Here’s something great that deserves much better than the cursory treatment I’m about to give it: The Core, from Art Blakey’s record Free For All. Blakey’s doing a little bit of an Elvin Jones thing on this record— like it says, it’s very hard core.
On a forum someone asked what he’s doing on this tune. On a big part of it he’s playing off of this piano figure from the intro, that recurs for extended passages throughout:
He does a sort of rubadub treatment— these are two two-measure examples from the intro:
It gets pretty raggedy, so the transcription hardly does it justice. The occasional triplets are hardly calculated; when playing at the edge of your abilities things can weird— things emerge that are not in your control. A lot of other stuff happens. There’s a section with some horn hits. Part of the solos swing. Sometimes he deviates from that basic figure during those sections— he’ll extend playing in 3 over 4/4 time a la Elvin. It’s hot as hell in my office right now (101° in Portland today) and I have neither the patience nor the focus to listen through and figure out the form.