Buddy Rich Biography--’Warts and All’

Drummer Buddy Rich made his show business debut at 18 months. Singer Mel Torme, who has just finished writing Rich’s biography, waited until he was 4 before becoming a professional entertainer.

Torme talked to a lot of people for “Traps, the Drum Wonder,” including Rich, Artie Shaw, Johnny Carson, tenor saxophonist Georgie Auld and singer Jo Stafford who, with Frank Sinatra, sang with the Pied Pipers in the Tommy Dorsey Band.

“He (Rich) and Sinatra were the darlings of the band. They sort of locked heads, fighting for the attention of the public. Tommy stood back and laughed. In a weird way, he encouraged this,” said Torme, who visited Rich at home the afternoon before he died April 2, 1987.

He said he asked the drummer that day if he wanted the book to be a puff piece, or warts and all. “He said, ‘Warts and all. Just be accurate.’ Buddy had a mouth on him. I’ve liberally quoted him.

“His dad had been a blackface comedian with minstrel shows at the turn of the century. He was a hard taskmaster. Life was made very tough for Buddy. I feel his occasional abrasiveness came out of that. He was extremely tough on his bands. . . . When they did play well, he was ecstatic. When they dogged it, he went bananas.

“We occasionally had our outs. One time I didn’t talk to him for 2 1/2 years.”

The book will be published by Oxford University Press next fall. Torme intends to give Rich’s grandson 30% of the profits.

“I made the book as objective as I could make it,” Torme said. “I’m not settling old scores for him or with him. He was wildly witty and, if you believe the phrase, his talent was God-given.”