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The Talk of the Town
April 12, 1982 Issue


SONNY GREER

By Whitney Balliett

April 4, 1982
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The New Yorker, April 12, 1982 P. 39

Talk story about jazz drummer Sonny Greer, who died a week or so ago at the age
of seventy-eight. Greer was a co-founder of the Duke Ellington band, in the
early twenties, and remained Ellington's drummer for almost thirty years. He
left in 1951 and never went back. Describes Greers youthful appearance, his
manner and his drumming style. He was born William Alexander Greer Jr. in Long
Branch, New Jersey. His father was an electrician and his mother was a modiste.
He didn't waste his childhood -- he caddied, peddled fish, delivered newspapers,
became expert at pool and learned how to sing and play drums. He said he learned
his music from a drummer named Eugene (Peggy) Holland, who once played in Long
Branch with the J. Rosamond Johnson choral group. Ellington, in his book "Music
is My Mistress" said that Greer learned by banging on his mother's pots and
pans. Quotes some of the homilies by which Greer lived his life, e.g., "When
you're getting ready to lie, don't smile," "Retired people lie under a tree and
play checkers, and first thing you know they're gone." Greer never retired -- he
lived on the West Side with his wife Millicent and from the early seventies on
he played with his friend, pianist Brooks Kerr, and with alto saxophonist Russel
Procope. After Procope died, Greer and Kerr played on, at Gregory's, or the West
End Cafe, or at private parties.

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Published in the print edition of the April 12, 1982, issue.





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