“An artist is someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
Month: January 2020
Three notes, one on cymbals – 01
This little assignment is related to several things we’ve done lately: my harmonic coordination improved method, and my rock drill; playing it in */4 meters with a swing feel gives you something similar to rubadub. […]
Authenticity
“I grew up happy and rich and I can play blues.” — Miles Davis “You’re not Art Blakey, you’re a white kid from Eugene.” — some guy I worried about “authenticity” for maybe a couple […]
Philly Joe solo lesson
In that last Philly Joe Jones transcription— his solo on Sub City, with Bud Powell— I noted a pattern of using his 8th note bass drum phrases to break up the mainly-snare drum passages. It’s […]
Solo transcription: Philly Joe Jones – Sub City
Here’s a drum solo played at a bright tempo with brushes by Philly Joe Jones. The tune is Sub City, by Bud Powell. The form is 32 bars long, and he’s basically playing two choruses, […]
Very occasional quotes of the day: from Elvin
Jon McCaslin at Four On The Floor has posted a collection of quotes from Elvin Jones, collected by Adam Nussbaum. Here are two of my favorites; there are many more at FOTF: “Thad told me […]
Flam combinations in 6/8
Way too many wordy posts recently, with more coming, so let’s do a simple page of flam exercises in 6/8— in a triplet feel. Like p. 34 in Stick Control, but more robust. Whenever I […]
Building rubadub – 01
For intermediate jazz students, here is a page for learning the basic pattern for Mel Lewis’s rubadub concept (as helpfully explained by Chris Smith), about as thoroughly as possible, while also developing solid execution with […]
Dealing with it: bad time
We’ll see if this becomes a regular feature: dealing with it. If anyone has thoughts, ideas, frustrations in real life playing situations, mention them in the comments, and maybe I can write something about it. […]
Snare drummers vs. drum set players
This came up in the Neil Peart piece: the idea of snare drummers as opposed to drum set players. People who play the drums as a single four limb instrument vs. people who are essentially […]
Neil Peart
Well, dang. Everyone knows by now Neil Peart has unexpectedly passed away. He was certainly the most celebrated drummer of the past ~ 45 years, maybe ever. A few are more famous, but I don’t […]
Listening to Kenny Clarke
Let’s do a little guided listening. I caught this on Portland’s excellent jazz station, KMHD— If you don’t have a good station locally, and you probably don’t, you should be streaming KMHD live 24/7. The tune […]