Here’s a page to print out and staplegun to the wall by your drums: a summary of some major practice rhythms, and their inversions. Sometimes you don’t need a readable page, you just need a […]
Category: comping
A basic waltz vocabulary – 01
I was working with a student on a jazz waltz, played at a brighter tempo than he was real comfortable with, so we needed to come up with some easy things to add to his […]
Transcription: Roy Haynes – Bad News Blues – 03
Part 3 of Roy Haynes playing Bad News Blues on his record Cracklin’. Booker Ervin’s tenor solo includes a chorus of stop time, two choruses of blowing, then he trades choruses with Roy. This is […]
Transcription: Roy Haynes – Bad News Blues – 02
Part 2 of Roy Haynes playing Bad News Blues on his record Cracklin’. This is Ron Matthews’s piano solo, starting at 1:51— four choruses, 48 bars. Things like this are a little bit of an […]
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, […]
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 […]
Transcription: Mel Lewis comping
On Chess Mates, from a 1985 Joe Lovano record, Tone Shapes & Colors— a live recording with Mel Lewis on drums, and Kenny Werner on piano. A lot of what I’d call “non-independent” drumming here, […]
Transcription: Elvin Jones – Foolin’ Myself – 03
We’ll keep going with this. Part 3 of Elvin Jones playing on Foolin’ Myself, from Lee Konitz’s record Motion. This is the second chorus of Konitz’s solo, starting at 1:57 in the track. The previous […]
Page o’ coordination: hihat in the space
Here’s a page based on this ongoing Elvin Jones transcription— I observed when he was playing time on the hihat, he would tend to close it before the beat. I also saw him doing that […]
Transcription: more medium tempo Elvin
Here’s some more of Elvin Jones playing that same tune from yesterday, Foolin’ Myself, from Lee Konitz’s record Motion. This is the first chorus of Konitz’s solo, starting at 0:58: It’s pretty straightforward if you […]
Transcription: Elvin plays in 2
A little transcription of Elvin Jones playing in 2, on the hihat, on the head of Foolin’ Myself from the Lee Konitz album Motion. In case you’re short of comping ideas, or phrasing ideas when […]