For the first time, Analog Tone Factory used an all tube Altec 250SU, one the best sounding mixing boards ever, to record Drum Stories.
As always, we used our custom 1/2 inch 30 ips Ampex 351 tube tape machine.

Drum Stories

Andrew Cyrille, Billy Hart, Bill Stewart, Nasheet Waits

1/4" 15 ips (IEC/CCIR) First Generation Reel to Reel Tapes

Analog Tone Factory is proud to work with Jason Smith and Grey Matter Audio to make great sounding tape copies of all of our records. Each tape copy is dubbed directly from the master tape, as opposed to being dubbed from a copy. By offering tapes made directly from the master, we are able to get as close as possible to the sound of the master tape itself and avoid generational loss. 

We are using a Sony APR-5002 as a transport to play back the master tape, but the sound is going through a Doshi Audio tube tape preamp, completely bypassing the stock Sony electronics. The recording tape machines are a bank of Otari tape recorders with a custom distribution amp system.

The regular format of our tape copies is 1/4 inch 15 ips IEC/CCIR but other formats are available upon request. Please enquire if interested. At 15 ips, Drum Stories fits on three 10.5 inches metal reels. Each set of tapes includes three test tones to calibrate your machine. A high resolution download is also included.

Track Listing:

About Drum Stories

Liner notes by Jason Moran

The drum is a universal sign for ritual. 

A ritual can slide between the epic and the ordinary. When a drummer approaches their drum kit, they assess the set. Slowly they tailor the kit to fit where they are on that day. Questions arise: Is the drum stool too low, does the snare drum need more angle, which stick sounds good against what cymbal? Much of a drummer’s signature lies in these moments of adjustment. Fine tuning the drums, repositioning them, then listening. This is the ordinary ritual that sets the stage for the epic.

Drum Stories captures an epic gathering. This collection is more than a mixtape; it’s like a gathering at the campfire. Four drummers—Andrew Cyrille, Billy Hart, Bill Stewart and Nasheet Waits—arrive at the flame. Each offers stories to the circle and a log to the warm light. These profoundly emotional stories carry much more than what emerges from the drums. We hear the breath, the control, the humor and the humility. They are in the sinews of the swing, or in the inventiveness that each of these musicians is championed for. It is a rare treat to hear them alone and in contemplative dialogue with their instruments. Each drummer brings their own sense of composition, punchline, and slang. As we listen, their language accumulates within us as we follow each syllable.

Andrew Cyrille and Billy Hart continue to define what it means to nurture a sonic garden. In Cyrille’s Haitian Shadows, his mallets flutter across the snare and toms. The piece finds the dance that recalls his mother’s social club. His dramatic whisper is just audible enough for us, showcasing the intimacy of his dynamics. Cyrille can locate rhythmic possibilities on any surface his sticks discover. In his hands, the drums become more ecological. They become a set of mirrors and his limbs construct visions for us to hear. He teleports us one tone at a time.

Billy Hart is a specialist at drawing you near. Hart examines a component as if he is checking each sound, allowing us to get accustomed to it. The opening display in The Aquarian Gospel presents all of the colors, and then he begins to mix them, slowly adding hues to the story as they begin to blur. Hart is supremely patient. He folds and rotates rhythms on their axis, calmly tumbling them down the face of the mountain. From the campfire, he gazes up the sky, telling us about the stars and the moon that anchor us.

The ultimate surprise are the three duets between Hart and Cyrille. In Famoudou they fervently toss snares and toms at one another in a juggling act. The result is electric. This story doesn’t unfold, it launches fireworks, a soulfully technical display ricocheting above us. The fire is alive.

Bill Stewart arrives with a fresh perspective. His stories of the past dream of a future where time overlaps. With clarity, Stewart exposes the form and delineates the line. Stewart is ferociously free, using the form to address freedom. In Half of a Half of a Mile to the River his color choices growl from the feet and give us a pocket. His sense of drum tradition makes this into a folk song that asks us to sing along. Find the phrase, repeat it, call it out! The ritual call and response that is the sign of humanity.

Nasheet Waits simultaneously pulls and pushes time. He gains momentum mid-phrase, gathering steam that disappears. It is something deeper than a crescendo, more akin to when a wave retreats from the shore while an oncoming wave splashes over it. In Farewell You Daddy, It’s Your Time Now he takes his time passing the song around to different characters. They use the beat to give their version of the tale. These drums answer themselves, in a discussion of their own, recalling the fine points. As soon as we think we know where the story is heading, Nasheet shifts the narrator, pulling our ear closer.

Drum Stories is an extraordinarily meditative listening session. It riles up and calms down.

I have performed with each of these musicians. They challenge the depth of the music with the way they exploit their freedoms. From my perch at the piano, I stare at each of them across the stage, watching every move they make to generate the sounds we hear. Their feet shuffle back and forth from the high hat to the bass drum. Their arms reach out to crash, or to roll a tom. Their seated choreography materializes the universal language. We collect their stories, and we are thankful for them.

- Jason Moran

Production Credits

On the three duets, Andrew Cyrille can be heard in the left channel, and Billy Hart in the right channel.

Recorded by Pete Rende at Studio 423, Brooklyn, live to 1/2-inch two-track analog tape on a custom tube Ampex 351 at 30 IPS, through an Altec 250SU tube console, January 12 and 26, 2026.

Assistant Engineer: Jerome Sabbagh
Mastered by Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, Hollywood

There are no edits or overdubs on this recording.

Produced by Jerome Sabbagh & Pete Rende
Executive Producer: Ana Mighty Sound, Stenheim
Liner Notes: Jason Moran
Graphic Design: Element-S / Jérôme Witz
Illustrations: Augustin Hirschvogel, Geometria (1543)
Photos: Jerome Sabbagh

Analog Tone Factory would like to thank James Farber, Bernie Grundman, John Chester, Dave Smith, François Saint-Gérand, Amanda Baisinger, Paul Wells, Matt Slocum, Hsienwen Chen, Eric Dupont, Tyler Dempsey, Quinton Cain, Drew Deur, Kostadin Kamcev