A baiao-type drum set groove from Airto— actually I don’t know what to call this. I’m not hearing obvious markers of a particular style. Maybe Airto’s just playing. Someone who really knows their berimbau rhythms […]
Category: grooves
Reed samba method – basic exercise
This is the first in a multi-post series outlining some ways of using Progressive Steps to Syncopation to do a samba. I usually use actual Brazilian rhythms for that, but many of the rhythms in […]
Groove o’ the day: Milton Banana – Samba do Perdão
A moderate samba groove using the tom toms, from one of my favorite Brazilian drummers, Milton Banana. He plays this briefly at the beginning, middle, and end of Samba do Perdão, from his album O Trio. […]
Groove o’ the day: Neftali Santiago – Positive Thing
Groove o’ the day by Neftali Santiago of the band Mandrill, one of the people you should be listening to to get a real 70s funk thing happening with your drumming— along with Jerome Brailey, […]
Page o’ coordination: cut time funk / fusion cymbal rhythm
A Page o’ Coordination for getting together basic funk coordination using a common fusion cymbal rhythm, that comes from Latin drumming— it’s also the jazz cymbal rhythm, not swung. The rhythm is difficult enough for […]
Idris’s clave
A page of beats based on a snare drum rhythm used a lot by Idris Muhammad. It’s a sort of one-bar clave, an inversion of the rhythm commonly called tresillo, starting on beat 3. I’ve […]
Groove o’ the day: Philly Joe Afro 6
From the Sonny Rollins album Newk’s Time, another individualistic version of an Afro 6/8 groove, played by Philly Joe Jones on Asiatic Raes, a Kenny Dorham tune. On the snare line, the x is a […]
Groove o’ the day: two by Idris Muhammad with Melvin Sparks
Two similar grooves played by Idris Muhammad with the guitarist Melvin Sparks. The tunes are also very similar, following the same basic template. Both grooves have this as the main snare drum rhythm: It’s a […]
Groove o’ the day: Al Jackson – Soul Dressing
Hip groove from Al Jackson on the tune Soul Dressing, by Booker T. and the MGs, from their 1965 album of the same title. They recorded so many of these tight little 45s, R&B miniatures— […]
EZ linear quarter note rock method
I may have written this up before, but I can’t find it in the archives, and I probably didn’t include the embellishments I’m going to tell you today, so what the hell, let’s do it […]