True old school guys approach things a whole different way from the modern technocratic thing. Here’s Tootie Heath giving a brush lesson: h/t to Larry Appelbaum
Month: May 2020
Daily best music in the world: 1-5 of ten albums
Reprinting this from my Facebook page— I encourage you to head over there and add me as a friend. There’s a thing going around where musicians list ten albums that were most important in their […]
Very occasional quote of the day: Jimmy Cobb
“Miles could tell me the things he wanted from the drums but I didn’t let him tell me how to play them.” — Jimmy Cobb, 1979 interview by Rick Mattingly
Practice loop: slow blues
A new practice loop sampled from Blues at Twilight, from Milt Jackson’s album Plenty, Plenty Soul. Horace Silver is on piano here. Tempo is 75 bpm, so this is a good one for getting your […]
Three voice / four note patterns
Continuing in the vein of the recent three voice/three note patterns item. Let’s call this series “things I have always been against writing that I am now writing.” I’ve been playing around with an online […]
RIP Thee Hippy Slayer
Sad news, Portland drummer Steve Hanford, aka Thee Hippy Slayer, has died. Best known for playing with iconic Portland punk band Poison Idea. I’m not a follower, but I have a lot of fondness for […]
Favorite albums: Trio Jeepy
Records that were important in my development, that might be in yours, too. Should be a major recurring feature, but very difficult for me to write. My problem is I don’t have much intelligent or […]
What’s with resting the sticks on the drum?
Item just in from the pet peeve department: there’s an extremely slovenly practice, apparently done by half the drummers in the world: resting the sticks on the drum head before playing. I have students who […]
Three voice / three note patterns
The sort of thing you write when you’re under quarantine— a library item strictly for maniacs, in the same ballpark of extremity/uselessness as Gary Chaffee’s jazz patterns, from Patterns vol. 3. In fact that’s exactly […]
Transcription: Roy Haynes comping
UPDATE: Download link is fixed! Did you ever transcribe 72 bars of Roy Haynes, just to realize that all of the really cool stuff was in the NEXT 36 bars? I wanted to do an […]
Hemiola funk series: S3B
Another variation on the hemiola funk thing, with the main pattern ending with a double on the bass drum— a snare hit + 3 bass hits. I continue to tweak the basic template to cover […]