On This Day in 1987, We Lost One of the Greatest Jazz Drummers of All Time, Who Worked With Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Armstrong

April 2, 2026 5:20 pm

Drummers are the heartbeat of every band, keeping time for their bandmates throughout dynamic live performances. Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham and Keith Moon of the Who are two percussionists who immediately come to mind, but Phil Collins thinks someone else belongs in the conversation: legendary jazz drummer Buddy Rich, who died on this day (April 2) in 1987 in Los Angeles, California. He was 69 years old.

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Speaking with BBC 6 Music in 2016, Collins cited Rich’s “West Side Story” medley as an example of his drumming prowess. “If you have never heard, you should,” the Genesis frontman said. “He is on top form throughout the whole thing.”

Born to vaudevillian parents in Brooklyn, New York, on Sept. 30, 1917, Bernard “Buddy” Rich perhaps never had a shot at anything other than show business. He made his stage debut at 18 months as part of his parents’ vaudeville act. By age 4, he was headlining Broadway, having earned the nickname “Baby Traps the Drum Wonder”. At 15, he was the second-highest-paid child entertainer of the 1930s.

Once Rich looked old enough to sit behind the drum set, he began sneaking into jazz clubs. Falling in love with the genre, he scored his first jazz gig in 1937 with clarinetist Joe Marsala. His career took off, playing with the likes of Artie Shaw, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, and Harry James.

Buddy Rich Saw Himself as “the Real Quarterback of the Band”

In 1945, following a three-year stint in the U.S. Marines, Rich began heading up the Buddy Rich Orchestra. His fame only grew from there, playing with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Armstrong.

“He plays faster with one hand than most of us do with two,” Boston Symphony member Howard Thompson told Time in 1966.

The notoriously short-tempered Rich found lasting success found in 1966 at the helm of the Buddy Rich Big Band, leading a group of 16 young musicians in playing jazz arrangements of rock and pop music.

“The drummer is the real quarterback of a band,” he once declared. “Hell, Guy Lombardo might just as well be hailing a cab on the bandstand. None of the musicians look at him.”

Featured image by David Redfern/Redferns