OK, first new content post on the new platform. WordPress handles images a little differently, and it’s messing with my usual post design, so I’ll be fiddling with that a bit. I’ve been working with […]
Category: Afro-Cuban
Straight 8ths in funk Afro 12/8
Something I’m working out, that needed to be written out to do it: straight 8ths on the bass drum within a funk-style Afro 12/8 groove. I work a lot with this whole area of groove. […]
Songo brushup
I have some dates coming up where I need to use a Songo-type groove (the chart says “samba”, but it’s really not)— which I don’t have to play that often, so I’m brushing up on […]
Guaguanco – two ways
A little more on general fluency with a Guaguanco-type groove on drumset. It’s not a style that authentically uses a drumset, but the groove is a hip alternative for non-traditional situations. It has a nice […]
Page o’ coordination: Rumba clave – hands only
Page of exercises for coordinating the left hand with rumba clave played with the right. It’s not pure independence practice in the abstract— most of the patterns are related to the clave rhythm in a […]
Q&A: Cuban for jazz
I got a surprisingly tough question from a reader the other day: What’s a good book for playing Cuban styles in jazz? Part of the difficulty with answering this is, what do we mean by […]
Groove o’ the day: Lex Humphries afro 6
Hm, Lex Humphries has been coming up a lot lately. I heard this tune played on KMHD, Portland’s jazz radio station: Taboo, played by Duke Pearson on his Blue Note album Profile. I should think about […]
Page o’ coordination: Cinquillo
Here’s an easy page o’ coordination based on a basic bell rhythm, known in Latin music circles as “cinquillo”— which basically means quintuplet. It’s not a quintuplet, it’s the indicated 5-note rhythm, but that’s what […]
Afro 12/8 – funk – updated
This page is an update of something I wrote in the wilds of 2013— a page of bass drum variations for a funk-feel Afro-Cuban 12/8, with a backbeat on 3. I had a student play […]
Page o’ coordination: Idris Mozambique
A page of exercises for learning basic performance vocabulary using Idris Muhammad’s Mozambique-like cymbal rhythm from this recent groove o’ the day. Play each of the hand patterns many times— if you need to, start […]
Groove o’ the day: Evolution of Songo – 02
Here is the second groove from the Changuito history of Songo video; Changuito is the drummer for Los Van Van, and is a major innovator in Cuban drumming. The last entry covered a groove created […]
Groove o’ the day: evolution of Songo – 01
First of a mini-series of Afro-Cuban grooves o’ the day, transcribed from the history of Songo video below. Grooves are by Changuito, the percussionist who created the Songo drumming style playing with the Cuban band […]