Cymbal-maker Robert Zildjian dies at age of 89

[Rusty James]

Robert Zildjian, who has died aged 89, was a scion of a family whose cymbal-making business can trace its roots back to the 17th-century Ottoman Empire.

Many of rock music's greatest drummers as well as percussionists in leading symphony orchestras use Zildjian cymbals that bear the company's distinctive logo in black calligraphic script. Bob Zildjian ran the company with his elder brother until the pair fell out and he went into business on his own account.

Their father had moved to the United States from Turkey in the early 1900s, founding the Avedis Zildjian Company in Boston, Mass., in 1928 to capitalize on the jazz boom. In the big band era, working with drummers like Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich, he developed the modern range of cymbals - hi-hat, crash, ride, sizzle and so on - that came to define the modern drumming and percussion sound.

Modern cymbals are made using a closely guarded secret process discovered by one of Zildjian's forebears, Avedis, an Armenian alchemist in 17th-century Constantinople. In trying to turn bronze into gold, Avedis discovered a way of combining copper, silver and tin into ingots that could be beaten into a thin disc of metal. When struck, it produced a reverberating sound at a higher pitch than traditional but cumbersome gong-like instruments.

He became Avedis the Cymbal-Maker (Zildjian in Armenian), producing cymbals renowned for their clarity, power and sustain. The elite Janissary army units of Sultan Osman II, ruler of the Ottoman Empire, used them to terrify their foes. Hundreds of years later, in the 1970s, when rock groups' drum kits were expanding, the company commissioned an exotic calligraphic logo which identified Zildjian cymbals to millions of pop and rock fans watching on television.

Robert Zildjian was born on July 14, 1923 in Boston, the younger son of Avedis Zildjian III and his American wife. Although descended from 10 generations of Armenian cymbal makers, Bob's father had established a successful confectionary business before an uncle arrived from Turkey bringing with him the secret family process in metalworking and cymbal-making. Together, the brothers set up the Avedis Zildjian Company.

When he was 14 Bob was apprenticed to his father and learned the secret manufacturing process. But the outbreak of war had a dramatic impact on the business. Copper and tin, essential to cymbal production, were also the principal components in the manufacture of shells and bullet casings, and metal rationing almost closed the company down.

Bob Zildjian enlisted in the U.S. army and served as an infantryman in Europe.

Returning to the family factory after the war, Zildjian developed export sales, concentrating on European markets. The rock 'n' roll and pop crazes fuelled demand for the company's cymbals, and in 1967 Zildjian established a subsidiary operation called Azco.

But after the death of their father in 1979, the two Zildjian brothers quarrelled, and it took two years of litigation in the Massachusetts courts to reach a settlement under which Armand kept the original Zildjian company and Bob received the Azco subsidiary.

Having taken the secret manufacturing formula with him as part of the deal, in 1981 Bob Zildjian opened a new cymbal company called Sabian - an acronym formed from the first two letters of the names of his children Sally, Bill and Andy - pitting it against his own brother's 350-yearold family business.

Within a few years Sabian was selling some 200,000 handmade cymbals a year, claiming a third of the global market, and by 2010 was shipping more than 900,000 cymbals around the world annually.

Zildjian believed in encouraging young musicians and set up a Sabian lifetime achievement award. Past winners include the American jazz drummer Jack DeJohnette.

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[njperry]

Thanks for posting.

The only people who have never used a Zildjian cymbal are those who have never drummed.

[ltwoman]

Wow! Don't Rest In Peace: play on!

[drummike]

Besides a huge pile of Paistes that have passed through my hands, I've had a few Zildjians and a few Sabians, and they've all been quality musical instruments, sort of positive reflection on the fine people who make the cymbals and own those companies. Sorry to hear of Mr. Zildjian's passing.

[zilboy]

Wow! How'd this get by me? Too caught up in local hero Roger Ebert's passing, I guess.

Bob will be greatly missed. The legacy that he and Armand built lives on, cleaved in two, but stronger than ever.

AND, their name inspired my nickname.

RIP.

[giovanni]

Thank You Robert!!!
Gio