I was working on our upcoming Book of Intros, and came across this cool Latin groove from a teenage Al Foster, playing on Blue Mitchell’s album The Thing To Do. The tune is Chick’s Tune, […]
Author: Todd Bishop
Making bass drum punctuations while feathering
A couple of the problems I have with the idea of playing time with the bass drum (“feathering”) in jazz are: 1) it’s easy to play the feathered notes too loud— a very hokey thing […]
Groove and totally gratuitous lick o’ the day: James “Diamond” Williams — Fopp
I was listening to some Ohio Players, and this, from the intro of Fopp, jumped out at me. It’s not the greatest thing in the world ever, but it’s fun: The 32nd notes are legato, […]
DBMITW: happy 80th to Wayne Shorter
In honor of the 80th birthday of the great saxophonist Wayne Shorter, here is one of my favorite solos of his— or of anyone else’s, ever— from Miles Davis’s Complete In A Silent Way Sessions […]
More meter-within-meter phrases
Here’s a little supplement to the meter-within-meter introduction of a few days ago: some additional two, four, and eight measure practice phrases: It’s easy to get yourself into trouble with this, so it’s important to […]
Transcription: Greg Errico — Anti Love Song
I could’ve handled this one as a groove o’ the day, probably, since the variations over the course of the piece are fairly minor, but I felt like writing out the whole thing, and didn’t […]
Why you don’t need to get paid
This guy will tell youwhat you deserve. I see that the old downloader “culture”— always a sketchy-sounding crew, even in the early days when they were led by high tech vanguard types writing in Wired— […]
“Bulletproof”?
I was directed to a musician’s blog that’s quite good, and seems to be worth keeping up with on a regular basis. The name makes me cringe: it’s called The Bulletproof Musician, which I’ll say […]
Getting started with meter-within-meter
Playing meter-within-meter— playing in one meter during a tune in a different one— is a very common rhythmic element in jazz, which became fully realized in drumming during the 1960’s by Roy Haynes, Elvin Jones, […]
VOQOTD: Al Foster on taste
“I’m trying to play less when keeping time behind a soloist,” Foster says, “not answering every phrase with the left hand and bass drum. You want to be on it, but not on everything. I’m […]