Let’s do an easy one. Here’s Billy Gene English sketching out a simple, Blue Note-y, quasi-Latin waltz on the tune Wavy Gravy, from Kenny Burrell’s Midnight Blue: Swing the 8th notes. You can think of […]
Category: jazz
Very occasional quote of the day: Monk on rehearsing
“What do you want to do, learn how to cheat?”— Thelonious Monk That’s from Russ Musto’s 2006 interview with Ben Riley on Allaboutjazz.com— highly worth reading. Riley had just been asked to join the band […]
With Ornette at the Five Spot
Ornette Coleman Another little excerpt from Scott K. Fish’s November, 1981 interview with Ed Blackwell, from Modern Drummer. Just a little snapshot of the scene at the Five Spot and the neighboring Jazz Gallery in […]
Coordination with a dotted-quarter cymbal pattern, in 5/4 — part 1
Extending this recent series of Dahlgren & Fine/Elvin-style coordination studies a bit further, here’s part one of the dotted quarter series, converted into 5/4: Swing the 8th notes and do the tom moves when you […]
Ed Blackwell in Africa
Since we’re doing a lot with Ed Blackwell lately, here’s a little snippet from his November, 1981 Modern Drummer interview by Scott K. Fish, in which he discusses his 1967 and 1968 tours of Africa, […]
GOTD: Ed Blackwell — still more of Togo
Still more of Ed Blackwell’s performance on the tune Togo, from the album Old And New Dreams. Michael Griener in Berlin has helpfully informed me in the comments that a transcription of this entire performance […]
Groove o’ the day: Ed Blackwell — more Togo
Another Ed Blackwell groove today, from a little deeper in the same tune as the last GOTD, Togo, from the self-titled Old And New Dreams on ECM (there’s also one on the Black Saint label, […]
Coordination with a dotted-quarter cymbal pattern – part 2
Here’s part two of our series of Elvin-esque four way coordination in a waltz feel, with a dotted-quarter note cymbal rhythm. Here the bass drum is in unison with the cymbal, and it’s a little […]
Groove o’ the day: Ed Blackwell – another 6/8
UPDATE: Whoops, a typo, gitoutcher pencils– scratch that last tom note in the second measure. Here’s another entry in my little project of cataloging as many of Ed Blackwell’s grooves as I can figure out. […]
Transcription: Frankie Dunlop — Hackensack
Let’s see how many of these I can do in coming weeks; I’ve always loved the way Frankie Dunlop plays the heads on the Thelonious Monk records, so here’s Hackensack, from the album Criss Cross: […]
Coordination with a dotted-quarter cymbal pattern – part 1
There’s got to be a better title for that, but I don’t know what it is. Frankly, I’m just lucky if I can get anything posted at all at this point. Here we’re looking at […]
DBMITW: Jon Christensen is great
Jon Christensen, on Ralph Towner’s Solstice: Maybe it’s not a perfect analogue, but I think of him as the Billy Higgins of the fusion era– an egoless (in his playing, at least!), perfectly musical drummer. […]