Kenny Clarke playing brushes on Swing To Bop, from the album The Immortal Charlie Christian. This was recorded live at Minton’s Playhouse in 1941— epicenter of the formation of bebop. We’re hearing a strong quarter […]
Category: jazz
Practice loop: Stolen Moments
Finished my taxes and I am exhausted, so here’s something for you to practice with: Freddie Hubbard’s solo on Stolen Moments, from Oliver Nelson’s Blues And The Abstract Truth. At 111 bpm, it’s a good […]
Jazz fills with Stone
Another item from a drum lesson. A student and I were playing around with Stick Control, using it as a launch pad for jazz fills. The starting place was my post on rubadub using Stick […]
Get it while you can: Different Drummers
4/23 update: It’s gone. You can try reaching Mr. Mintz through his website, to purchase a copy of the book, if he’s selling it, and/or send him some money for the illegal download. Now available […]
Best books: The Art of Modern Jazz Drumming – Dejohnette / Perry
“As our mental image becomes more precise, we are better able to select muscle movements which will achieve our goals quickly, efficiently, and accurately.” I’m surprised I haven’t written much about this book already— The […]
Todd’s jazz drill
A summary of something I’ve been doing lately. I hadn’t practiced for about a week, so to get my act together, I drilled some standard jazz methods using that recent page of practice rhythms. I […]
Cliché control – 5 stroke singles
Another Cliché Control page for learning to solo in jazz, combining stock licks. This time centered around 5-stroke singles: RLRLR or RLRLB. We’re squarely in Philly Joe / Art Blakey territory here— and a lot […]
Groove o’ the day: Afro 10/8
An interesting groove by Billy Kilson, on A Seeking Spirit, from Dave Holland’s Prime Directive album, one of the big records of the late 90s. If you’re not familiar, he had a very high powered […]
Transcription: Roy Haynes 8s
Hot on the heels of that “too perfect” post, here’s a great example of what I’m talking about in terms of playing with an edge: Roy Haynes trading 8s with Chick Corea on Rhythm-a-ning, from […]
Listening: Up Jumped Spring
I started transcribing this, but was too distracted by Ukraine developments to finish more than a page of it. It’s Up Jumped Spring, by Freddie Hubbard, from his album Backlash— I’m listening to a lot […]