Here is a another, simplified Afro 6/8 groove as played by one of the major session guys for Blue Note Records in the early 60’s, Roger Humphries, here on the tune Mary Lou from Horace […]
Category: music
Favorite albums: Impressions by John Coltrane
Cover from my version, the 80’s reissue. Impressions by John Coltrane 1963 – Impulse! John Coltrane – tenor and soprano saxophone Eric Dolphy – alto saxophone, bass clarinet McCoy Tyner – piano Jimmy Garrison – […]
Lessons are a whole different thing
Metaphor for complexity. It’s easy to wonder if drummers online are giving away the away the entire store with all of the free video lessons, blog posts and whatnot. With such a massive volume of […]
DBMITW: Trio Jeepy
I feel like I’ve been pretty unimaginative with my filler lately, but what am I going to do that’s better than this? That’s from Branford Marsalis’s late 80’s record Trio Jeepy, with Milt Hinton and […]
Hemiola basics
UPDATE: I have since written an updated version of this page. The hemiola— also called the 3:2 polyrhythm– is a basic polyrhythm using layered even two and three note rhythms. What I’ve done here is […]
Groove o’ the day: Zigaboo Modeliste – People Say
Today’s groove o’ the day is Zigaboo Modeliste’s part from People Say, by The Meters: The 16ths are half-swung in the New Orleans style (“in between the cracks”, as Stanton Moore calls it). Listen to […]
A treasure trove: WKCR Soundscape project
I just googled this up, from the WKCR 89.9 New York radio site: a duo performance by Ed Blackwell and saxophonist Charles Brackeen, recorded in 1980 at: Soundscape[,] a New York performance venue founded and […]
DBMITW: Jazz at the Philharmonic
This is from a Jazz at the Philharmonic album from 1949 that I dug out of my father’s record collection back in the early 80’s, and I’ve been carrying it around ever since. It’s got […]
I love my records
And yes, that is a copy of Judas Priest’s Hell Bent For Leather in there…
Metronome perspectives
There’s an excellent piece on the Modern Drummer site getting views on metronome use from a number of top drummers and educators. I’ve excerpted some of the best bits, but go read the whole thing. […]
Observations about the volume of things
One of the things on my mind a lot lately has been the issue of projection- making your performance be heard clearly by the other musicians and by the audience. While performing and hanging at […]
How much to practice something
1. Get wood chisel. 2. Remove everything that doesn’t look like Billy the Kid deftly gunning down Bat Masterson before the throng of stunned onlookers, a yapping yellow hound at his feet. 3. SUCCESS! One […]