“…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. […]
Year: 2012
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 […]
MD column: hi-hat technique
OK, I’m not meaning to turn this into a fair-use abusing, exclusively old Modern Drummer stuff blog, but a longer post is taking its sweet time getting finished, and this is just what I happen […]
Go watch now
The Max Roach story, at Four on the Floor. Here’s part 1/7:
1984 MD interview: Ronald Shannon Jackson
Here are some excerpts from an interview I reread many times on the long bus rides on drum corps tour, about the great avant-garde (that’s where he’s typically filed, anyway) drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. From […]
Favorite albums: Ballads by Paul Bley
Ballads by Paul Bley 1967 – ECM 1010 Paul Bley – piano Gary Peacock, Mark Levinson – bass Barry Altschul – drums Compositions by Annette Peacock This is kind of a funny entry to this […]
DBMITW: Velvet Underground
Oh, hey, it’s Lou Reed’s 70th birthday today. Artists should make their best creative statement with whatever technical skills they have at their disposal at the moment, and Reed is a good example of that. […]