Jazz: Buddy, the Drum Wonder

At 18 months, Bernard Rich was car ried onstage by the seat of his pants to play drums in his parents' vaudeville act. At six, sporting a sailor suit and Lord Fauntleroy curls, he played the Tivoli theater circuit as "Traps, the Drum Wonder." At seven, he toured Australia for $1,000 a week, and at eleven conducted his own band. Now a greying 49, Buddy Rich is still the Drum Wonder, still hanging on by the seat of his pants.

Only this time around he may have a real grip on something. When he an nounced six months ago that...