Another great quote from Ndugu Leon Chancler, from his 1983 Modern Drummer interview: “I think the most important thing is your attitude. There were, and still are, a lot of musicians who have more technique […]
Year: 2017
Help a young drummer out
Slow posting for a few days, but if you’re in a giving mood, there’s a very talented young Portland drummer named Domo Branch who needs some help getting to the Centrum and Stanford jazz camps. […]
What’s the point?
Yeahhh, you probably don’t need to bother with this one.* * – Not a terrible book, actually. Since we here at CRUISE SHIP DRUMMER! dump countless pages of quality practice materials onto the internet annually, […]
Tony Williams comping
Here’s a nice record I would’ve have liked to have known about 30 years ago, on which Charles Lloyd is rocking a Jimmy Giuffre kind of vibe. It’s Of Course, Of Course, and it was recorded […]
Transcription: Art Blakey – Afrique
Here’s the drum solo from the same tune as our GOTD the other day: Afrique, from The Witch Doctor, by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers. Blakey’s solos with his group often serve a compositional […]
Groove o’ the day: Art Blakey – Afrique
Here’s Art Blakey playing an Afro 6 feel in 1961, on Afrique, from the Jazz Messengers album The Witch Doctor— the first Blakey record I ever bought. I should start noticing when this type of […]
Very occasional quote of the day: Ndugu on musicality
“I think a drummer’s success and notability are based on sensitivity as a musician—not as a drummer. I don’t even approach myself as a drummer. I’m an orchestrator. The drums are just the instrument I […]
EZ linear solo method
Ever find yourself playing too much bass drum? It’s easy to do when, like me, you practice out of Syncopation a lot. And a thing I’ve noticed in doing so many transcriptions is how sparsely many […]
Linear phrases in 3/4, mixed rhythm – 02
Here’s the companion to the Gary Chaffee linear phrases in 3/4, which I posted the other day. This page just has the same phrases displaced by one note; the last note of each phrase, a […]
Playing free
“No chaos, damn it!” —Jackson Pollock responding to a critic who called his work chaotic. Here at CRUISE SHIP DRUMMER! there are some subjects we don’t talk about much— not because they’re not important, but […]
Very occasional quote of the day: groove interference
“Coordination is a nice thing to have going, don’t get me wrong. But taken to extremes, you set up rhythmic interference instead of maintaining a groove. It’s not that you’re being too busy. It’s just […]
EZ Tony-like method: two variations
We’re calling this “Tony Williams-like” on the thinnest possible pretext, of course— playing it, it reminded me of some things he did on Frelon Brun, is all. These are two even easier things you can […]