There’s a book I’m reading right now, in preparation for doing a proper review, which a lot of you will want to buy regardless of what I say about it. It’s a new biography of […]
Category: Mel Lewis
Groove o’ the day: Mel Lewis — Jive Samba
Mel Lewis plays a funk groove. The tune is Nat Adderly’s Jive Samba, and the album is Thad Jones / Mel Lewis, Central Park North, from 1969. The intro has some fun tom fills, so […]
Mel Lewis on cymbals
More on cymbals from Mel Lewis’s 1985 Modern Drummer interview. This is pretty much the bible of the subject, as it relates to jazz: Number and type The average drummer usually uses two to four […]
Several big band drumming books
A couple of new/old big band drumming books dropped into my lap recently, so what the heck, I thought I’d round them up for you: Studio & Big Band Drumming by Steve Houghton – 1985 […]
VOQOTD: Mel Lewis
“…you should start with a crash and end with a crash. I see drummers ending with a crash cymbal, but then choking it. When you hit that big chord at the end, let it ring. […]
Krupa G.P.
Still light posting, but listening to the Mel Lewis history of jazz drums interview and they’re discussing a favorite move of Gene Krupa’s- during a shout chorus leaving a dramatic silence where there would normally […]
Massive Mel Lewis interview
More great stuff from Jon McCaslin at Four on the Floor: extended radio interview of Mel Lewis by Loren Schoenberg, discussing the history of the drums in jazz from Baby Dodds to Elvin Jones. An […]
March 1985 Modern Drummer interview: John von Ohlen
Interview with big band drummer John von Ohlen from Modern Drummer, March, 1985, by Scott K. Fish, with the many good parts pulled out here, by me. Von Ohlen toured with with the Woody Herman […]