I guess I could’ve called this Higgins and Haden. These are four records from what is for me the classic phase of Higgins’ career in terms of his sound- he’s got that heavy-ish rivet cymbal […]
Category: jazz
Podcast – Episode 4: Charlie Parker heads
Today’s podcast is a selection of practice loops made from the heads of well-known Charlie Parker tunes: Billie’s Bounce Yardbird Suite Donna Lee Cheryl Quasimodo Scrapple from the Apple Au Privave Crazeology (actually by Bud […]
Billie’s Bounce deconstructed
That sounds a little sexier than it actually is- I was working on this tune with a student recently, and we ended up breaking it down phrase by phrase. I’ve written the lesson up for […]
Tune of the moment: Eiderdown
Eiderdown is a great tune by Steve Swallow that deserves to be played a lot more, and has been coming up a bunch lately in sessions and in my listening. The lead sheet is available […]
I love German drummers
First, the aptly-named Jaki Liebezeit of Can: Gunter Summer of Dresden, Germany’s answer to Tony Oxley, or maybe Hans Bennink: Paul Lovens doing a fun thing with Eugene Chadbourne: More after the break: More “Baby” […]
Dick Berk interview on the Jake Feinberg Show
Another great interview from the Jake Feinberg show, this time with Dick Berk of the prodigious ride cymbal. Dick was Billie Holliday’s last drummer (after Jo Jones left the group), in a band that also […]
Quotable Bob Moses
A few stand-alone quotes from Drum Wisdom by Bob Moses: [T]ake one idea and expand it., instead of playing a lot of ideas. The greatest musicians are those who can take one idea and make […]
Transcription: Tony Williams – Madness – ride cymbal only
Madness is the first track I heard on the first Miles Davis record I actually went and bought- before that I just had the old copy of Kind of Blue from my dad’s record collection. […]
Jon Christiansen @ 4OTF
Go read this post about Jon Christiansen at Four on the Floor– I haven’t even had a chance to read it yet, but it doesn’t matter. One of the great facilitators in drumming, I think […]
Two Stone applications by Alan Dawson
Here are a couple of Stick Control applications by Alan Dawson, from JohnW in Massachusetts, a knowledgeable Drummerworld.com forum contributor who studied with him in 1982-83. For the hands: Use Stick Control p. 5, ex. […]
The abyss
In this third installment of my events/swing band repertoire series (hopefully it’s of some interest to the bandleaders/working drummers out there), we’ll be confronting some of the things I’ve kept around strictly out of commercial […]
Keeping the band happy.
More notes from revamping my book (my events band’s performing repertoire, that is). Here I thought I would share some of the tunes I use to keep the band from going nuts over the more […]