“And then you have Mel. Sometimes with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis band, you had the orchestra up there, all of these things are happening, everybody’s groovin’, and then when it came time for Mel to do a fill, it really did sound as if he put together a garbage can full of stuff, and right as he was taking it outside, the bottom breaks and everything falls out of it. And then he’d come back in on time, and you go, ‘How did he do that?’

“When you sit down at Mel’s drum set, you realize that everything was very loose. The snare had all of these ripples in it. He didn’t play anything tight. If you played his kit, it would probably feel awful. But the thing about Mel was, he chose elements that made up his personality. All of the respect in the world, man.”