Here’s a nice video of part of an interview with Bill Stewart, speaking with Quincy Davis of the University of Manitoba, in which he discusses his cymbal technique. It relates to my earlier ranting and […]
Category: ride cymbal
Species of ride cymbal interpretation in jazz
Following up on George Collligan’s commentary on this subject: The way you play the cymbal pattern is really the center of your artistry as a jazz drummer, so let’s do a little survey of the […]
George Colligan on playing the ride cymbal
THAT cymbal— listen and copy the sound. Some good advice from former-New York/now-Portland/Jack Dejohnette-sideman/pianist/(and drummer, too) George Colligan, on the importance of your ride cymbal interpretation in jazz. The context is that he was judging […]
“Skiplet”?
In some ways I feel I’m watching (and contributing to) the death of the familiar jazz ride cymbal pattern as a musical thing, for a lot of reasons, but partly as the result of a […]
A few new vintage Paistes
I guess the 80’s is vintage now. In the past few years I’ve been rebuilding my cymbal collection, after ruthlessly disposing of a lot of things during a lean patch, and have largely been focusing […]
DBMITW: magnum opus
Resisting the urge to post Le Tigre’s Bang Bang in this space today. Instead: McCoy Tyner’s Passion Dance, from the Real McCoy album, came on KMHD radio yesterday on my way to a lesson (you […]
Scholar’s corner: Elvin Jones plays the ride cymbal
We’ll see how long this new feature lasts. I’ve been coming across a good number of scholarly works online, most of them not worth sharing– in fact, I have a draft of a long post […]
Playing in 2
I got a nice note from Ben at the excellent Melbourne Drumming Online blog (adding him to the blogroll- be sure to pay him a visit), requesting that I write something about playing in 2- […]
Sabian Raw Ride in action
I finally got to record with the 22″ Sabian Raw Ride I was so excited tell you about awhile back. I’d say it has an unmistakable “A” sound- neutral-seeming, but very pretty, with a lot […]
Putting together a jazz drum set
The Gretsch Catalinas on my 2010 Europe tour. A good point in the comments of the How to be a jazz drummer post- the sound of your instrument is very important. If you’ve been playing […]
Billy Higgins’ instrument
Here’s a nice follow up on my recent Billy Higgins solo analysis. I was just surfing around and getting discouraged at how little of value I was coming across, when I stumbled across this 2000 […]
Still loving Sabian AA’s
I continue to be very impressed and excited by what Sabian is doing with their AA line. I’ve long felt the A. line of Zildjian cymbals- and by association, the AA’s- to be in decline, […]