Pianist George Colligan has posted a really great interview with drummer Jeff Ballard on his blog, Jazz Truth. It’s really hard to excerpt anything from this because it’s all so good; I put in a […]
Category: drums
Groove o’ the day: Billy Cobham in 7/8
Today we have another odd-meter Billy Cobham groove from the track “b. Spectrum” from his 1973 album Spectrum: He plays the unaccented notes stronger than is customary today, and puts a light accent on the […]
Cracking 5/4: the basics
It took me a long time to come around to accepting the type of method we’re going to use here; for years the Syncopation-based interpretive method– in which you think more like a horn player, […]
Groove o’ the day: On the Corner
Today we’ve got Jack Dejohnette’s James Brown-like groove on Helen Butte/Mr. Freedom X from Miles Davis’ On The Corner: There’s an overdubbed part by Al Foster that’s more forward in the mix, so it’s a […]
Cracking 5/4: the library
Essential. Again following my normal process of doing the easy stuff first, here is the library of practice materials I’ve used for finally getting my act together in 5/4. Normally you would put this at […]
Hemiola applications: funk
Here are some very straightforward funk applications derived from the 3:2 polyrhythm in 4/4 in the hemiola basics post. By isolating each measure, revoicing the parts slightly, and adding obvious things like a downbeat on […]
Cracking 5/4: listening
Here’s the first in a series on playing in 5/4. Since everything in music follows from listening (and this is the easiest type of post for me to write), we’ll start with some recorded examples: […]
Groove o’ the day: Ed Blackwell
Here’s another simple afro feel played by Ed Blackwell on Mu, the duo record with Don Cherry. It’s also available on the Cherry album Cool. This also could’ve been written as two measures of 3/4 […]
Transcription: Elvin Jones – Your Lady
Lately I keep doing the bulk of the hard work on these things, only to run out of steam in the last 12 bars, but David in the comments was able to shame me into […]
Transcription: intro by Art Taylor
This is Art Taylor’s 8-measure intro from the tune Jackie-ing, from Thelonious Monk’s 5×5. I’m working on a long, challenging Joey Baron transcription and needed a little palate-cleanser, that’s all… What he plays doesn’t seem […]
Groove o’ the day: Ed Blackwell stick and brush
This is one of my favorite things ever, anywhere: Ed Blackwell’s opening groove on Charlie Haden’s tune Chairman Mao from the first self-titled Old And New Dreams record, on Black Saint (there’s another one on […]
More Stick Control in 5/4
Another nice addition to your 5/4 practice library: Andrew Hare @ The Melodic Drummer has taken my Stick Control in 5/4 thing a step further, applying an Alan Dawson interpretation to it, filling in the […]