Probably my only post this week— we’re having a wild end of 2022 around here, with my family experiencing an ongoing medical emergency, and I’m having to travel to Eugene a lot. So here’s a […]
Category: practice loops
Practice loop: slow blues
Bringing this back to planet Earth, here’s a nice 65 bpm blues to practice along with. Sampled from the tune After Hours on Roy Haynes’s album We Three.
Thelonious
Thinking about the tune Thelonious, by Thelonious Monk. It’s fun and unusual, based on a single note riff. I don’t believe the form comes from another tune, it’s just a little self-contained bebop invention. It’s […]
Practice loop: Stolen Moments
Finished my taxes and I am exhausted, so here’s something for you to practice with: Freddie Hubbard’s solo on Stolen Moments, from Oliver Nelson’s Blues And The Abstract Truth. At 111 bpm, it’s a good […]
Practice loop in 7/4: Freddie Hubbard / Heidi-B
While I finish up my taxes, here’s the practice loop I was playing with when I was doing that Reed in 7 thing: Heidi-B, from Freddie Hubbard’s album Sweet Return. Tempo is quarter note = […]
Practice loop: McCoy swing
Here’s a crushing new practice loop I’ve been playing with a lot lately, sampled from the tune Little Brother, from McCoy Tyner’s album Song of the New World. People get so precious about their approach […]
Organizing practice loops
UPDATE: Download links are working now! My archive of sampled practice loops has gotten so big that it’s become kind of unmanageable, so I’ve organized them into categories. Here are the first three new zips […]
Practice loop: Port of Entry
Here’s a fun practice loop sampled from Port of Entry, by Weather Report. A great track from Night Passage, one of my favorite records. Tempo is 77 or 154 bpm, depending on how you want […]
Happy end of that
1/7 UPDATE: Bumping this post from the distant past at the end of last month, when, in my sad, ridiculous naiveté, I thought the worst was behind us, and the depths of the current president’s depravity, […]
Practice loop: Night & Day – Bill Evans
Here’s a brighter-medium tempo jazz practice loop, sampled from Night & Day, played by Bill Evans on his album Everybody Digs Bill Evans— one of my favorite records, period. The loop is one chorus of […]
Listening and loops for jazz students
For my jazz students, here is a list of much loved, mainstream, historically important recordings to listen to in your first few years of learning. I’m also in the process of updating the practice loop […]
Practice loop: Milt Jackson medium blues
This is the main loop I’ve been using with late Three Camps for drumset materials. Most of them— to my taste yesterday’s thing is better to practice without a loop. This is sampled from a portion […]