Harbold’s drum set abilities were put to prominent use many times in Kleinhans Music Hall during his celebrated career, when he would perform as part of Pops programs, backing the likes of Jose Feliciano and, during one now nearly mythical evening, perform with the Grateful Dead.

“The Dead uses two drummers, Mickey Hart and Billy Kreutzmann, to form a ‘figure 8’ of sound around the guitars and organ,” read a portion of James Brennan’s Buffalo News review of the fabled Dead show. “This duo broke from the set rhythm of ‘Dark Star’ into a ping-pong drumming contest, adding a new beat with each volley. … They closed the match synchronizing move for move. Lynn Harbold, Philharmonic percussionist, joined in this number, doing a fine job.”

For Robert Schulz – today, drummer/percussionist with the American Repertory Theater and principal percussionist with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project – time spent in Buffalo with Harbold paved the way for future successes.

Schulz recalled that Harbold was fixture in his life from the age of 15, when, as a favor to his father Robert F. Schulz, founder of the Buffalo Choral Arts Society and guest pianist/conductor with the BPO, he reluctantly took him on as a student.

“These early lessons were formative, as he passed along to me the same musical concepts he had learned from his mentor, Fred Hinger. Upstrokes and downstrokes, accents and rebounds, time and motion – to Lynn’s many students, these terms represent the fundamentals of expert drum technique,” said Schulz, who was inducted into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame in 2008 along with his father, brother Dave and sister Gretchen. “Always musical, always natural, always in service to making a good sound on the instrument – that, to me, was Lynn’s legacy and reputation as a percussionist. He knew how to make a beautiful, resonant sound.