Something released in a year starting with a 2, for once. Here Bill Stewart solos during James, from Pat Metheny’s Trio – Live record. Stewart is a few months older than me, and is sort […]
Year: 2020
Two minor Reed items
Two jazz comping practice suggestions, which aren’t big enough to merit a full-fledged treatment, for the full-page exercises in Progressive Steps to Syncopation. Play these on the snare drum (with bass drum added in the […]
Listening: Idris Muhammad grooves
Hey, I’ve concluded that Idris Muhammad is awesome. There’s a lot going on with him, that doesn’t necessarily give itself up to the casual drumming listener— it’s a very deep fusion of jazz, R&B, funk, […]
New Joel Rothman book – Ambidexterity
So new I have to use thiscrappy scan I did myself. I just received a new book in the mail: AmbidexterityThe Holy Grail for Total Independence At The Drum Set by Joel Rothman41 pages. Joel Rothman […]
Three Camps for drumset: Funk shuffle – 01
Another page of Three Camps interpretations for drumset, based on a 4/4 funk shuffle groove, with a normal jazz rhythm on the cymbal. These focus on pretty normal vocabulary for that type of thing. I […]
We get mentioned on YouTube sort of
Hey, it looks like one of my posts was a catalyst for a video by a semi well-known opaquely-named YouTuber. He has been the victim of some kind of smear campaign to make his videos […]
From the zone: ECM feel
Here’s something sent in by Ed Stalling of Missoula, Montana. He mentioned being inspired by my ECM feel post from 2012— which definitely needs to be revisited and some links updated— but he’s got his […]
Transcription: Art Blakey fours – Well, You Needn’t
Just a couple of solo 4s from Art Blakey, from the 1953 Miles Davis 10-inch release, Vol. 3. You’ll most likely find it on a later Blue Note compilation. The tune is Well, You Needn’t. […]
Reed method: bass drum with quarter note triplet filler – key
See, this is what I’m talking about— writing/organizing materials a certain way, you get practice ideas you wouldn’t have gotten just practicing the books. I could have used this 30 years ago, but it came […]
Syncopation exercise: two notes per measure – 01
Another syncopation exercise written with a special set of parameters— this one just has two notes per measure, with quarter note or greater spacing. Last year I did a page of one-line exercises that way. This […]
Very occasional quote of the day: the point of doing things
“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to […]
Another set of patterns for improvisation
File this in the same category as the recent “extended shuffle” stickings page— it’s a unified set of patterns based on a simple idea, organized to make them easy to improvise with. They’re not new […]