Have I mentioned lately what a great resource the Modern Drummer digital archive is? Here are my excerpts from a 1985 Modern Drummer interview with one of the great teachers of the drums, Alan Dawson. […]
Category: jazz
The John Lewis Show
I’m hoping to finish up an ed piece and fire it off to Drum! Magazine before some afternoon lessons, so until I can post something more substantive, enjoy these clips of the John Lewis Show […]
Old & New Dreams – 1980 lecture/demonstration
From Warren Senders at Running Gamak, here is audio and a transcript of a clinic given at Harvard by Old and New Dreams (Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell) during their 1980 […]
Transcription: Elvin Jones – Soul Eyes
Another transcription from the archives- Elvin Jones playing brushes on Soul Eyes, from the album Coltrane, by John Coltrane. The transcription is of the piano and tenor solos; it’s written in the four of the […]
Baby Dodds
One thing I’ve noticed in recent years is that you can’t have a conversation about the drums in jazz without Baby Dodds coming up- he’s become kind of a signifier of seriousness about the subject. […]
Transcription: Lenny White – Invitation
Here’s my transcription of Lenny White playing on Invitation, from Joe Henderson’s In Pursuit of Blackness. I made note of a couple of suspect measures that gave me problems originally. I haven’t proofed it recently, […]
Straight, No Chaser – two interpretations
You know, I think I’m kind of a Monk guy? Here’s something I did for a student some time ago- a comparison of Ben Riley’s and Art Taylor’s approach to playing on the head of […]
Charlie Haden interview by Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus
As I mentioned, I’m doing a lot of thinking about Ornette Coleman, and happened to find this excellent, extended 2007 interview with one of my favorite musicians ever, Charlie Haden, by Bad Plus pianist Ethan […]
Popular jazz tunes
Via NPR’s A Blog Supreme here is Jazz24.org’s list of top 100 jazz tunes, as suggested by their listeners. It’s not a bad place to start for beginners looking to get their repertoire together. There […]
Papa Jo and Big Sid
Jammin’ The Blues, a short film featuring Jo Jones and Sid Catlett. Watch for the trade off after 5:40: “Big Sid was like my brother. I never go anyplace without a picture of Big Sid […]