Rhythm and blues
By Daily Bruin Staff
May 8, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 Daily Bruin File Photo Billy Higgins
performs a jazz number at a concert in Royce Hall last year. He
died Thursday at the age of 64. Higgins was a renowned jazz drummer
and a member of UCLA’s ethnomusicology department where he taught a
small performance class.
By Chris Young
Daily Bruin Staff
The jazz and UCLA communities suffered a great loss Thursday
with the passing of legendary musician and teacher, Billy
Higgins.
One of the most prolific and recorded jazz drummers in history,
and a member of UCLA’s ethnomusicology department faculty,
Higgins reportedly died of pneumonia while awaiting a liver
transplant. He was 64.
To his students, fellow musicians and audiences, Higgins was a
master musician whose style of teaching and performing could be
epitomized with one gesture: his smile.
Fellow drummer and faculty member, Sherman Ferguson, said that
Higgins’ smile infused his music with an energy that infected
everyone around him.
“We’re really going to miss his smile,” said
bassist and ethnomusicology department faculty member Roberto
Miranda. “His smile reflected his joy of playing music
““ every time Billy sat at the drums he was so happy to
play.”
Fourth-year ethnomusicology student Roxanne Tuton said that
Higgins was a great drummer because of his inspirational
energy.
“It made every musician around him feel secure, because
they knew somebody behind them was smiling and supporting
them,” said Tuton.
According to his students, Higgins was a special teacher with a
pervasive love of music.
“Even today, taking things I remember from his lessons
from a year ago … I discover something new about what he
taught,” said Tuton.
When teaching, Higgins’ tone was understated but contained
deep insight.
“He was a jazz master whose style of teaching was so
friendly and relaxed and profound that if you weren’t paying
attention, (his teachings) may go right past you and you would
never know that he had just laid a pearl of wisdom on you,”
said Miranda, a friend of Higgins for almost 30 years.
Higgins taught a small performance class at UCLA and gave
private lessons to drumming students in the ethnomusicology
department’s jazz studies program. Although the performance
class was primarily for drummers, other instrumentalists came to
watch Higgins teach. Tuton said that 20 or more people would often
sit in a class intended to fit half that many.
In private lessons, Higgins went beyond rudimentary
subjects.
“He never went heavy into technique,” Tuton said.
“It was more about making music. He said you can make music
on anything. He’d take a pair of drumsticks and make music on
the tabletop, or sit down with just one drum, do everything in the
world on it, and make music out of that one drum.”
According to his students, Higgins believed that playing the
drums was more than just supporting a beat.
“Billy said not to be a drummer when you play with other
people,” said fourth-year ethnomusicology student Marko
Glogolja. “You want to be the kind of person that makes other
guys want to play ““ a driving force.”
Tuton said that UCLA was fortunate to have artists like Higgins
on the faculty.
“In talking to guys I really respect in the L.A. scene,
they drop their jaws when they hear I’m taking lessons from
Billy Higgins, because they would do anything to learn from him
““ it’s a blessing to be at UCLA,” Tuton said.
In his Leimert Park community, Higgins set up the World Stage
performance space for musicians, poets and art lovers. The venue
provides artists and audiences with live music, as well as the
opportunity to teach and learn jazz.
Miranda said that although Higgins intended the World Stage to
help the black community in particular, it is still very universal
in its artistic mentality.
“That square block in Leimert Park is the center of the
musical renaissance in the L.A. community as far as I’m
concerned,” Miranda said. “Billy was one of the driving
forces behind that renaissance.”
Higgins held drum workshops for children and adults at the World
Stage. Tuton said that Higgins taught all the neighborhood children
and his workshops were filled with kids playing drums.
Ferguson said that Higgins wanted jazz to be accessible to
everybody and he developed the World Stage for that reason.
Musicians who work there, Ferguson said, aren’t there for the
money.
“Billy didn’t want to make jazz an elitist
music,” Ferguson said. “For example, to see classical
music or the opera, you need some dead presidents in your pocket,
and some jazz clubs are like that too. But not the World
Stage.”
Ferguson, who will take over Higgins’ position in the
ethnomusicology department, said he hopes to teach the same ideas
that Higgins did.
“I learned from Billy to love the instrument, to play it
with finesse,” Ferguson said. “You don’t beat the
drum, you caress it. Show the drums respect, play them with respect
and don’t overpower them. You draw the music out of the
drums.”
