Let’s talk about the book with the funny looking Ludwig drums with the Silver Dot heads on the cover— and all the ugly Paiste ColorSound cymbals, and Simmons SDS-5 hexagonal drum pads. Yes, I’m talking […]
Month: November 2023
Very occasional quote of the day: you call it swing
“You call it swing, but what I’m saying is it’s a rhythmic sophistication that causes a euphoric reaction, and on a folk level that reaction can go anywhere from sensual feelings, to partying, to dancing, […]
Wrong stickings game
I’m hard at work on a new book right now, and the only way I’ll finish it is if I write the whole thing at once, so here is an absolute throwaway item to keep […]
Practice loop: slow shuffle
Here’s a loop that be real useful to a lot of people, sampled from Soulful Brothers, from Kenny Burrell’s record Blues – The Common Ground. The drummer is Grady Tate, and he’s playing a shuffle […]
Cheap jazz cymbals
During that Washington residency one of the students asked me for a recommendation on an inexpensive jazz cymbal. It’s not really a budget category of cymbals, and I didn’t have a great answer for him. […]
Reed tweak: RH lead with LH drags
Reedtweakapalooza continues! I really need to round these up in a book. This is yet another thing to do with the straight 8th right hand lead Reed system. Refreshing your memory on that: reading from […]
Teaching in Washington
The drive home— the wilds of central Washington. I was out for a couple of days teaching some kids in the tri-cities area in central Washington state. The people who run the Portland Youth Jazz […]
Art Blakey: Jazz Messenger
Just came across this, quite an amazing documentary about Art Blakey, where they talk to Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, Wayne Shorter, Benny Golson, Curtis Fuller, many others. I haven’t gotten all the way through it yet. […]
Reed tweak: RH lead triplets – five stroke rolls
This is where my thinking is going lately, towards breaking up some Reed practice systems so they’re not pure formula. Which I have always done anyway, just not very systematically. We want to make our […]
EZ tom ruff phrases
Here are some more practice phrase ideas for the tom ruffs. This is an underrated item, it should be a lot of fun. Rock out. As the stickings on patterns 1 and 2 indicate, when […]
Transcription: Billy Hart – Don Is – 01
I’ve been listening to this record a lot in the last several months— Enjoy The View, by Bobby Hutcherson, with Billy Hart on drums, plus Joey de Francesco and David Sanborn. The tune is Don […]
Very occasional quote of the day: electronics
“A kid who doesn’t have to whack the drums to me is kind of missing something. He is going to buy a bunch of pads and not even know what it is like to lay […]