Buddy Rich & Jo Jones battle it out on "Ol' Man River", 1958

Buddy Rich and Jo Jones engage in an exciting drum exchange on the "Chicago Late Nite Show", WGN/TV, May 23, 1958. Sound remastered, pitch corrected. The Bob Trendler Band, studio band. The show occurred during a 2-week engagement by The Buddy Rich Quintet (Flip Phillips & Kenny Burrell) at The Preview Lounge. Jo Jones was appearing at The London House.

[@DogbadTV]

When I first saw this I thought, "How we going to tell who is who?" It's as easy as if we were looking at them! Thanks for posting.

[@permpress]

"Wouldn't it be nice to be Rich, but heck, you gotta be Rich to keep up with the Joneses." Nice one!

[@cymandeh]

Buddy had speed and clean. Jo had smoothness and cleverness

[@itahue721]

Great battle!

[@arame29]

What a find!

[@AzlanValentine]

2:30

[@MichaelDubinMusic]

Jo playing with his bare hands. 🙌🏾🥁

[@romanpower7068]

When buddy rich start playing?

[@happydrumming]

Letting it all in... :)

[@paul-emilechenois8195]

I love Jo Jones the accompanist, but as a soloist, he falls short. He relies on the same licks whatever the tune, usually with too long solos. Buddy Rich is more interesting as a soloist but when technically impeccable, I feel his solos sound more like machine gun than music. Buddy is a superb accompanist on brushes, however.

[@joecopa]

As predicted Buddy Rich totally destroys Joe Jones. Buddy is so far superior to everyone from back then and even up until today that it becomes ridiculous for any comparison let alone this so-called drum battle. Ask Max Roach he learned his lesson in figure eights.

[@Riddim4]

Let's not confuse facility with musicality.

[@doumbec]

Let's just say they are both making love to their girlfriends and one is banging her really fast 100 stroke's per second and the other is in that shit knocking the bottom out hitting it from all the corners of that a$$ taking his time making a statement 🤷🏾‍♂️

[@wytnoiz]

No, Joe is right...To battle BR is an exercise in futility. No one ever played drums like Buddy, before or since. E

[@wytnoiz]

Rich vs. Roach is the greatest drum album of all time. Buddy is still the Hammer!