Today is my brother’s birthday, so here’s a link for John Bishop playing with pianist Hal Galper at Small’s in New York in February. Also in the group is the great Seattle (and elsewhere) bassist […]
Category: drums
Chick Webb drum lesson – part 2
Another time I went to see him, and I thought I’d hang out with him all night. Instead, he put me upstairs with a metronome, made that damn thing go at the slowest tempo you […]
Drumming/jazz glossary roundup
Here I have briefly reviewed a selection of drumming and related glossaries from around the web. Writing definitions requires a special type of mind and writing skill, and is a pretty tedious, thankless task, so […]
Chick Webb drum lesson – part 1
He came in wearing a camel-hair coat and a cap, and brought Ella Fitzgerald and a chihuahua with him. He said, ‘Make a roll, kid,’ and I started rolling—what I thought was a roll. He […]
Frankie Dunlop on Monk
UPDATE: Scott Fish has posted some of his interview recordings of Dunlop, and they are hilarious. Much about playing with Monk in this interview with Ben Riley from 1986 as well. Do check out my Dunlop […]
Feel in samba
I’ll start this post with an enormous caveat that Brazilian music is not my field of expertise at all. Many people around me are learning Portuguese, making trips to Brazil and being very serious about […]
The DNA of swing drumming
I picked up this interesting book- Charley Wilcoxon’s Drum Method– as one of my local sheet music stores was going out of business. I’d been working with Wilcoxon’s more advanced Rudimental Swing Solos, but this […]
Krupa G.P.
Still light posting, but listening to the Mel Lewis history of jazz drums interview and they’re discussing a favorite move of Gene Krupa’s- during a shout chorus leaving a dramatic silence where there would normally […]
Hal Blaine interview
Great article and interview with Hal Blaine at Jazz Wax, absolutely worth reading. If you haven’t heard of him, Marc Myers’ introduction should pique your interest: Except for the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and a […]
Why we transcribe
Yes, I look the same when I’m transcribing as Duke did when he was copying parts- immaculately-coifed, reclining in my suit surrounded by reams of parchment. I’m a pretty big transcriber, and I thought I […]