A calypso-type groove played by Louis Hayes in 1957, on the Curtis Fuller album Volume 3, on Blue Note. The tune is Quantrale, a light thing written by Fuller. Hayes plays variations on the groove […]
Year: 2019
Very occasional quote of the day: late arrivers
“There’s a certain kind of people that are more or less late arrivers, you can – even though he was certainly on the scene and known and respected – you can hear him building his […]
Jazz waltz with Chaffee
Let’s detail something I mentioned in the Chaffee jazz post: using the patterns in that system as 8th notes in a jazz waltz. They’re three-note (or rest) patterns, so playing them two times = a […]
Hemiola funk series: back to back
Continuing this project to see how much standard funk vocabulary can be derived from two 3:2 polyrhythm licks. Here we’re doing the two main BS-BS and SB-SB hemiola licks back to back, and putting that in […]
Very occasional quote of the day: established discipline
“Bach taught how to find originality within an established discipline— actually how to live.” — Jean-Paul Sartre
Rock unisons drill
I’m very big on drills with the hands in unison these days. It strengthens the left hand, and is excellent training for playing singles solidly, in time, without rushing. This is a very basic rock drill […]
Making sense of the Chaffee jazz materials
Patterns, vol. 3 by Gary Chaffee Let’s talk about a big scary hard thing: the jazz section of volume 3 of Gary Chaffee’s Patterns series— the Time Functioning book. It’s in a similar category with […]
Groove o’ the day: Airto – Street Vendors D’Jmbo
A baiao-type drum set groove from Airto— actually I don’t know what to call this. I’m not hearing obvious markers of a particular style. Maybe Airto’s just playing. Someone who really knows their berimbau rhythms […]
Rhythms for Reed samba method
A special selection of syncopation rhythms for use with this multi-post samba method in progress (the main post is still to come), but obviously you can do other things with it. It would be good for […]
Very occasional quote of the day: Fast City
Omar Hakim speaks to Modern Drummer when he was with Weather Report in the mid 80s: RT : How did you learn to play bop so fast? OH : I don’t know. With much difficulty. […]
Reed samba method – basic exercise
This is the first in a multi-post series outlining some ways of using Progressive Steps to Syncopation to do a samba. I usually use actual Brazilian rhythms for that, but many of the rhythms in […]
Transcription: Kenny Clarke fours – 02
Put this in your binder with Kenny Clarke’s fours from Love Me Or Leave Me that I posted a few years ago. Here he’s trading fours on Two Not One from the album Lee Konitz with Warne Marsh. […]