Maurice Courvoisier has made himself a loud present for his 50th birthday: He had a tailor-made drum kit built. A history of the instrument in five jazz pieces.
Maurice Courvoisier "took over" his first drum kit from his cousin at the age of five: Rock drums, like the ones John Bonham of Led Zeppelin had, in green transparent acrylic plastic, as loud as they were shrill. Forty-five years later, he, now a lawyer, decided to finally buy a more suitable drum kit. One which does not make the walls reverberate when you play it. So he went to his drum shop in Basel and soon wondered to himself: "Why buy a ready-made drum kit when you can build your own?"
“It was a bit of a luxury project," says Courvoisier. He has opted for a relatively large drum kit with two snare drums, four toms and a base drum made of maple and mahogany wood, thus producing a soft sound. A former shipbuilder in Chioggia near Venice manufactured the shells and the counter hoops. Fine inlays decorate the white lacquered wood. The drums currently have transparent batter heads installed: Attached by the instrument maker along with their initials, the drum's baptism creation date can clearly be seen on the inside.
Five pieces of music, five stages that led Maurice Courvoisier to jazz and finally to his personalised drum kit.
Alexander's Ragtime Band: The Golden Gate Quartett
"I come from a classical home – classical in terms of music, at least:
My mother is a classically trained pianist and taught piano at the Basel Music Academy, my father played some cello and loved chamber music. I chose classical percussion, thinking that I might one day become an orchestra musician.
At some point, in my father's huge record collection I found this one record with African-American musicians. It had "Spirituals" written on it, I found the record extremely interesting, a total foreign interloper amidst of all this classical music. Even though it was forbidden, I put them on my father's holy turntable. That was my awakening to all things jazz. There had never been jazz in our home. I loved the music and I wanted to uncover its origins and find out more about it."
Maceo Parker, WDR Big Band:
Hallelujah I love her so
"While studying law, music was ‘out of sight, out of mind’. I still played the piano a bit, sang in a choir, but completely neglected the drums. Quite simply unforgivable.
In the late 90s, I did my LLM at Columbia University in New York. One of my fellow students attended lectures on music law with Maceo Parker's brother – he dragged me along to these lectures, which sometimes took place in the city's jazz clubs. That is how I came to listen to Maceo Parker, this gifted saxophonist who grew up with James Brown.
Years later – I must have been a bit over forty – I stumbled upon the recording of Maceo Parker and the WDR Big Band. When I listened to it, I got itchy fingers and I knew that I wanted to and had to play the drums again. My cousin is an instrument maker; he spruced up my old drum kit and arranged a spot for me in a big band."
Blossom Dearie: My Attorney Bernie
"I am currently playing in two bands. On Tuesdays I play in a big band with about fifteen musicians and on Wednesdays I play in a smaller line-up with seven colleagues, most of them also lawyers. Significantly, one of the songs we play in this line-up is called "My Attorney Bernie". Even in English this is a very funny name, our singer has written lyrics in the Basel German dialect, which makes it even more lively.
In the small band we play jazz with a bit of funk and a bit of latin. Our pianist likes to compose and does it well, and he dedicates his songs to his children. He has a penchant for oblique measures ⅝, ¾ and so on and he recently dedicated a song in ⅞-time to his youngest child. For me as a drummer, this is as exciting as well as being a challenge. This requires absolute concentration. This is what I like to do with music: It provides a good balance, an opportunity for you to clear your head and forget the coming day’s deadlines for a moment."
Peter Herbolzheimer: Heartland
"When playing drums, it's like skiing or swimming. Even after a long break, you can get back in relatively effortlessly, but then you also run up against the same limits time and again. When I started again, I soon felt quite comfortable with the drums. Now I take a percussion lesson at the Basel Jazz School every two weeks, which is great and frustrating at the same time, because I realise all the things I have yet to learn.
"Heartland" is a song by guitarist Pat Metheny, which my daughter brought to my attention. I recently discovered Peter Herbolzheimer’s version of it; Peter is a musician and bandleader who had his heyday in the seventies and eighties. Thanks to YouTube, you can find really good things that you've never heard before. This is an incredibly complex arrangement, really hearty. In fact, I actually dream of playing a piece like that in just such a band. This groove, that brass section arrangement…"
Eigentlich träume ich davon, auch mal ein solches Stück in einer solchen Band zu spielen. Dieser Groove, diese Bläsersätze …»
Berenice Courvoisier:
If I Were
"Our oldest daughter, who is nineteen, plays the guitar and is at the Pre-College of the Basel Jazz School. She writes and records her own songs. At some point she came to me and said: 'Today my first song went online on Spotify.' Of course, I was terribly proud. "If I Were" is the name of this debut song. In the meantime, some more have been added.
We are a family of musicians, and I am very pleased that the music is now being taken up by the next generation. And of course, it would be particularly nice if my daughter ventured along a path I did not dare to take: a career as a musician."
Maurice Courvoisier fünf Musikstücke:
Alexander's Ragtime Band: The Golden Gate Quartett
Maceo Parker, WDR Big Band: Hallelujah I love her so
Blossom Dearie: My Attorney Bernie
Peter Herbolzheimer: Heartland
Berenice Courvoisier: If I Were
Maurice Courvoisier
has been a partner at Walder Wyss in Basel since 2014. The 52-year-old studied at the University of Basel and earned his LLM at Columbia University in New York. He focuses on advising and representing parties in arbitration and court proceedings in all areas of corporate and commercial law. Courvoisier grew up in a family of musicians: His grandfather played first violin in the Basel Symphony Orchestra and was conductor of the Basel City Music Orchestra, his mother is a classically trained pianist and taught piano at the Basel Music Academy, and his father was a chamber music fan and hobby cellist, and his father was a chamber music fan and hobby cellist. At the age of five he began to play classical percussion instruments. Today he is in several bands and, of late, takes a jazz percussion class every other week.