Prior to flooding the arena for the gladiatorial re-enactment of the battle of Actium, here’s a fresh novelty to ogle at, courtesy of my old friend Kirk in LA: I retired amazingness as a thing […]
Month: September 2011
Still loving Sabian AA’s
I continue to be very impressed and excited by what Sabian is doing with their AA line. I’ve long felt the A. line of Zildjian cymbals- and by association, the AA’s- to be in decline, […]
Simple variations on Syncopation, Lesson 4
That’s pages 10-11 for those of you with the old edition– as you can see I’ve given up completely and started referring to the parts by their new edition names. I’ve been working with this […]
Putting some things in
This is me at my most masochistic. I’m back in updating my events band’s book again- it’s a long, tedious process- and thought I would continue to share the gory “thought” process with you. Previously […]
My Vinnie Year – part 4 – PASIC, 1985
Here is what’s available of Vinnie Colaiuta’s performance at PASIC in 1985, which has since become somewhat legendary, and I was lucky enough to see in person. The quality is poor- plus there is such […]
Quick takes
– Jon McCaslin @ Four on the Floor shares this video of Marvin “Bugalu” Smith, who I had actually not heard of before. He was in Sun Ra’s and Archie Shepp’s bands in the 80’s. […]
My Vinnie Year – part 3 – superimposed metric modulation
This is a technical piece by Vinnie Colaiuta, which accompanied his 1987 Percussioner magazine interview, and he now shares with us on vinniecolaiuta.com. I spent considerable time with this- way too much, actually, considering that […]
Different values
I usually keep just one CD in my car for days or occasionally weeks at a time- recently for me it’s been Don Cherry’s Art Deco, an old favorite that had been languishing in the […]
My Vinnie Year – part 2 – Percussioner magazine interview
Sometimes I think the whole purpose of this blog is just for me to gather all the things I ever did, heard, read, or listened to about the drums a put them in one little […]
Sort of a Motown feel
Producer and drummer Tony Lash sent me this- I don’t think he likes all of my drum crap.
My Vinnie Year – part 1 – “My left hand is kind of funky.”
It was actually more like three or four years closely studying Vinnie Colaiuta’s playing, but this sounds better. Anyway, ’87 was when I was really deep in it- or so I thought- and he happened […]
Afro 6/8 – basic coordination
This is something I’ve been working with daily for several weeks now- getting the usual jazz coordination/comping stuff together with the Afro-Cuban/Bembe/Naningo bell pattern. It’s pretty tricky, and it’s a good idea to do it […]