CBR14Bingo: Minds (I read both of these as I continued my personal psychological study of Buddy Rich’s mind)
Buddy Rich is arguably the best drummer to ever live. I was first introduced to his work about a year ago when he was mentioned in a biography of Frank Sinatra I was reading; the two of them had at least one fistfight when they were in Tommy Dorsey’s band together. As I have a fascination with mid-century men with terrible tempers (Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster) I quickly realized skimming Buddy’s Wikipedia page that here was a man with the worst temper of them all, and in combination with his amazing records I have become obsessed. In reading these two books you come to understand Buddy Rich as a tormented and deeply complicated person. He is well known in popular culture for the tapes of him screaming at the members of his band, but these two books help to flesh out a portrait of a man whose entire life was the pursuit of musical perfection, and who could not comprehend that lack of drive in other people.
Of the two biographies, The Torment of Buddy Rich is the better book, as I think it provides a more nuanced and honest portrait. It’s more of a diary of the few months John Minahan spent with Rich, with the purpose of writing this book. Minahan captures the dichotomy of the man very well — deeply generous and a once-in-a-lifetime genius, but with a hair trigger temper and a deep seated loneliness and insecurity. Mel Torme’s book, on the other hand, seems like it should be more accurate since Torme was a long-time friend of Rich, but the book suffers because Torme is too close to his subject and is also more of a fan than a friend. From reading Minahan’s book, some of the facts in Torme’s are wrong or are smoothed over, I think because of his personal closeness to the family and his love of Rich. It also drags because Torme is determined to list every single band, movie, and record that Rich was involved in, which made chunks a slog. Again, he says himself that he was a fan from before he met Rich, and that hero worship is a detriment to the book.
Both books are worth reading if you are a Buddy Rich fan, but Minahan’s is worthwhile for anyone who is interested in a well-written psychological biography. Five stars for Minahan, three for Torme, average of four.