Today’s groove is a little unusual, in that it comes from a YouTube cymbal demo and not from a real record, but since the demo is by Jack Dejohnette, I figured what the heck. He […]
Category: latin
Groove o’ the day: Paul Motian’s tango
I like this feature, and I’m going to try to do a lot more of these this year. Here’s a hip modified tango played by Paul Motian on the tune When We Go, from Rambler […]
Kernels of Cascara
My students have been doing so well with my “kernels” concept that I’ve decided to write up a real challenge for them: cascara with the clave in the left foot. It was the hip thing […]
Drum chart: Along Comes Mary by Cal Tjader
Pillaging the archives while I’m working on tour/book-related junk, I turned up another Cal Tjader drum chart, written by me a couple of years ago. I’ll try to do more of these in the future- […]
Coordination “kernels” – further examples
You may have noticed I’ve been on rather light posting this last week. Expect that to continue for the next several days; this week I’ll be recording my new CD for the Origin label, Little […]
Basic Mambo
I guess I had to eventually post something directly drumming-related on my drumming blog, so here is an older piece I’ll be sharing with a couple of students today- some variations on a generic, very […]
Afro 6/8 – basic coordination
This is something I’ve been working with daily for several weeks now- getting the usual jazz coordination/comping stuff together with the Afro-Cuban/Bembe/Naningo bell pattern. It’s pretty tricky, and it’s a good idea to do it […]
Todd’s methods: bongo beat
Here’s an easy system I developed for playing a generic Latin feel very bright tempos: A few notes there weren’t room for on the pdf: – Can be played very fast and very light. – […]
Drum chart: Mamblues by Cal Tjader
Here is a chart of Mamblues, from Cal Tjader’s album Soul Sauce, transcribed by me. It’s a pretty straightforward (but burning!) salsa tune on a blues form, with a cascara groove, mambo on the vibes […]