10/14/11

Story by Diane Carroll

Drummer Max Weinberg

Drummer Max Weinberg brings big band sound to JCCC

The Max Weinberg Experience, an evening of music and anecdotes culled from the nearly 50-year career of drummer/bandleader Max Weinberg, will be presented at 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12, in the Carlsen Center's Yardley Hall at Johnson County Community College.

Tickets, which are $45 and $35, are available through the college box office at 913-469-4445 or online.

Leading a scaled-down version of the critically acclaimed Max Weinberg Big Band, Weinberg's seven-piece group traces the musical arc that helped create his legendary careers with Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band (1974-1979), NBC's Late Night With Conan O' Brien and the Tonight Show.

"I've had a wonderful time performing with my 15-piece ensemble, and I loved every minute of my TV career, but now, with the time to explore every facet of instrumental music, I will apply the muscular, energetic and intense approach I'm known for to a smaller band," Weinberg said. "Additionally, I plan to expand upon one of the most enjoyable aspects of my live show – interacting with the audience about my influences, the music and where the impulses to perform these songs originated.

"My new group will still play the TV and movie themes and the swingin' blues-based shuffles that the big band does so well, with an instrumentation of Hammond organ, guitar, bass, trumpet, sax, trombone and me on drums. Our songbook will also expand upon and reflect the soul-jazz-funk styles that I grew up with."

Why the Max Weinberg Experience?

Because, as Weinberg explains, "If you come to see us, you're going to get the music, the behind-the-scenes insight, and the oral history of the music in one slammin' evening — in other words — the full Max Weinberg Experience!"

Performing on the classic album, Born In The USA, put Weinberg and the rest of his E Street cohorts in the record books as having the biggest-selling rock album in history. Though citing his work through the years with Bruce and The E Street Band as “the attainment of everything a 12-year-old drummer from the suburbs of Jersey ever dared to dream,” Weinberg has kept himself busy for nearly four decades performing with the likes of Paul McCartney, Sting, Tom Jones, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bono of U2 and Levon Helm and The Band.

Of his Tonight Show days Weinberg is philosophic: “It was a great honor to see my name in the same sentence as Doc Severinsen. Any music I’ve played on TV with my own group, and now the Big Band, has links directly to the influence Doc, drummer Ed Shaunessy and the best Tonight Show Band in its 56-year history had on me.”

Through the years Weinberg also worked as a session musician, enjoying particular success in connection with songwriter Jim Steinman. Weinberg drummed on the immensely popular Meatloaf album, Bat Out Of Hell. At one point in 1983 Weinberg was featured on the # 1 and # 2 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 with Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse Of The Heart and Air Supply’s Making Love Out Of Nothing At All. Both were written by Steinman.

Weinberg is also the author of The Big Beat: Conversations with Rock’s Great Drummers, a series of interviews Weinberg conducted with his favorite drummers from different eras. They included Ringo Starr, Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones, Levon Helm and Elvis’ original longtime drummer, D.J. Fontana. The book captured drummers revealing why they played drums and it is considered an important addition to rock literature.

Weinberg is a past winner of Playboy’s Pop and Jazz Music Poll as Best Drummer as well as Rolling Stone Magazine’s Critics Poll as Best Drummer.

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