comes in at the end of the piece and lasts about three and a half minutes, give or take. It's excellent, but his live 1984 version is something else entirely.

We said "terrifyingly" virtuosic for a reason. There are some sections of the 1984 rendition of Rich's "Channel 1 Suite" drum solo that will cause you to swear you're mishearing what's happening. Rich busts out the fastest snare rolls humanly possible for this solo, ones that sound like sustained, metallic bee buzzes. He does tricks like placing one hand under a hi-hat to control its reverberation ("tickling the hats," we'll call it) and paring his playing back to only his drum sticks as they crack against each other and never lose tempo or rhythmic pulse. But most critically, this is the drum solo that demonstrates Rich's unparalleled control of modulation (faster/slower playing) and dynamics (louder/softer playing). It truly sounds like a machine couldn't get more precise. Credit to his band, too, who didn't miss a beat (literally) under the watchful eyes of their band leader and drummer.

In some ways, this version of Rich's drum solo from "Channel 1 Suite" is even more impressive than the Impossible Drum Solo. Like everything else in this article, it has to be heard to be believed.

Buddy Rich first released "West Side Story Medley" back in 1966 on "Swingin' New Big Band," where there's no drum solo to be found. Like we already mentioned, this is typical of studio recordings of Rich's work where he's playing his role in a band, often while being the band leader. He built solos into later live versions of the instrumental piece, though, most prominently in 1975 with a nutso, five-minute-long solo.

Recognized as one of the greatest drum solos of all time, Rich's 1975 "West Side Story Medley" solo showcases the full range of his abilities. Like always when trying to understand music, listeners should try to focus on only one instrument at a time; in this case, that means one piece of Rich's drum kit — toms, snare, cymbals, kicks, etc. The first time you hear a kick drum, keep following it. The kicks layer in, polyrhythmically (overlapping, different rhythms), and sync together with Rich's other drums even as his drumming syncs together with the main musical motif from "West Side Story's" "America." Rich continues with some of his signature, thunderous snare rolls, insane accent control, improvisational chops, drum kit awareness, and so forth. The audio quality of this live version, which comes from an unknown performance, wavers because the video seems converted from a VHS tape. But you'll still be able to hear and see everything. 

This solo also shows something that other studio recordings often don't: Rich could break out into full solos and then pull it back as needed. This is a chief skill for drummers of all stripes, rock included.

We're veering away from Buddy Rich's monstrous, more atomic drum solos for this choice and onto something not necessarily more restrained, but definitely more straightforwardly in-pocket. For this, we look to a posthumous 2014 album called "The Solos" containing nothing but drum solos stripped from live Rich performances across 1976 and 1977. As the reader can imagine, this is a gold mine of drum work assembled precisely for the purposes of admiring a legend. Specifically, we're highlighting diminutive "Solo 7," a solo that passes the baton back and forth between Rich's entire band and lasts about five minutes total.

"Solo 7" stands out from its peers because it showcases something we haven't really seen from Rich so far in this article: composition. The best drum solos from a later drumming god like Rush's Neil Peart, for instance, get cited as highly "musical," i.e., focused on composition. They're full of implied melodic phrasing and an orchestrated placement of drums that resembles an entire composition unto itself. 

This is what we get with "Solo 7" from Rich, which resembles a straight-up rock solo possibly more than any other in our list. We're speaking more of the first part of the solo rather than the later, all-cylinders, blast-away smash-fest, though it's true for the whole thing. "Solo 7" pounds ahead with a relentless, four-on-the-floor feel that develops into varying drum patterns in an almost danceable way. At the same time, it tends to gallop like the mid-70s rhythms of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM). This is a unique solo from Rich that adds extra depth to his oeuvre.

No, we're not choosing "Solo 5" from 2014's "The Solos" because it's the longest one on the album, although that does help. In addition to all other skills a drummer needs, folks in the general audience might not realize how much physical endurance it takes to play the drums; most of us would probably waver off beat within three seconds of starting to play. But to keep up Buddy Rich's level of timing, power, and precision while landing some truly unusual and inventive drum strikes like in "Solo 5," it takes a vast stretch of the imagination to truly even begin to understand how difficult this is. 

"Solo 5" stands out not just for its length, but its creativity. The solo is full of weirdly placed kicks and somewhat confounding, off-kilter rhythmic patterns, especially in its emphasis on backbeats (aka, the less stressed beats in a measure). Buddy Rich's orchestra joins his solo about halfway through, when Rich blends into the mix, before passing through several false stops and slipping away again until the very end of the piece. 

It's the snare accents that stand out in the latter section of "Solo 5," followed by snares that roll like rain and modulations in the kick drum starting about minute 10 (growing faster and faster). It's mad stuff, especially if you try to envision how your own, personal attention might have to shift from here to there while playing drums, doing one thing with one or two hands and another entirely different thing with your foot. This is the solo that adds the final creative piece to the whole Rich puzzle, aside from being superb in and off itself.