A left handed drum solo by Art Blakey, on Boomerang, from Blue Mitchell’s album Out Of The Blue.
The solo is 32 bars long, with a stop on bar 32 for the horn pick ups into the head out. Tempo is 250, solo begins at 3:57.
The cymbal and hihat play the basic rhythm all the way through, and you can hear him feathering the bass drum when it’s not covered up by other stuff— it’s a dry leathery sound, nothing tonal about it.
The passages starting at measures 17 and 29 are approximate, but pretty close. There is a pattern to each thing, so I think this is accurate to the intended phrase— even if he’s having to jam it in there at this tempo. I’m having to slow it down 50% to begin to hear what’s written. There is significant flamming on the rim clicks as he moves his hand to the snare from the toms— that’s the bead of the stick landing on the head before the actual played rim click.
There’s a lot to listen to here, it’s a real clean picture of some expert combo playing, how Blakey handles the arrangement itself, and the solos, always with a dramatic dynamic change with a new soloist. A lot of forward motion here, and it ends a little faster than it started, which seems like a classic thing with Blakey, though it doesn’t always happen.