Newly uploaded video of Ornette Coleman playing Berliner Jazztage in 1971, with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, and Ed Blackwell: h/t to Hank Shteamer, uploaded by Bay Area drummer Jay Korber.
Jazz loop, rock loop
Two practice loops I’ve been enjoying, one jazz, one rock. The first is sampled from Everydays, a Stephen Stills song, played by Kenny Burrell on the album Blues – The Common Ground. Tempo is 124: […]
Rock with Stick Control!
A little thing I improvised while warming up for a rehearsal. All my rock stuff is oriented around getting off the hihat, getting both hands moving around the drums. A lot of students get locked […]
Transcription: Jeff Watts – Housed From Edward – 03
Part three of Branford Marsalis’s Housed From Edward, from the album Trio Jeepy, with Jeff Watts on drums. Let’s do the whole thing. This begins in the middle of Marsalis’s solo at 3:21, and ends […]
Very occasional quote of the day: interesting
“It may sound like an extremely obvious thing to say, but I think it is worth saying nevertheless that when you are making a film, in addition to any higher purpose you may have in […]
Practicing Chaffee phrases
Some things I do when practicing these recent Chaffee linear phrases, or any of the rest of them, beyond playing them as written. First, at faster tempos, the ones ending with two bass drum notes […]
New Breed tweak – left hand cymbal accents
Getting through a single system from The New Breed takes some time, longer than I want to have one hand be basically idle, playing just the 2 and 4. Let’s give it more to do. […]
Chaffee-esque right hand lead stickings
Lots of quasi-Chaffee activity lately, getting into a sticking system derived from his— as covered in his books Odd Time Stickings and Patterns vol. 2 – Stickings. Similar to his linear system, his sticking system […]
Tailoring the game to your talents
An extended quote from the book Moneyball, about the baseball player Scott Hatteberg, and his approach to hitting, and his experiences with the lavishly funded Boston Red Sox and the meagerly funded Oakland As organizations: […]
Transcription: Jeff Watts – Housed From Edward – 02
Part two of Branford Marsalis’s Housed From Edward, from the album Trio Jeepy, with Jeff Watts on drums. Let’s do the whole thing. This begins at the top of Marsalis’s solo, at 1:27. Most of […]
Embellishing Chaffee
This is why I can’t get anything done, when I sit down to practice somethingpractice something I’ll get two patterns in, and get involved in developing them as playing ideas, working out how to use […]