Are you getting to the point that you can work these up in a few days, and then retire them, yet? We’ve done a big pile of these POCs, but they cover a fairly narrow […]
Month: December 2013
VOQOTD: choosing cymbals
I’d go to the bin, I’d get two fourteens, I’d go to the eighteen bin, get an eighteen, then I’d go to the twenty bin and get a twenty, and that was that—none of that […]
Sunny Murray, the bebop tradition, and Milford Graves
“Take it easy, now… there’s no work in this shit, they’re gonna jump on your ass…” — Sunny Murray to a young, interested, Hans Bennink Here’s an interview by Dan Warburton, with one of the […]
Transcription: Les Humphries — Ching Miau
In honor of Yusef Lateef, who we just lost a few days ago, at age 93, here is the thing that inspired yesterday’s post: Lex Humphries playing on Ching Miau, a one-chord modal tune in […]
Page o’ coordination: across the barline in 5/4
This is a classic situation when you start improvising in 5/4: you get a little cocky about your ability to just vibe the meter and come out OK, and in a few moments you observe […]
Transcription: Ed Blackwell solo — Tarik
Oh, what the hell, happy Saturnalia— I went ahead and transcribed the solo from the GOTD of a few days ago, Tarik, by Ed Blackwell, from Dewey Redman’s album of the same name. It’s a […]
VOQOTD: the way it was, then
[F]ifty years ago, long [running gigs] were more commonplace. Oh, yeah. There was a club on 52nd Street called the Hickory House. I played in there for three months with Bill Evans, and for three […]
Groove o’ the day: Ed Blackwell — Tarik
Here’s something from I think the first record with Ed Blackwell I ever bought: Tarik, by Dewey Redman. It’s sort of Blackwell’s tom tom thing boiled down to it’s smallest essence: It will be up […]
Todd’s 11-note pattern: some examples in 4/4
One of the earlier things we did was a pretty exhaustive, four-page write up of an 11-note pattern which has for some time been coming up spontaneously in my playing. I’ve been working on it […]
Groove o’ the day: Ronald Shannon Jackson — Behind Plastic Faces
I guess I’m blogging in couplets this week. Speaking of one of my favorite records, Decode Yourself, by Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society— long totally out of print, from a not-very-collectible era in jazz— I’m glad […]