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Sidenote: The most famous "drop" from The US Armed Forces (then The Navy) School of Music was none other than private Buddy (no middle name) Rich, USMC. Rich attended S.O.M. in early 1942 but never graduated and was discharged shortly after. When I was attending S.O.M. the legend was that the arrogant young draftee refused a direct order to play with brushes although the details are scarce and the legend has grown in the telling. If the time-line given by his biographers is correct, Rich would have been 33 years-old at the time with 31 years of show business experience.

Buddy first debuted as the finale of his parents' Vaudeville act in 1920 at the age of two. Billed as "Baby Traps" The Drum Wonder, he brought down the house playing "Stars & Stripes Forever" on a field drum. By age 10, Buddy was the world's second highest paid child star behind Buster Keaton making a cool $1,000 per week in 1927 when you could own a new Ford Coupe for the whooping price tag of $1,000 and change.

By age 17, Buddy embarked on a world tour and by the time WWII rolled around he had owned the drum throne with Bunny Berigan (1938), Artie Shaw (1939), the Vic Schoen Orchestra (the band that backed the Andrews Sisters) and Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra. As fitting as the "refusal to play with brushes" story sounds, it seems much more likely that Buddy got his discharge from the Marines so that he could return to Dorsey's Organization, his stardom (and top billing over the band's young singer, Frank Sinatra) and his six figure income.

Here's Buddy in 1945 with Lester Young on Sax and Nat "King" Cole on the piano and yes, Buddy is using brushes. As Gene Krupa once said, "Buddy Rich is the greatest drummer to ever draw breath."

Somebody Loves Me
~ Lester Young, Nat King Cole & Buddy Rich ~