Classically Gadd solo by Steve Gadd (hey?) on Chick Corea’s album Friends— the Smurfs album. There are four records from the later 70s by Corea, with Gadd on them, that were the epitome of the shit going forward, for a lot of people: Leprechaun, My Spanish Heart, Mad Hatter, and Friends. That influenced a lot of music, certainly a huge number of drummers.
Tempo here is a cooking quarter note = 136— you would want to be able to burn with your 16th crap in that range if you’re going to play with fusionoid musicians. The whole thing sounds very sharp, there’s still a little air here— not quite the crystalline execution happening later with Dave Weckl and John Patitucci. The solo begins at 8:16 in the track.
A lot of cowbell here, and he’s using four tom toms, and two crash cymbals. He might hit his ride cymbal once.
There are a number of licks worthy of closer attention— maybe I’ll break them down in a separate post soon. Like in bar 5, I could have written that as mutated Swiss triplets— with the grace notes (the cowbell notes) landing on the beat, and the last two triplet partials pushed into almost a 16th note timing. Use a six stroke roll sticking on the 16th triplets in bars 10 and 27. Clearly there will be a lot of paradiddle-type stickings elsewhere. Starting at bar 29 there is a three 16th note long pattern, the sticking I’ve given should be good— as I recall he had his cowbell mounted on the hoop of his bass drum. With the rock & roll 16th triplet lick starting at bar 33, he’s playing BLR, with most of the movement happening with the right hand.
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