Drummer

Daniel Evans Brown, an award-winning Baltimore city school teacher who moonlighted as a jazz drummer, died Aug. 8 at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Baltimore of lung cancer. He was 70 and had spent most of his life in Baltimore. Born in the city, Mr. Brown graduated from Paul Lawrence Dunbar Senior High School in 1952 as class president and entered the Army two years later. He entertained troops worldwide as a drummer with an Army jazz combo called the Tamtettes, which also performed on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Steve Allen Show and Name That Tune.

Matthew James Ziemski, a drummer for a polka band, died in his sleep of undetermined causes Thursday at his parents' home in Edgemere, where he lived. He was 25. Mr. Ziemski, who recently took a job as a local sales representative for Appleby Systems Inc., a home improvement company, spent his free time drumming - a skill he learned in fourth grade. While at Archbishop Curley High School in Baltimore, from which he graduated in 1995, he played with the orchestra and jazz band. He was the drummer for the Baltimore-based polka band Full Swing for the past several years, said his mother, Mary L. Ziemski.

Sometimes the past isn't hard to find. Leave Los Angeles, drive 125 miles into the oven heat of Palm Desert, down Sonny Bono Memorial Highway and across Frank Sinatra Drive, and the past might even greet you at his front door. "You found me," Hal Blaine says from behind huge sunglasses. "Come on in." Inside, a few gold records adorn the wall, all hits by John Denver, all featuring Blaine on drums. What's missing from the walls of his modest home says far more about the backbeat of Blaine's life today.

ROHRERSVILLE - He was 6 years old when he was made a full-fledged member - the youngest it had - of the local band with its own brick music hall just down the street. He had already forsaken the piano - "that wasn't loud enough," he recalls - and moved on to the drums, which make one incredible racket when you want them to. Ever since - and that means for the past 68 years - Reginald F. Norris has been a fixture in the back row of the now 166-year-old Rohrersville Community Band, which bills itself as Maryland's oldest community band in continuous existence.

Ten Stories Tall, a new band composed of three Towson University students and an aspiring actor/drummer (and non-student), showcases a wide range of influences, from Bob Dylan and Dave Matthews to Pink Floyd and the Cure, with a little country twang tossed in to keep listeners from settling into one genre. Vocalist and rhythm guitarist Justin Baker came up with the name for the band while in France, where he saw a poster of a man preparing to dive into a small pool from a platform that was, you guessed it, 10 stories high.

Indian tabla player Sandip Burman has a knack for cutting through the red tape of the music business: His celebrated hands are as fast with a phone dial as they are on the drums. "Hi, this is Sandip." "Who's Sandip?" Many of the prominent musicians Burman has performed with hadn't heard of the drummer before their phones rang. He's been brushed off and overlooked, but in the end fellow musicians - and audiences - are no match for his enthusiasm. This is how, from Ravi Shankar to Bela Fleck (and even a hand in the Mars Attacks!

Drummers and nature lovers should beat a path to the Senator Theatre tomorrow, as Baltimore's best moviehouse celebrates the sixth annual Belvedere Springfest with a free screening of the film Baraka and a free-form drum circle featuring percussionists of all kinds. Drummers need to assemble in the theater's outer rotunda beginning at noon, and be prepared to pound away. Baraka, director Ron Fricke's wordless celebration of the Earth and all the things that come naturally to it, begins at 1 p.m. Filmed over the course of 14 months, the 1992 film takes viewers around the world.

The Ethos Percussion Group will perform Saturday night at Jim Rouse Theatre for the Performing Arts at Wilde Lake High School as part of the Discovery Series presented by Candlelight Concerts. Ethos has celebrated music-making for more than a decade. Hailing from the Manhattan School of Music, the Juilliard School and Yale University, the four members of the ensemble are known for performing in a wide variety of musical styles on an eclectic battery of instruments. Adults and youngsters are invited to bring a drum or percussion instrument and join with members of Ethos for the program, called "Different Drummers."

Dennis Chambers, drummer extraordinaire and Grammy-nominated child of East Baltimore, is on the phone for a few precious minutes during a brief stay with the home folks before the road claims him again. "It takes a toll," he said. "It all depends on who I'm with. Sometimes you're with a bunch of guys who have some personalities and it can be sort of a drag." Right now, he's touring with guitarist Mike Stern, whose album Voices -- on which Chambers played drums -- has been nominated for best contemporary jazz album by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences.

PIPERS AND drummers are droning the distinctive sound of Scottish music in Manchester. For a month, the newly formed Mason-Dixon Pipes and Drums has met at Immanuel Lutheran Church on Tuesday nights. About 20 enthusiastic pipers and drummers drive from locations up to an hour away to play with the group. Any who play or want free lessons are welcome. On Jan. 29, while several beginners received classroom instruction and a half-dozen drummers pounded a table with felt mallets, others tuned up bagpipes.