Sorry to hear that original Iron Maiden drummer (he played on the first records, anyway) Clive Burr died yesterday, of multiple sclerosis, at age 56. Heavy metal drummers tend to be pretty anonymous sounding to […]
Year: 2013
African bell pattern and its inversions
What we have here is the familiar 12/8 or 6/8 bell pattern (here called “short”; in the US it’s commonly called “Afro-Cuban”, or Naningo, or Bembé), run through several common inversions, each starting on a […]
Much more on the Baby groove
Here’s more than you ever wanted to know about a song you never heard until a few days ago, “Baby” by Caetano Veloso. It’s not exactly the most important thing ever, but it’s on my […]
Groove o’ the day: Ed Blackwell — Lop-o-lop
Another Ed Blackwell 6/8 today, from an album you may have some trouble finding, Dewey Redman’s Tarik, on Aktuel. The drums play in two, and the bass (Malachi Favors, I think?) plays a fast 6. […]
Writing drum charts
I just happened across a couple of nice posts on how to write a drum chart— that is, a handwritten page of notes sketching out whatever information you need to play through a song or […]
2013 Europe tour taking shape
This way to Hot Club Dates for my November, 2013 Europe tour are starting to firm up: Tuesday, November 12 Hot Club de Gand — Ghent, Belgium Sunday, November 17 Hannut Jazz Festival — Hannut, […]
Page o’ coordination: “Baby” groove
Well, it took long enough, but I finally have a name for the post-Elvin phase of this coordination series. I don’t expect many people will follow me down this particular rabbit hole, but whatever. This […]
Basic 16th note rhythms
Have I ever told you I like using the easy parts of Syncopation? Here’s part 2 of that library piece from the other day, in this case converting the quarter note exercises to 16th notes […]
Got my Chick cymbal
The original, signed by Roy Haynes. The nice thing about Paiste cymbals— most of them— is that when you hear a sound you like, you can duplicate it almost exactly by just buying the same […]
5/4 jazz ostinato with snare drum — 01
Another in the Dahlgren & Fine-esque, post Elvin’s Afro-Waltz series of stuff, here with a slightly more normal jazz ostinato. I keep writing these because I like practicing them, and learning them gets a lot […]
Basic 8th note rhythms
This is a straight library piece— I’ve just transcribed the quarter note exercises from Reed into 8th notes in cut time, which will be more useful to me than the original. This same basic collection […]
Value in art
$138 mil, actually. As I was pulling together that De Kooning post, I came across this factoid re: the sale of his painting Woman III for 100+ million dollars— a figure that happens to be […]