I have a powerful need to create a thread that maybe two people will dig very much and everybody else will be like DUDE THAT DOESN’T MATTER RIGHT NOW but gosh heckin’ dang it, cool weird stuff is what I need right now to distract me from *gestures at world news*

SO IT BEGINS
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To be clear, this is a thread about an obscure music thing from the 80s. You can nope out now super easy. But stick around, and you will learn about a super-prolific-but-not-exactly-household-name-drummer named Gregg Bissonette.
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Mr. Bissonette achieved a modest amount of fame from being the drummer in David Lee Roth’s band after said luminary left Van Halen. His first worldwide appearance was in the video for YANKEE ROSE, which is a huge dose of WTF now & was in 1986 too:
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Let’s say some true shit: Roth did a lot of misogynistic and racist stuff on that album. Look at the cover for EAT ‘EM AND SMILE and you will cringe. Listen to some of his lyrics and eeeeeek. It was the 80s and eeeeeek describes the decade. But the music? OMG. That band.
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Steve Vai on guitar, Billy Sheehan on bass, and Gregg Bissonette on drums may be the best trio I’ve ever heard outside of Rush. Every single member is a musical virtuoso. Listen to Shyboy and you will see. Or watch this video and drop your jaw:
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Misnumbered dang it. I blame margaritas. Anyway: Gregg Bissonette got the gig via audition, which is wild. He tells the story here, and folks, this is a great story but the thread is *not* about rock, stay with me:
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The utterly absolutely wild thing is that Gregg Bissonette started out with jazz, and that is where I heard of him before he did the David Lee Roth thing. Because I was a jazz nerd in high school (I played trombone). And our band went to see Maynard Ferguson.
“WHO?” you ask
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MAYNARD FERGUSON had legendary lips. Embouchre, my friends. He could leap octaves effortlessly, & if you have ever played brass, you know leaping octaves takes effort. Here is Maynard live w/ Gregg Bissonette on drums in 1983, before I saw them myself:
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If you look up Gregg Bissonette on Wikipedia it completely ignores Gregg’s time with Maynard. Which means it completely ignores Gregg’s dream of becoming A DRUMMER FOR MAYNARD FERGUSON, not David Lee Roth. Witness, my friends:
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An elephant in the room that seems to have disappeared but sorta not really, I don’t know? GRAIN OF SALT TIME: in the 80s, nobody believed Alex Van Halen could have performed the intro for HOT FOR TEACHER all by his lonesome. It was widely rumored that Gregg did it. DID HE?
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Heck, I don’t know. Ghost drumming: IS IT REAL? I don’t know. But if you look on YouTube for covers of that song with Gregg Bissonette you will find several of them—one with Billy Sheehan—playing it easily. And watch his solo: damn. Yes. Could be real.
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But forget all the rock stuff. Here’s the thing: Gregg started in jazz & kicked ass IN JAZZ with one of the best trumpet players who ever lived. If there’s a thing I want the two people still reading this thread to do, it’s to seek out MAYNARD FERGUSON LIVE FROM SAN FRANCISCO 12/

I love what Gregg did in rock with Roth and *maybe* did with Van Halen, we’ll never know that bit for sure. But his work with Maynard Ferguson is what made him a drum god to me. I saw him in 1985 with Maynard on the same tour as LIVE FROM SAN FRANCISCO. Simply amazing.
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There you go. Pandemic rantings about obscure 80s shit from a guy who is making some damn fine homemade margaritas right now.

Seriously: If you like jazz at all, MAYNARD FERGUSON LIVE FROM SAN FRANCISCO is an amazing recording of remarkable musicians. Peace & tacos.
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