For a couple of weeks I’ve been working with an area of stuff covering several different styles— grooves with a tresillo rhythm, or part of it, in the bass drum. I’ve been polishing it for […]
Month: January 2024
Chop busters: syncopated flammed 16ths
More rooting around in my archives, with a stealth from the zone item. I found this in one of my notebooks from high school, and it’s worth playing, with some mixed 16th note rhythms with […]
From the zone: Danny Gottlieb solo break
Another archive item— lots of action around here right now, and not a lot of time to write. And I just found some more of my old writing. I wrote a lot of drum stuff […]
Pro vs. semi-pro
Another item from the archives— this is from Jack Wheaton (1932-2015), my jazz styles and analysis professor when I was at USC in 1988-89. In some context or other he gave us this list of […]
Very occasional quote of the day: feel gotten with respect
From Vernon Reid’s Twitter feed: Funk ain’t easy. Many ASSUME that it is. Swing is complex, but it doesn’t grant carte blanche over other styles. Every idiom has its nuances that demand respect & attention […]
Philly Joe set ups
Here’s a tune involving a lot of isolated kicks on the & of 2, where we get to hear a lot of different ways Philly Joe Jones sets them up— Blue Roz the Milt Jackson […]
Nothing to do with drumming?
Dave Elitch (L) with Rational Funk’s Dave King There was a fascinating exchange on Instagram, starting with the drummer Dave Elitch (formerly of the band Mars Volta, done a bunch of big gigs), who gave […]
Stick Control in 7 by Ralph Humphrey
A little item from an old issue of Percussioner International magazine, which I just found in my mom’s basement— the Steve Smith issue, from November 1987. Here Ralph Humphrey shares some paradiddle-based stick control patterns […]
Feathering by not feathering
Here’s kind of a funny video by Alvin Atkinson that was shared by a forum user asking about about feathering the bass drum in jazz— the technique for playing jazz time that includes running quarter […]
Buy records: a screed
Go to places like this and buy things. I was half an hour early for an appointment with Tim at Cymbal & Gong— picking out a career ride cymbal for one of my students— so […]
Listening to The Musings of Miles
Listening to a Miles Davis record I never really heard before: The Musings of Miles. It’s a lower profile item in Miles’s catalog. These listening to albums posts are a test for me, because I normally […]
Transcription: Ahmad’s Blues – fours
Hitting the ground running with this 2024 business, here’s Philly Joe Jones trading fours with Red Garland on Ahmad’s Blues, from the Miles Davis album Workin’. Joe sounds quite beautiful, hand made, and direct after […]