Buddy Rich played three nights in Kabul in 1970 to an audience of 30,000 people who had come down from the hills in turbans on horseback. At the end of each piece, instead of applauding, they hummed. He was not entirely sure what it meant.

In this conversation with Michael Parkinson, Rich talks about starting his big band in 1966 when everyone said the rock era had killed jazz, opening at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas and being paid off on the first night because the band was disturbing the gamblers, then going to New York and packing out Basin Street East. He talks about his feelings on country music, which once led to a bomb threat in Nashville, and about Donny Osmond, about whom he remains unrepentant.

He also plays the drums on a small pile of loose change. Then an old friend walks in unannounced...

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