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The Fastest Drummer: Clap Your Hands for Viola Smith!
Dean Robbins
Item #:
9781536224863
Price:
$17.99
Five girls played together in the Smith Sisters Orchestra: Irene
on trombone, Erma on vibraphone, Edwina on trumpet, Mildred on
violin, and Lila on saxophone. But what of the littlest sister?
When Viola’s time came, almost every instrument was taken . . .
except one. When she first sat behind a drum kit, she lost the
beat, made a terrible racket, but she had more fun than she’d
ever had before. Viola took to the road with her family, learned
from the greats, formed her own band in the face of
discrimination and ridicule, mastered twelve- and seventeen-
piece drum kits, and played so fast she left no room for doubt:
women could not only keep the beat—they could beat the odds.
At one hundred years of age, Viola was still slamming her
snare and socking her cymbals. Dean Robbins’s affectionate
portrait of one of the few female professional drummers of the
early twentieth century includes an endnote with resources for
discovering other female musicians. Susanna Chapman’s swirling
illustrations capture the joy and energy of Viola’s stage
presence while introducing young readers to the essential art
form of jazz.
Book, 40 pages.
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