The drum solo has evolved since the days when Cream skinsman Ginger Baker would treat audiences to 12 minutes of “Toad,” a Baker composition that was a staple of the group’s live sets. After making his reputation playing with Frank Zappa and as leader of New Wave band Missing Persons, San Francisco-born drummer Terry Bozzio formed the improvisational group HoBoLeMa with guitarist Allan Holdsworth, bassist and Chapman Stick virtuoso Tony Levin and drummer Pat Mastelotto. Bozzio has always been a forward-looking musician — he developed some of the first electronic drums — and tonight he performs solo on his own invention, a mammoth drum kit that contains two-and-a-half octaves of tuned tom-toms and eight bass drum notes. As Bozzio told Rolling Stone’s Christopher R. Weingarten in 2014, “It probably is the largest practical drum set in the world.” Bozzio is a master — his compositions and improvisations are musical, and yes, they rock. EDD HURT
Terry Bozzio
