I’ll be out for a couple of days here— playing at the Jazz Station in Eugene tonight with flugelhornist Dmitri Matheny, attending a memorial service for my partner/wife’s mother, and having my own birthday with […]
Category: free jazz
From the zone: The Wizard, by Albert Ayler
I’ve been preoccupied the last few days whipping into shape the 2013 Cruise Ship Drummer! Book of the Blog (available for order next week), so here’s a quick little something from my old notebooks: a […]
Sunny Murray, the bebop tradition, and Milford Graves
“Take it easy, now… there’s no work in this shit, they’re gonna jump on your ass…” — Sunny Murray to a young, interested, Hans Bennink Here’s an interview by Dan Warburton, with one of the […]
Transcription: Ed Blackwell solo — Tarik
Oh, what the hell, happy Saturnalia— I went ahead and transcribed the solo from the GOTD of a few days ago, Tarik, by Ed Blackwell, from Dewey Redman’s album of the same name. It’s a […]
Everybody digs the same stuff, part eleventy
I’ve decided that one of the immutable laws of the universe is that everybody digs the same stuff— well, I’ve felt that way for some time, and it keeps getting confirmed. In this latest case: […]
Milford Graves
Hey, there’s more of pioneering free jazz drummer Milford Graves up on YouTube than there used to be. I think he’s my favorite of the early way free guys, and I wish he was on […]
DBMITW: Art Ensemble of Chicago
I’ve got several things brewing– including, but not limited to the rest of the series on playing in 5/4— but they’re all taking their sweet time getting finished, so in the mean time, here’s some […]
A treasure trove: WKCR Soundscape project
I just googled this up, from the WKCR 89.9 New York radio site: a duo performance by Ed Blackwell and saxophonist Charles Brackeen, recorded in 1980 at: Soundscape[,] a New York performance venue founded and […]
DBMITW: more Cecil
This is from my other favorite Cecil Taylor record, Looking Ahead!, with Denis Charles on drums. Charles plays his cymbal (in 1950’s, at least) in a way you would have a hard time getting away […]
DBMITW: Cecil Taylor
Here’s another old free jazz favorite from my LP stacks. Andrew Cyrille is on drums. And the title (CONQUISTADOR!) has an exclamation point, which I like.
Groove o’ the day: Elvin afro-waltz
I’ve been working on a transcription of Elvin’s playing on John Coltrane’s Your Lady, from Coltrane Live at Birdland, but it’s not going to be ready today. Here’s a little teaser, though- the closest thing […]
MD column: hi-hat technique
OK, I’m not meaning to turn this into a fair-use abusing, exclusively old Modern Drummer stuff blog, but a longer post is taking its sweet time getting finished, and this is just what I happen […]