More Steve Gadd on Chick Corea’s Friends— here on the flute solo on Waltse For Dave, a medium tempo jazz waltz. It has a 70 bar form: A -16 | A – 16 | B […]
Category: jazz
Very occasional quote of the day: technique and improvised music
When it comes to “technique” I don’t just want fast hands, I want fast ears! In improvised music you have to compute and consider what you’ve heard and make a decision instantaneously. Your technique, or […]
Subtractive systems for 16ths in jazz
Some subtractive systems for voicing your snare drum and bass drum in 16ths and partials thereof, in jazz comping. It’s a very common thing, but not usually featured in the normal materials, or included in […]
Page o’ coordination – quarter note on 4
The nice thing about writing being so easy is, I can get pretty granular with my stuff. Like, I wrote this for one student, to get him away from being so 1-oriented. It won’t do […]
Transcription: Marty Morell – Grandfather’s Waltz
Here is Marty Morell playing Grandfather’s Waltz, from the Bill Evans live album But Beautiful, featuring Stan Getz, recorded in 1974. Tempo is peppy, he’s playing a modern Elvinish type of thing. Bit of trivia: […]
First jazz albums
It wears me out seeing the same four records listed as the first things to get, when first getting into jazz: Moanin’, Saxophone Colossus, Kind Of Blue, some other bleeding obvious record. They’re great. Of […]
Transcription: Shelly Manne – Come, Gone
Here’s a drum solo by Shelly Manne on Come, Gone, from Sonny Rollins’s album Way Out West. I don’t know the album real well, and listening to this at random I was sure it was […]
More three stroke ruff phrases
Some more jazz phrases with the open three stroke ruff— that’s the terminology for any occurence of three fast notes, in certain circles. Presented in the manner of Joe Porcaro’s Drum Set Method, in which […]
Transcription: Roy fours
Roy Haynes trading fours with Sonny Rollins, on Sonny’s record The Sound of Sonny, on a really dumb little tune, Toot Toot Tootsie, of Al Jolson fame. I only ever had to play it with […]
Brad’s three stroke ruff lesson
Some things I worked through with a student, based on the book Joe Porcaro’s Drum Set Method. It’s an interesting book, based on practical applications of rudiments as embellishments, fills, and for soloing. It’s rather […]
Reed interpretation: five stroke rolls and stick shots – 02
Following up on the last thing, where we made a loose solo system adding five stroke rolls and stick shots to pp. 34-45 of Syncopation. Here we’re focused strictly on the snare drum aspect. You […]
Impure
I am interested in helping you keep your practice from becoming impure.– Shunruyu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind At the same time, they praised him when he didn’t deserve it. “I’d have games when I’d […]