A couple of pages to go with my wild, sprawling, scattershot world’s shortest Roy Haynes waltz lesson. That contains a lot of raw concepts for someone who is listening to a lot of Roy Haynes to […]
Author: Todd Bishop
Transcription: Max soloing
On this second of two days of major acts of white supremacist violence here in this paradise we call “the USA”, let’s retreat into art, with part 2 of the thing from the other day: […]
Three camps: four variations
Four alternative ways of playing the rudimental piece Three Camps, that I’m practicing this week, accented 5 stroke rolls, flam accents, flam drags, and flammed 5s. Learn each measure individually, then play them in the form […]
Transcription: Max comping
That’s the theme of the week now: jazz comping. Here’s Max Roach playing on the horn solos on A Little Sweet, from his record The Many Sides of Max. Each solo is 24 bars long, […]
Groove o’ the day: Billy Higgins – Mystery Song
Let’s gooo, this is now a full-time Billy Higgins site. Here he is playing a New Orleans/Poinciana/Vernel Fournier kind of groove, on the Duke Ellington tune The Mystery Song, on Steve Lacy’s record Evidence: Swing […]
Beware of formulas
Making that Shadow Wilson transcription, I was reminded of this video fellow blogger Jon McCaslin shared with me (and Ted Warren of Trap’d), in which drummer Bernie Dresel shares his formula for comping with the […]
Transcription: Shadow Wilson comping
A little bit of Shadow Wilson’s playing on Nutty, from Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane, at Carnegie Hall. This is Monk’s second solo chorus, starting at 2:33. The tune is 32 bars long, form is […]
Solo transcription: Billy Higgins – Dear John
More soloing from Billy Higgins, on Dear John, on Freddie Hubbard’s record Bolivia. The tune has the same chord changes as John Coltrane’s Giant Steps, which is a 16 bar form, but the drum solo […]
Very occasional quote of the day: too loud
Another choice item from a 1981 column in Modern Drummer, in which Scott K. Fish talks to a lot of great bass players, about drummers: “Faults I hear in drummers? Mainly that they play too […]
CYMBALISTIC: videos are up!
4/24 UPDATE: Bumping this— I have the other two 22″ Extra Special Janavars now— I just played them and, yeah, I’m not hyping them, they’re great. I may keep one for myself, my birthday is […]
Whither the hihat foot
What does it do? Right up front: in playing the drums, the left foot is basically subservient. A lot of people vaguely suspect they’re not doing enough with it. Some go on to become fixated […]
Very occasional quote of the day: futuristic
“A lot of drummers try to be futuristic and more modern, but they lose the groove and find themselves nebulous instead of in contact with what it really is. So all of the interesting things […]