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Gretsch Tony Williams Mystery Stick!

5th Feb 2017

From the Bopworks Vault: 

The Tony WIlliams Gretsch 5A Tipless model sticks!!?


Circa early 70's is a best guess going by the green ink which matched other Gretsch sticks of the time. And, I would have to emphasize the word "best guess" here...

They're 16 " long, and a hefty 5A thickness. I've never seen a Tony Williams stick in 60's to 70's Gretsch catalogs, and this was a suspicious looking duo of dowels as I've seen.

The standard internet search turned up nothing. It's generally accepted Cappella made drumsticks for Gretsch, so I searched for anything there catalog-wise. Nope.

The great Mike Clark told me Tony used the Gretsch Sonny Payne 3D model with Miles, (they were room mates for a brief time) and that would be all the stick information I have been able to glean. Tony obviously went to the 2B configuration later on, so we might have an interesting "gap filler" here.

Were they nylon tips that had been pulled off? Noooooo. Fitting a nylon tip on these things would make them the size of golf balls (Almost). If you look at the close ups of the tips you can see a short flare out. Plus, Tony designing a stick with nylon tips so he could pull them off?

An alert Bopworks Facebook viewer mentioned seeing Stan Getz in Montreux 1972, with Tony, Chick and Stanley Clark. I bought it on Amazon for $11.99 (what a great DVD) and by golly, Tony is bashing them Paiste 2002's (yes...) with sticks suspiciously similar to what we have here.

With the DVD on pause at the end of "Lush Life", we have a pretty close look.

Fake sticks? Counterfeit? Who knows?  I'm not going to carbon date them. I got a great DVD out of it.

Update

July 2018

Trumpet great Wallace Roney, who played with Tony in the 80's/90's and is a bit of a drum nerd himself offered the following comment on the Tony Williams Facebook page:


 Wallace Roney: "Well guys, here’s what it is. In 1963 until 1971 Tony was using the Gretsch Max Roach stick. It was a 5D, not 3D. Tony told me this himself. I have never seen a Gretsch Max Roach stick, and I believe around 1965 Max asked them to take his name off. They were still called Gretsch 5D, D for dance band!!! Then Gretsch offered Tony his own stick!!! Tony came out with the tipless 5D! If it’s labeled 5A it’s probably because the stick is still a variation of the 5D. And Tony played those sticks until 1975 when he started using 2B’s! Curiously enough he still kept 5Bs in his bag as well. But before he died he was looking for the old Max Roach 5D and neither of us could find it."