Another item from Jack Dejohnette, playing on Jackie McLean’s album Jackknife— Dejohnette’s first major recording, made when he was 24 years old. We’ve seen a couple of other things from this album, a groove o’ […]
Author: Todd Bishop
EZ solo method: six stroke rolls with brushes
I was doing this easy Reed method with a student— it’s a rare one for using the triplets-and-8th-notes pages of Progressive Steps to Syncopation, pp. 16-17. This is good for brushes, OK for soloing with […]
Most recorded jazz drummers
A list of the 134 most-recorded jazz drummers and percussionists, created by Mark Stryker, a Detroit jazz writer, which I’m pilfering directly, because it’s not currently live anywhere. I had to look at it through […]
Listening to Clifford Jarvis
Clifford Jarvis was always best known to me as Sun Ra’s drummer, and as the drummer on a number of records I saw in the store, but never bought. A hard bopper turned free guy. […]
8/8 rock method
An easy little two-part system for rock and funk drumming. It’s a way of livening up a rock groove without breaking away and doing an actual fill— using an 8th note texture, played between the […]
Groove o’ the day: Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit
Alphonse Mouzon’s groove from McCoy Tyner’s Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit— as he plays it in the live video below, from 1973. The tune was originally recorded on Tyner’s album Enlightenment— a 24 minute spiritual journey. […]
10 and 11 stroke rolls in Wilcoxon’s Rolling In Rhythm – continued
Continuing with this nerdly topic of problems with roll notation in Charley Wilcoxon’s book Rolling In Rhythm; it should have been the authoritative book on rudimental rolls, but is compromised at times by some very […]
Jorge Rossy is stealing my stuff!
UPDATE: Oh, Crisis by Freddie Hubbard is also similar. Here’s a funny one for you— check out the tune Post-Catholic Waltz from this 2021 recording by Jorge Rossy. Now compare with my tune Headlights from this […]
Mel Lewis master class
Here’s a one hour master class lecture given by Mel Lewis in the early 80s at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas). Embedding on blogger is weird now, so you’ll have […]
Plain talk about fast tempos
“Billy, can we talk?” Henry Fonda time. I see we need to have this talk again. Everybody wants to talk about ride cymbal technique for blazing tempos. A little perspective on the subject: About 15 […]
More notes on Dahlgren & Fine
I’ve continued working on the harmonic portion of Dahlgren & Fine’s Four Way Coordination— the basic exercises in 4/4, on pp. 15-18— since it’s so bloody difficult, I’m writing about it a lot. Around here, extra […]
Subtractive patterns for jazz snare and bass
Continuing to develop this subtractive method, here are some good patterns for snare drum and bass drum in a jazz feel. I’m digging the system. It allows me to put whatever part I want consistently […]