Mel Lewis plays a funk groove. The tune is Nat Adderly’s Jive Samba, and the album is Thad Jones / Mel Lewis, Central Park North, from 1969. The intro has some fun tom fills, so […]
Category: grooves
Groove(s) o’ the day: On the streets of Aba, Nigeria
I loved this video so much I wanted to lay on you a transcription of the whole thing, but we’re going to have to settle for just getting the basic groove. I hit a wall […]
Groove o’ the day: Tony Williams — Footprints
Here’s a Latin-style groove Tony Williams plays at one point in the odyssey of jazz percussion that is Footprints, a tune by Wayne Shorter, from Miles Davis’s album Miles Smiles. The tune is in 6/4, […]
Groove o’ the day: Ed Blackwell — Tarik
Here’s something from I think the first record with Ed Blackwell I ever bought: Tarik, by Dewey Redman. It’s sort of Blackwell’s tom tom thing boiled down to it’s smallest essence: It will be up […]
Groove o’ the day: Ronald Shannon Jackson — Behind Plastic Faces
I guess I’m blogging in couplets this week. Speaking of one of my favorite records, Decode Yourself, by Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society— long totally out of print, from a not-very-collectible era in jazz— I’m glad […]
Transcription: Tiki intro
Hey, some time ago I promised you a new book— a collection of transcribed intros— before the end of the year. Work on that got sidelined as I was preparing for tour, and there’s no […]
Groove o’ the day: Tiki Fulwood — Red Hot Mama
Another GOTD by my favorite Funkadelic drummer, Tiki Fulwood. The tune is Red Hot Mama, from Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On, by Funkadelic, of course. The groove for the verse: The song […]
Groove o’ the day: Ronald Shannon Jackson — Yugo Boy
Today we’ll do Ronald Shannon Jackson’s groove from the other day, Yugo Boy, from his 1984 album Barbeque Dog. Jackson was always coming up with distinctive grooves, and I don’t know why I haven’t shared […]
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 […]
Groove o’ the day: Bill Withers — Lovely Night For Dancing
This is by 70’s session drummer Alvin Taylor, who’s fairly little-known, but is on a lot of stuff. Here he’s with Bill Withers, on the album Menagerie. The song, Lovely Night For Dancing, is kind of […]