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 a recording session today.
That bass drum rhythm occurs most famously in New Orleans drumming, Songo and other Caribbean styles, and Baiao. All different things from different countries, but with jazz groups things have a way of getting mashed up. The chart we’re recording is marked “samba”, but the bass line is based on this type of rhythm, and nothing else about the piece is particularly samba-like.
We have there:
Systems for New Breed
I’ve been doing a few ostinato variations with the reading in The New Breed— which I’ve decided I like a lot. The reading portion of that book is different enough from Syncopation to be worth doing— more space, fewer runs of multiple notes, and of course 16th notes are the main subdivision.
The ostinatos are played by the right hand on a cymbal, bass drum, and hihat played with the foot. On a couple of them the right hand moves to the floor tom.
Subtractive method
Practicing from the book Syncopation, I’ve been running a subtractive thing I detailed before (the item at that link would actually be good to include in this unit)— voicing the melody rhythm in the book corresponding with a BSSB-SBBS pattern.
Songo variations
A couple of different songo grooves, with fills, making variations on the fly.
Street beat / alternating singles
Played on either the snare drum or hihat, varying the accents/articulations, with a move to the floor tom.
And here’s one loop I’ve been using, sampled from Eddie Palmieri— Azucar, from the album Azucar Pa’ Ti:
And another loop, a little faster, a baiao groove from Airto— Papo Furado, from the album Seeds On The Ground:
Great stuff