I have some dates coming up where I need to use a Songo-type groove (the chart says “samba”, but it’s really not)— which I don’t have to play that often, so I’m brushing up on […]
Category: salsa
Filling a Mozambique
This is something I was working through with a student recently: filling during a Mozambique groove. Latin grooves need to be worked out more than other things, so it’s a good idea to break it […]
Q&A: Cuban for jazz
I got a surprisingly tough question from a reader the other day: What’s a good book for playing Cuban styles in jazz? Part of the difficulty with answering this is, what do we mean by […]
Groove o’ the day: Evolution of Songo – 03
Here’s the promised transcription from the previous entry in this Evolution of Songo series— the breakdown from Pero a Mi Manera by Los Van Van, with Changuito playing the drums. For most of the tune […]
Groove o’ the day: Evolution of Songo – 02
Here is the second groove from the Changuito history of Songo video; Changuito is the drummer for Los Van Van, and is a major innovator in Cuban drumming. The last entry covered a groove created […]
Groove o’ the day: evolution of Songo – 01
First of a mini-series of Afro-Cuban grooves o’ the day, transcribed from the history of Songo video below. Grooves are by Changuito, the percussionist who created the Songo drumming style playing with the Cuban band […]
Bass drum rhythms for Latin
These bass drum rhythms are lifted from a page of Songo independence exercises I posted a few years ago. I thought it would be good to have them presented by themselves, apart from all the […]
Page o’ coordination: Mozambique – hands only – 01
A page of technical independence patterns for a Mozambique bell part— a hip, very useful bell rhythm. For more practical left hand parts for this bell rhythm, see my updated Page of Mozambique. Also see my […]
Page o’ coordination: linear pattern for Latin soloing
The 5+3 note phrase is one of the easiest and most useful of Gary Chaffee’s basic linear phrases. If you start phrase on the a of 2, the bass drum part makes a Latin tumbao […]
Best books: Timbale Solo Transcriptions by Victor Rendon
Just a link share today for anyone interested in Salsa, Cuban music, and related musics. From Unlocking Clave‘s Facebook feed, here’s a nice free book, Timbale Solo Transcriptions by Victor Rendon. Do give Unlocking Clave and Rendon […]
Best books: The Essence of Afro-Cuban Percussion & Drum Set by Ed Uribe
Buy the book Leafing through a copy of Ed Uribe’s book The Essence of Afro-Cuban Percussion & Drum Set, you may be inclined to Google Map the location of the nearest bridge, and then drive […]
Mozambique listening
Here is a YouTube playlist of the tracks cited in the Mozambique variations post, plus a few things: After the break I’ll give some brief notes on some of the tracks: Eddie Palmieri — Melao […]