Like I said: a lotta 6/8. That feel has always been one of the stronger elements of my playing, but I thought I’d see what happens if I do a whole lot of more work […]
Author: Todd Bishop
Ronald Shannon Jackson 1940-2013
Very sorry to hear that the drummer and avant-garde master Ronald Shannon Jackson died today. This would be a great time to revisit his Modern Drummer interview from 1984, by friend of the blog Chip […]
Survival chops: cymbal and bass drum licks
Here is a collection of moderately easy, very functional, right-hand lead licks for the drum set. Normally I would arrive at these by other means— like, by playing Stick Control, Syncopation, or any paradiddle rudiment, […]
My art… on pillows!
Here’s a random thing— my sister, Christy Bishop, an interior designer, is releasing a line of high-end printed pillows, and is including some of my old (c. 1997-2001) works on paper in her art. So […]
Afro 6/8 with a backbeat
In my day we didn’t have fancy drum blogs giving us near-daily pages of nicely formatted, well-thought-out drum exercises free of charge. Our teachers just scribbled something in the margin of our tattered copy of […]
Kerrigan syncopation exercise in 6/8
I guess there’s no getting around it: we’re all about the 6/8 these days— there’s a whole bunch more of this on deck. This is a Chuck Kerrigan syncopation exercise, from his very useful Syncopated […]
How to play Jordu
About time I did another one of these: here’s Jordu, by Clifford Brown, as played on the definitive recording, Clifford Brown & Max Roach, on EmArcy. It gets played a lot at the high school […]
2013 Europe tour
Hey, my 2013 Europe tour, my fourth, is coming up in November— exactly four weeks from now. We’ll be playing music from my record Little Played Little Bird, the music of Ornette Coleman, and some […]
DBMITW: Rumba in Havana
Preoccupied with tour-related stuff this week, so here’s a Rumba group playing in the street in Havana:
Drum intro: Art Blakey — Straight, No Chaser
Every part of this is just so classically Art Blakey— except maybe his touch, which is somewhat gentler than usual. This is his intro on Straight, No Chaser, from Thelonious Monk’s album Genius of Modern […]