Clifford Jarvis was always best known to me as Sun Ra’s drummer, and as the drummer on a number of records I saw in the store, but never bought. A hard bopper turned free guy. […]
Category: listening
Listening: Freddie Waits with Freddie Hubbard
Here’s the album I mentioned in that Freddie Waits Latin post— Fastball – Live at the Left Bank. Part of a cache of live recordings made at a club in Baltimore in the 1960s, discovered […]
Lopsy Lu revisited
Someone left a rather odd comment on my old Lopsy Lu transcription, of Tony Williams playing with Stanley Clarke, and I saw that my own notes from that 2015 post are also rather obscure, so I […]
Top CD rebuys
After my pathetic little beater of a car bit the dust a few weeks ago I replaced it with a dynamite $5500 20 year old Mercedes-Benz E320— the last of the bombproof Benzes— with an […]
The three bloggers listen to Milestones
Yer Three Bloggers— myself, Ted Warren @ Trap’d, and Jon McCaslin @ Four On The Floor— decided to listen to Milestones by Miles Davis, and make whatever comments occur to us. It’s one of his […]
Key players: Philly Joe Jones
This series is difficult for me, because it means writing a lot of words about somebody’s playing, at which I am not good. I never felt a need to put it into words. It also […]
Listening: more Freddie
Let’s listen to some more Freddie Hubbard, again with Louis Hayes on drums. The album is The Black Angel, recorded in 1969, same as Hub of Hubbard. With James Spaulding, Kenny Barron, and Reggie Workman— […]
Listening: holy shnikeys
A couple of standards from the album The Hub of Hubbard, by Freddie Hubbard. With Louis Hayes on drums and Richard Davis on bass, plus Roland Hanna and Eddie Daniels. Recorded in Germany in 1969 […]
Listening: Idris Muhammad grooves
Hey, I’ve concluded that Idris Muhammad is awesome. There’s a lot going on with him, that doesn’t necessarily give itself up to the casual drumming listener— it’s a very deep fusion of jazz, R&B, funk, […]
Listening and loops for jazz students
For my jazz students, here is a list of much loved, mainstream, historically important recordings to listen to in your first few years of learning. I’m also in the process of updating the practice loop […]
Let’s talk about Billy Cobham
I was working on this post about Billy Cobham some weeks ago, and felt I couldn’t finish it— it’s not that easy to write a complete portrait of the playing of a great drummer. Try […]
Listening to Ray Bryant
“I used to be a free jazz drummer, now I just want to play tight arrangements.” — me a few years ago That’s not 100% true, but I’ve learned a lot of respect for the […]