Lots of action here this week, but here’s a little something for you… the new Book of Intros is still on its way… finishing is always the hard part, and there’s always more to do […]
Category: Miles Davis
Groove o’ the day: Al Foster — Billy Preston
Must play more music where I can just leave the hihats open all day. This is Al Foster’s groove on the tune Billy Preston, on the Miles Davis album Get Up With It; kind of […]
Transcription: Tony Williams — Seven Steps to Heaven, trumpet solo
Continuing with our Seven Steps To Heaven transcription in installments, here is Tony Wiliams’s playing behind Miles Davis’s solo, starting at 0:43, on the version of the tune from the album Four & More: The […]
Transcription: Tony Williams — Seven Steps to Heaven, head in
Man, I am getting tired of writing words. Let’s get back to what you actually come here for: drum shit. In honor of the Superbowl— which they tell me is today— here is something that’s […]
Groove o’ the day: Tony Williams — Footprints
Here’s a Latin-style groove Tony Williams plays at one point in the odyssey of jazz percussion that is Footprints, a tune by Wayne Shorter, from Miles Davis’s album Miles Smiles. The tune is in 6/4, […]
How to play Dear Old Stockholm
Dear Old Stockholm is the English title of a traditional Swedish song, which, you are probably aware, has become a jazz standard. I don’t know who first started playing it as a jazz tune, but […]
How to play Stablemates
The bop tune Stablemates, by Benny Golson, is something of a test piece for drummers. As now-Portland pianist George Colligan said, “Stablemates can be revealing for a drummer….”, and Golson himself said “It moves around […]
DBMITW: happy 80th to Wayne Shorter
In honor of the 80th birthday of the great saxophonist Wayne Shorter, here is one of my favorite solos of his— or of anyone else’s, ever— from Miles Davis’s Complete In A Silent Way Sessions […]
VOQOTD: Al Foster on taste
“I’m trying to play less when keeping time behind a soloist,” Foster says, “not answering every phrase with the left hand and bass drum. You want to be on it, but not on everything. I’m […]
Transcription/GOTD: Betty Davis — Nasty Gal
H/t to my brother on this one— he played me this record. This is from the title track of Betty Davis’s album Nasty Gal. Davis (*née Mabry) was married to Miles Davis in the late […]
Groove o’ the day: Al Foster – Rated X
As promised– or hinted at, rather– here is Al Foster’s hip and unusual groove from Miles Davis’s Rated X, from the record Get Up With It: As you can hear, the 1 and the 4 […]
DBMITW: Rated X
From Miles Davis’s Get Up With It: That’s the great Michael Henderson on bass. From Wikipedia: Davis saw the young Henderson performing [with Stevie Wonder] at the Copacabana in New York City in early 1970 […]