Artist: Steve Gadd

Stephen Kendall Gadd is an American drummer, percussionist, and session musician. Gadd is one of the best-known and highly regarded session and studio drummers in the industry, recognized for his induction into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1984. 

Gadd has worked with other popular musicians from many genres including Simon & Garfunkel, Paul McCartney, James Taylor, Harry Chapin, Joe Cocker, Bonnie Raitt, Grover Washington Jr., Michael Brecker, Michael Franks, Chick Corea, Lee Ritenour, Paul Desmond, Kate Bush, Chet Baker, Al Di Meola, Chuck Mangione, Kenny Loggins, Eric Clapton, Pino Daniele, Michel Petrucciani, and Toshiki Kadomatsu. 

Gadd graduated from the Eastman School of Music in1968. He was then drafted into the United States Army, where he served the next three years playing drums in the United States Army Field Band stationed at Ft. Meade, MD. 

In 1973, Gadd formed the short-lived jazz fusion band L'Image with Mike Mainieri, Warren Bernhardt, David Spinozza and Tony Levin. Also in 1973, he started playing on numerous albums for the jazz label CTI Records, backing artists like Milt Jackson, Chet Baker, Art Farmer, Jim Hall, and Hubert Laws. Gadd played drums on the title track of Steely Dan's 1977 jazz-rock album Aja; the drum solo he played at the end of the song has become "the stuff of legend", according to a 2019 Jazziz article, with its "explosive tom-tom runs and crisp cymbal grooves". 

Other notable recordings from the 1970s are Van McCoy's hit "The Hustle" (1975), Paul Simon's "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" (1975), Rickie Lee Jones' "Chuck E.'s in Love" (1979) and the Chick Corea albums "The Leprechaun" (1976), "My Spanish Heart" (1976), "The Mad Hatter" (1978) and "Friends" (1978). 

Gadd was a member of the Manhattan Jazz Quintet from its founding in 1983 until he left in 1987, replaced by Dave Weckl, although he has reunited with the group several times since then. The group has only officially released its albums in Japan and is best known there.