I was going to include this as an example in the jazz percussion post, but it really needs its own entry: It feels wrong- totally point-missing- to bring it up, I couldn’t help noting the […]
Month: March 2012
DBMITW: Billy Cobham
Here’s a live version of another fusion classic: Billy Cobham’s “Anteres” – The Star, from a record I stole from my brother a long time ago, Alivemutherforya: That’s a rare use of the Tama Octobans […]
Really on the stands for real this time.
By the way, my new Drum! Magazine piece, Cross Rhythms Using Stone, is on the stands now- for real. Not a false alarm. Four action-packed pages, and we even made the cover. In the April, […]
Six stroke rolls around the drums
I’m just cranking them out today. I’ve been using the last paradiddles around the drums thing so much I decided to write up something similar using another familiar solo pattern, the six stroke roll (as […]
Groove o’ the day: Freddie Waits
This is a hip stick-and-brush thing Freddie Waits plays on the intro to If You Go Away, from Ray Bryant’s 1967 album Slow Freight. The regular note heads on the snare drum line are played […]
VOQOTD: Mel Lewis
“…you should start with a crash and end with a crash. I see drummers ending with a crash cymbal, but then choking it. When you hit that big chord at the end, let it ring. […]
Kernels of Cascara
My students have been doing so well with my “kernels” concept that I’ve decided to write up a real challenge for them: cascara with the clave in the left foot. It was the hip thing […]
@ The Blue Monk in PDX, 8pm
I’m off in a bit to play at the Blue Monk with composer/pianist Andrew Durkin’s sextet tonight. The group features some excellent players, including fellow blogger David Valdez and Scott Hall on saxophones. We’ll be […]
Bob Moses on “dependent” drumming
Or as he called it a little later in Drum Wisdom, “non-independent” drumming. This is relevant to some of the things I brought up both in the ECM feel post and the open-handed post: “I […]
DBMITW: Lenny White
Speaking of technically-monstrous maverick types, I finally found a copy of Lenny White’s fusion classic Venusian Summer yesterday. And yes, that really is the album cover, not the side of some dude’s Chevy van: More […]
Son Ship 1952-2011
Oh, man- I was surprised/delighted today to find an early-80’s Charles Lloyd record featuring the great, under-rated drummer Son Ship for $4 at Crossroads Music. I got the thing home and while I was listening […]
On “open-handed” drumming
Fine, now spend another hundred years learning to do it almost as well with your left hand. This is a discussion I have to re-litigate on the internet every six months or so: the “open […]