Responding to a forum question, referencing Delfeayo’s Dilemma, a Wynton Marsalis tune, as recorded by Kenny Garrett on his record Triology, with Blade on drums. How does one even beginning practicing playing time the way […]
Category: tunes
Playing Airegin
The title is Nigeria spelled backwards, usually pronounced AIRa-jin. I took a minute in the shower this morning figuring out how to pronounce it actually like Nigeria backwards: ah-ee-REE-jine. JINE rhyming with JIVE. A little […]
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: 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 […]
Updating the book
Time to rework the book for my events band again. It’s been eight years, and I really don’t want to see most of those tunes ever again. I always felt too obligated to make this some […]
Vashkar
The other day I listed some often-played tunes that had some kind of an mystique, at least in my mind. Here’s a tune that nobody ever plays, with a lot of mystique. Apropos of nothing— […]
Ten tunes: heavy standards
Ten more tunes. These are some standards that have kind of a serious aura, that are reasonably-to-very likely to get called. They’re not necessarily very hard, but they demand to be approached with respect. It’s […]
Ten tunes: oxygen
What a lot of people usedto learn this tune. A professional drummer friend wanted to get my take on ten essential tunes to learn, for drummers playing jazz. It’s a hard question, because an actual […]
Tune list for sessions
This is the tune list for a weekly session I play. We go through a lot of material, most of it kind of unusual, and many things that are rather challenging. I shlep this big […]
Playing weird tunes
You go through stages of learning jazz repertoire. In high school I would play Charlie Parker tunes on the snare drum— just the melody rhythm. Then I learned about some standard forms, like 12-bar blues […]