Here’s an easy little thing, bringing together two funk items: I’ve taken a familiar page from Charles Dowd’s Funky Primer, and re-written it with the patterns used in my hemiola funk series. You know what […]
Category: grooves
Groove o’ the day: Tony Allen / African Message
More Afrobeat: here’s Tony Allen playing with Africa 70. The tune is African Message, from the album No Accommodation For Lagos. Tempo is 118. It’s starts with solo drums playing this groove: Here’s a little […]
EZ Hemiola Funk beats with RLB
Just an easy page of hemiola funk-type beats including the RLB pattern as a fill, that I wrote for my students, who have been having a lot of fun with this series. Write in the […]
Hemiola funk series: easy grooves in 4/4
A page of easy beats based on the hemiola funk thing, that I wrote for my students. I’m trying to stay close to the original basic licks, while changing them slightly to fit them into […]
Groove o’ the day: Ndugu Latin
Listening to Ndugu Leon Chancler is always a great lesson in how to play funk, and how to use a set with a lot of tom toms. How to use the tom toms period. I […]
Groove o’ the day: Louis Hayes calypso
A calypso-type groove played by Louis Hayes in 1957, on the Curtis Fuller album Volume 3, on Blue Note. The tune is Quantrale, a light thing written by Fuller. Hayes plays variations on the groove […]
Groove o’ the day: Airto – Street Vendors D’Jmbo
A baiao-type drum set groove from Airto— actually I don’t know what to call this. I’m not hearing obvious markers of a particular style. Maybe Airto’s just playing. Someone who really knows their berimbau rhythms […]
Reed samba method – basic exercise
This is the first in a multi-post series outlining some ways of using Progressive Steps to Syncopation to do a samba. I usually use actual Brazilian rhythms for that, but many of the rhythms in […]
Groove o’ the day: Milton Banana – Samba do Perdão
A moderate samba groove using the tom toms, from one of my favorite Brazilian drummers, Milton Banana. He plays this briefly at the beginning, middle, and end of Samba do Perdão, from his album O Trio. […]
Groove o’ the day: Neftali Santiago – Positive Thing
Groove o’ the day by Neftali Santiago of the band Mandrill, one of the people you should be listening to to get a real 70s funk thing happening with your drumming— along with Jerome Brailey, […]
Page o’ coordination: cut time funk / fusion cymbal rhythm
A Page o’ Coordination for getting together basic funk coordination using a common fusion cymbal rhythm, that comes from Latin drumming— it’s also the jazz cymbal rhythm, not swung. The rhythm is difficult enough for […]
Idris’s clave
A page of beats based on a snare drum rhythm used a lot by Idris Muhammad. It’s a sort of one-bar clave, an inversion of the rhythm commonly called tresillo, starting on beat 3. I’ve […]