Lyttle Drummer Boy

From a well-known Co. Armagh musical family, David Lyttle is an acclaimed drummer/composer/producer, operating mainly in the jazz and urban worlds. Though mainly known and widely praised for his drumming prowess, he plays keyboards, bass and drums, as well as performing vocal duties on his most recent album, Interlude. Collaborators include rapper/saxophonist Soweto Kinch, rapper/vocalist Homecut and Brooklyn rapper iLLspokinN. The album also features some serious session A-listers including Jason Rebello (Sting), Pino Palladino (Adele, D’Angelo, The Who), Michael Buckley (Donovan, Jerry Lee Lewis), Keith Duffy (The Corrs, Ronan Keating) and Linley Hamilton (Van Morrison).

Lyttle began performing professionally at age four in his family’s folk group, playing bongos, bodhrán and a mini Lambeg drum. A few years later he added uileann and lowland pipes as well as learning cello. At age eight he got his first drum-kit and there was no turning back.
“It was all pretty casual at the time,” he recalls. “I was still getting tuition on the cello but I would go in and out of phases of playing different instruments. I think even then I liked playing drums more than anything else.”
Given his background and training, he was always destined for a career in music and at around 18 he decided that drums would be his main instrument of choice. Despite being at an age where he might have been drawn towards rock ‘n’ roll, he favoured jazz instead, as he explains.
“I just liked the way the drums sounded within jazz music,” he says. “There was a lot of flexibility and much more space; it was more of a musical conversation, if you like. I’d been in a few rock type bands when I was a teenager. It didn’t do much for me. In rock it’s mainly about holding down the beat, which is not to diss any rock players out there, most of whom are very good. It’s just that in jazz I liked the role of the drummer within
the band.”
It was the playing of the legendary drummer Art Blakey and his Jazz Messengers that first inspired Lyttle in a big way.
“I copied his style and listened to as many recordings of his as I could,” he enthuses. “It was a great starting point for me in that it’s not super flashy playing – it’s all about the consistency of the sound and the groove. His playing had a real groove to it and you could always tell it was him.”
At 19, Lyttle received a scholarship to study at Skidmore Jazz Institute in New York while he also attended the Banff Centre’s International Workshop in Jazz (Canada). After completing his classical cello studies at the University of Ulster, he began a PhD in musicology, graduating as a doctor of philosophy in 2009.
Lyttle says learning how to play the drums can be easy enough initially. However, it grows more challenging in the long run.
“It’s funny, when I was learning how to play the cello it took more work to get to even a low level of competence. On the drums it’s not that hard to get to an okay level. It’s much harder to take it to the next level, if you know what I mean.”
When not in the studio or running his own record label, he tours with
his own groups, mostly jazz ensembles of various sizes, and featuring
special guests.
”Sometimes I would do the guest thing myself with different bands in other countries,” he explains. “That was the main thing for me last year but I’m going to be touring the music from the new album with most of the guys on it this year. They’re all busy people and guys like Pino [Palladino] are
going to be hard to get hold of, but I’ll do my best.”
What can we expect from him
when he appears at the Music Show drum clinic?
“Oh, there’ll be lots of stuff, but the main idea is that I’m going to talk about and demonstrate the different grooves that I use on the album,” he explains. “I’ll have some tracks with me too and I’ll look at various styles and ways of playing.”
When it comes to advice for young players, he says keeping your kit simple is a good start: “I use a small five-piece jazz size kit, which is not a massive amount of drums to carry around. I don’t even play the toms that much. I’ve checked out drummers who use big set-ups and while it can be great if you can get someone to keep your drums in tune, it’s not really for me.
“Drummers in general can focus too much on technique and being able to play fancy fills,” he adds. “You don’t want to sound too calculated, especially in the jazz world. Some young players forget what their role is, and what their place is in the music. I still do all the flashy stuff but I mainly practise it at home. I don’t care all that much if I don’t take a solo during a gig. Don’t get me wrong – I love doing it, if it’s appropriate to the music and in the right context.
“I’m very much in touch with what’s going on in the world, musically, and I always try to be innovative when it comes to playing.”

Interlude is out now on Lyte Records.
For more info see davidlyttle.com. Catch David's drum workshop at The Music Show, February 25 & 26 in Dublin's RDS.