Here’s a fusion classic, Red Clay, by Freddie Hubbard, as played by Lenny White. For a time this was one of the most-played tunes in the world among college-age jazz musicians: Lenny plays really on […]
Category: fusion
Transcription: Jon Christensen — Keep It Like That- Tight
Here’s Jon Christensen doing some nice open, dynamic playing on a slow, static vamp: Keep It Like That — Tight from Terje Rypdal’s self-titled album on ECM from 1971. We love Christensen because he’s a […]
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, […]
Groove o’ the day: Vinnie Colaiuta — The Central Scrutinizer
The pdf links for last week’s Zappa features are now down, so, to assuage the pain for those of you who missed them, here’s Vinnie Colaiuta’s drum groove from The Central Scrutinizer, the opening track […]
Breaking down the Chaffee phrases
Since I have a little breather between finishing my taxes, stopping procrastinating about finishing my charts for Friday, practicing, teaching, and writing up a new Drum! contribution that might actually earn me some money (friendly […]
Groove o’ the day: Ivan Conti — Questao de Etica
More Brazilian fusion from Ivan Conti, of Azymuth. They really embraced the technology in the early 80’s, so a good amount of their stuff is fairly unlistenable, but the records with real drums on them […]
From the zone: Vinnie’s paradiddle-diddles
With this next entry we’ve got dueling fusion-era paradiddle-diddle licks, this time by Vinnie Colaiuta. This was sent in by fellow blogger Mark Feldman, who transcribed it back in the day from the 1987 Zildjian […]
Groove o’ the day: Peter Erskine — Clint
Because I like challenging you to hear past things that most people perceive as cheese, here’s a little relic of the later fusion era, by the great John Abercrombie trio with Marc Johnson and Peter […]
Transcription: Ivan Conti — Linha do Horizonte
OK, I may be really blowing what’s left of my credibility with you guys with this one, but I’ll just have to live with that. This is a goofy little thing with a nice drum […]
Gary Chaffee linear patterns
In the coming days we’ll be doing a little extension of a thing found in vol. 3 of Gary Chaffee’s Patterns series— an appendix, really— and since that’s not an everyday title like Reed or […]