I was in the studio last weekend, recording some very challenging, highly arranged, often counter-intuitive music for a 6-piece quasi-jazz outfit, and had a few random thoughts about it: Recording easy music for your own […]
Category: music
DBMITW: Vibrafinger!
Here Gary Burton runs his vibes through a Big Muff. Great tune, but everyone’s really just waiting for them to play the little ’70’s-style hook at the end of the ensemble lick again. This is […]
More fun with waltzes
I’ve been using these Elvin’s Afro-Waltz things almost daily in my practicing since I started writing them, and they’re working really great for me, so here’s a new one. This uses the same concept as […]
Tune of the Moment: Out of This World
The tune Out of this World by Harold Arlen has been on my mind a lot recently– I’ve been listening to John Coltrane’s recording of it on the album Coltrane, then it came up in […]
What records I’m listening to
I really want to cop a feature from Jon McCaslin and list what records I’m listening to, but I’m afraid it would get as repetitive as a broken example of the medium for which the […]
Cracking 5/4: more architecture
Beyond the 2/4+3/4 or 3/4+2/4 phrasing we’ve already discussed, there are a few common constructions you should be familiar with. Just learning the things covered in the first part will take a fair amount of […]
DBMITW: Art Ensemble of Chicago
I’ve got several things brewing– including, but not limited to the rest of the series on playing in 5/4— but they’re all taking their sweet time getting finished, so in the mean time, here’s some […]
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: the kind of playing I’d like to hear more of
With hyperactive fast-16th-to-32nd notes kind of dominating drummers’ collective mindspace today, I love hearing some utterly happening 8th note-based playing: Also:
Cracking 5/4: rock variations
I wasn’t planning on making this part of this series, but it happened to come up. I was prepping for a recording session today which will involve a couple of tunes in 7/4, and I […]
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 […]
Groove o’ the day: Billy Cobham in 7/8
Today we have another odd-meter Billy Cobham groove from the track “b. Spectrum” from his 1973 album Spectrum: He plays the unaccented notes stronger than is customary today, and puts a light accent on the […]