Developing Elvin’s Afro-Waltz

Here’s a little something for developing the left hand using the feet-and-cymbal part from Elvin Jones’ groove on John Coltrane’s Your Lady. I always did that type of thing by just going for the sound and feeling- I never had any written materials for it- but I’ve been doing a lot of similar stuff with the swing section of Dahlgren & Fine, so I guess it’s a good time to be a little more systematic about it. The first line shows the ostinato, then the original groove as Elvin played it (sans tom moves). To approximate Elvin’s feel, accent the &s of beats 2 and 3.

After these are happening, you can move the left hand between any two drums, then clockwise/counter-clockwise around the drums. If you want to get really fancy with it, you can play the actual two-measure foot pattern Elvin frequently plays on the original track- see the related “Groove o’ the day” post for that.

Get the pdf.