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PHOTO: MARK DRUM digitalDrummer: Tell us how you got into drumming. When did you start and what got you going?
Gottlieb: I grew up in Union, New Jersey, and started playing cello in the fourth grade. My mom was a violin player, and the cello seemed close enough, and I played it for eight years. But it was really not my instrument, and with the help of a best friend, Dave Uhrig, the drummer in the high school jazz band, and the instructor, Mr. Geist (whom we still call Mr. Geist some 40 years later), I took a summer music school programme and started drum lessons. That was in 1967, and I was hooked from the minute I started, and it just has not stopped!
digitalDrummer: Let’s talk about the legendary Joe Morello. How did your association with him start?
Gottlieb: As it turned out, Joe was teaching in a music store, Dorn and Kirshner, about a five-minute walk from my house in Union. I used to go there when I first started playing to buy drum heads, keys, etc. One day, the gentleman who ran the drum digitalDRUMMER, AUGUST 2012
department pointed out a large man who was walking up the stairs to the teaching studio and said: “That’s the great Joe Morello. He teaches here”. I asked who he was, and although I didn’t know much about Dave Brubeck, Joe explained who he was, and pointed out that he was on the cover of the Ludwig drum catalogue. I figured if he was on the cover, he MUST be good! I asked if he thought I could take a lesson, and he said “just go ask him!” I nervously went to his studio, and knocked on the door, and Joe was as nice as could be. I asked about taking lessons, and he agreed to schedule an evaluation lesson. I returned the next week, and it changed my life. For the evaluation, Joe asked me to play some rudiments. When we played paradiddles, he said “Ok, let’s work it up to speed”. I played as fast as I could and then he started to play much faster. But when I looked at his hands, he was playing much faster, but with only one hand! I was astounded, and totally turned around. I had no idea technique like that existed!
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