FIRST LOOK/maker made
makermade by Jonathan Glover
Becoming
THE GREATEST DRUMMER OF ALL TIME,
one livestream, lesson, and gospel concert at a time
22
BOZZIMEDIA.com / JULY 2021
When you have ears like Quindrey Davis-Murphy, everything sounds like percussion.
The constant yet irregular thump of a toddler’s feet making contact with the wood floor? Could be a 5/4 time signature. The plasticky clank of your brother’s thumbs crashing into colorful buttons on an Xbox controller? Definitely up tempo. Or how about an everyday cheese grater sitting on a shelf next to where you’ve recorded several studio-quality albums? That, too—as integral to music as a snare. In the right hands, of course. “Oh this?” Quindrey says, picking up the uten-...er...instrument. “Here, listen.” He holds it with his left hand, and his right, grips what can only be described as a mini pitchfork. He strums up and down. You look away, you close your eyes, you imagine. He has a point—on any other day, pre- or post-COVID, you could be seated in front of your favorite bluegrass band, the man in the back strumming along on a washboard. But today, you’re in a twenty-six-year-old’s shack-turned-recording studio. His three-yearold son Cairo is banging away on a plastic set—“I’m good too,” he says confidently—and his father is pounding on the real thing. Not so much hitting but striking. His wrists flick, his feet kick, and the result is something you can’t quite explain. It’s gospel. It’s R&B. It’s hip hop, too. It makes you move, and it makes you think—my, what a gift live music is. Even the kind with one instrument. “My hero, Tony Williams, he stares at me while I practice,” Quindrey says, pointing to the large poster near his head, as the ringing inside your ears dissipates. “He says young drummers should play jazz to understand how to play the drums… I play everything. I’m not in a box. I approach every genre.” Not a truer phrase was ever spoken in a room fuller with drums than oxygen. Since he
“My hero, Tony Williams, he stares at me while I practice,” Quindrey says, pointing to the large poster near his head, as the ringing inside your ears dissipates. “He says young drummers should play jazz to understand how to play the drums… I play everything. I’m not in a box. I approach every genre.”