This is pretty much definitional as to what funk drumming is. Here are another couple of Funkadelic grooves, from Take Your Dead Ass Home, on the album Tales of Kidd Funkadelic. The drummer is the […]
Category: funk
Todd’s methods: Tiki’s 32nds
This is a little loosy-goosy method I improvised yesterday afternoon while practicing along with Maggot Brain, by Funkadelic. There are several medium-tempo, 16th note-based grooves on the record, and the drummer, Tiki Fulwood, tends to […]
Transcription: Ivan Conti — Linha do Horizonte
OK, I may be really blowing what’s left of my credibility with you guys with this one, but I’ll just have to live with that. This is a goofy little thing with a nice drum […]
Gary Chaffee linear patterns
In the coming days we’ll be doing a little extension of a thing found in vol. 3 of Gary Chaffee’s Patterns series— an appendix, really— and since that’s not an everyday title like Reed or […]
Groove o’ the day: DC Go-go
In the late 80’s my old friend and cohort Kirk Ross went off to Berklee and brought back some tapes of Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers, and Trouble Funk— Go-go, Washington DC’s special variety […]
Groove(s) o’ the day: Shuggie Otis — Inspiration Information
Once upon a time even music meant for mass consumption didn’t necessarily have the same drum beat played repetitively all the way through. The drumming on Inspiration Information by Shuggie Otis is constantly changing, while […]
Good God almighty
Putting together a book is a lot of work, so here’s a little palate-cleanser, for me as much as anything. Believe it or not, I’ve been hitting the thing for 5-10 hours a day all […]
Groove o’ the day: Airto — Stanley’s Tune
Here’s a baião-based funk groove from Airto: That is, Airto’s feet are doing baião, everything else about the tune is just early 70’s funk jamitude. The accents on the floor tom are pretty subtle; he […]
Groove o’ the day: Ricky Lawson — I Need You Now
Getting back to our regular stuff, here, we’ve got the groove for I Need You Now, from George Duke’s Brazilian Love Affair, played by Ricky Lawson: The accents are for the hihat part only. Visit […]
Transcription/GOTD: Betty Davis — Nasty Gal
H/t to my brother on this one— he played me this record. This is from the title track of Betty Davis’s album Nasty Gal. Davis (*née Mabry) was married to Miles Davis in the late […]
DBMITW: more George Duke
This is a little bit of a listening test from George Duke’s Brazilian Love Affair, again, with Ricky Lawson on drums. It would be easy for a lot of people to give this a cursory […]
Basic paradiddle funk
Man, there’s just a whole lot of stuff besides blogging on my mind lately— like a Europe tour and recording project— so we may not see a lot of hugely substantive posts in the coming […]