jerry steinholtz
i had known jerry about twelve years, and the story of my relationship with him, while quite special and important to me, is not unique. he was my latin/brazilian percussion teacher, and big band drum coach all through high school, and periodically after that. he was enormously giving of his time, energy, and exhaustive knowledge. he very proudly never sugar-coated anything (so he said), and were you to write 'the quotable steinholtz,' it would take easily 100 pages, not including variations such as ending each quip with 'y'understan'?.' or physical gestures such as needling you with his cane when you weren't listening. he very proudly knew and/or played with anybody who was anybody, and even in his last days was trying to set players up with each other. he played with diana ross, the jackson 5 (listen to the tambourine on 'i want you back'--it's amazing), lee ritenour, and all the great jazz and pop drummers of the last 50 years. i was at the namm convention with him several years ago and while we walked through the lp booth, giovanni hidalgo stopped what he was doing, hurried to jerry, embraced him and called him 'papi.' just as jerry told me he would.
he had told me he had lung cancer ('terminal, y'understan'?') over the phone when my dad was still in hospital this summer. i found out in the first couple days of december that he was in hospital with mrsa, and that he'd made the decision to be taken off of medications to be comfortable. i went to see him for a few hours and he was calmly sleeping, while generations of students came through to pay their respects. he passed as i was taking off for new york, and was buried as i was taking off to come home.
he remains an important figure in my musical life, as he does for any student from his years at hamilton high school, csun, lama, dick groves, or his private practice. he remains an important figure in my educational life, because with his permission i accepted his long-time position at hamilton, though i use significantly fewer 1940s-chicago tactics. there was a benefit concert for the schools 25th anniversary which featured a mostly alumni big band. the latin tune was a jerry standard called 'uno mas,' on which i played drumset, a student from five years before me called danny taylor played timbales, and a current student of hamilton, jerry, and i named jeffery rivera played congas. during the percussion solos, we clearly each had in our hands and ears the licks he gifts every student. he deserves all the love and respect he has from his friends, students, and colleagues, and i miss him.
if you click either picture, you'll be taken to my soundcloud page, which will play a piece that was improvised before i'd heard of his hospitalization, but that would have been completely impossible for me to conceive of or perform without his instruction and personality. cheers, jerry.
