Here’s a variation on the last jazz waltz POC we did, which has a syncopated 4:3 polyrhythm in the feet. Here the bass drum plays dotted quarter notes, and the hihat plays half notes, starting […]
Category: comping
Page o’ coordination: 2SB-2BS
Another entry using this slightly different conception of my page o’ coordination series— adding various cymbal rhythms to a repeating snare-and-bass coordination pattern. The cymbal rhythms are good for jazz, R&B, Afro-Cuban, or just general […]
Page o’ skiplets – 01
This is not a great method to self-teach, but for the few intrepid individuals this will help, or for the teachers out there whose students struggle to pick up jazz independence, this approach may help […]
Ben Riley comping
We lost a very great drummer this week, and one of a dwindling number of his generation: Ben Riley. He was best known for his playing with Thelonious Monk in the mid-60s, and with the […]
Comping the Billy way
Here’s a fresh lesson on simplicity in comping in jazz— file this along with the post about the “Kenny” note from a few years ago. I’ve transcribed some ideas from Billy Higgins’s playing on Things […]
Tony Williams comping
Here’s a nice record I would’ve have liked to have known about 30 years ago, on which Charles Lloyd is rocking a Jimmy Giuffre kind of vibe. It’s Of Course, Of Course, and it was recorded […]
Sonny Clark comping
Something a little different: transcribed piano comping rhythms. Played by Sonny Clark on Funky Hotel Blues, a bonus track on the CD release of Sonny Rollins’s The Sound of Sonny. I’ve written out the first […]
More Bad News
Comping lesson time— here’s more of that Roy Haynes track Bad News Blues, this time looking at what Roy is playing during the four choruses of the piano solo. The album is Cracklin’, and the […]
Transcription: Joe Chambers – Granted
Here’s a transcription of some jazz comping with a 3/4-within-4/4 feel, by Joe Chambers. This is from Granted, on Joe Henderson’s album Mode For Joe. It’s sort of a companion to the Elvin Jones Groove […]
From the zone: Five in seven in six in four
A little Thanksgiving treat shared on Facebook by my friend Steve Pancerev: Let’s walk through this— it’s difficult, but not impossible. I see a jazz rhythm there, and a crazy independent part with a double-beamed […]