With a student I’ve been working on a Blue Note type groove a la Cantaloupe Island, and the linear quarter notes lesson (pp. 8-9) in Ted Reed’s Progressive Steps to Syncopation* seemed a good place […]
Groove o’ the day: Grady Tate Afro
Grady Tate playing a heavy Afro-Cuban style groove, or Afro 6, as I’ve been calling it, on Grant Green’s The Final Comedown movie soundtrack. The track is Soul Food African Shop, and the transcription is […]
Hey, buy stuff
Two pieces of gear-buying news: GET SNARE DRUMSMy friend and student Bill W. owns a bunch of great snare drums, and is letting some of them go on Reverb. He’s got a 60s Gretsch Progressive […]
Transcription: Tony Williams – Cantaloupe Island
A student was asking about Cantaloupe Island, played by Tony Williams on Herbie Hancock’s Empyrean Isles album, so I went ahead and transcribed the whole thing. Why not. The style may get called as a […]
Wayne’s gone
One of my favorite solos of his:
From the zone: SD chops
Another notebook item from the later 80s, as I get my act together following recent personal developments. Cleaning out my mom’s basement, I found a bunch of my old notebooks and music materials. Basically, I’ve […]
Metric modulation a la Silverman – 01
A student brought in a copy of Chuck Silverman’s Practical Applications: Afro-Caribbean Rhythms for Drum Set, and we worked through a part of it together, dealing with metric modulations— or more accurately superimposed metric modulations […]
Very occasional quote of the day: listening
“Listening is the whole thing. I’ll tell you exactly how I play. My whole approach to playing is reaction. I don’t listen to myself play. I’m not aware of myself because I’m too busy listening […]
Paradiddle-diddle game
Everybody Good Knows The Same Stuff, Part 1000: Another handout from a clinic Russ Tincher at UC Berkeley in 1989— I confirmed that’s where it was from. Here he shows how to interpret triplets with […]
Very occasional quote of the day: space to contribute
“The way guys like Bud Powell shaped their solos, they automatically left spaces for the drummers to contribute. A lot of times today, in student performers, I don’t hear that space being offered, because they’re […]
Uptempo drill a la Riley
Major rehash alert: an uptempo jazz drill I was playing yesterday, using what John Riley once called “my C major scale”: an SSBB pattern in 8th notes, with notes omitted. The page below is very […]
Transcription: Buddy Rich – Big Mac
Buddy Rich drum solo on Big Mac, a prodigious funk/rock arrangement by Ernie Wilkins, from Rich’s album Ease On Down The Road— it’s actually better known from Roar of ’74, but I have it on […]