Probable dialogue: “Come on, swing, you mother— SWIIIIIING! YEAH! YEAAAH!” So, I hear the big hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival was Whiplash, a movie about the tumultuous relationship of an abusive, hard-driving jazz […]
Year: 2014
Lighting round: four new books
New to me, anyway— I think these have all been around awhile. I thought I’d give my rapid-fire opinion on some things I just got in the mail: Daily Drumset Workout by Claus Hessler We’ll […]
Too triplety
1-&-A-2-&-A-3-&-A Just a some thoughts on a few lines from the introduction to Ari Hoenig’s book Systems: “In jazz or other triplet-based music, melodies which are written as eighth notes are often swung (played with […]
From the zone: The Wizard, by Albert Ayler
I’ve been preoccupied the last few days whipping into shape the 2013 Cruise Ship Drummer! Book of the Blog (available for order next week), so here’s a quick little something from my old notebooks: a […]
HFS III: the book reviewening
NOTE: This is something I started writing some months ago, never quite finished, and was unsure I even wanted to post it if I did. I’m putting it up now just to share some thoughts […]
DBMITW: my fat bass drum
Just sharing a little piece of my own development here. From the early 90’s, until I finally submitted to the too-soft, you-don’t-really-want-drums-on-this-gig-do-you craze of the mid-oughts, I played a 20″ Gretsch bass drum with Remo […]
Another list of standards
On George Colligan’s Jazz Truth blog there is a group email sent out by a student who sounds nearly as dickish as I was in college, with the heading: The George Colligan Standards List…LEARN THEM […]
Groove o’ the day: Tony Williams — Footprints
Here’s a Latin-style groove Tony Williams plays at one point in the odyssey of jazz percussion that is Footprints, a tune by Wayne Shorter, from Miles Davis’s album Miles Smiles. The tune is in 6/4, […]
How to play Dear Old Stockholm
Dear Old Stockholm is the English title of a traditional Swedish song, which, you are probably aware, has become a jazz standard. I don’t know who first started playing it as a jazz tune, but […]