“We’d have jam sessions at Minton’s where the tenor players were long-winded,” Roach explained. “Don Byas would play 20 minutes on ‘Cherokee,’ and then Johnny Griffin would play another 20 minutes, and then somebody else […]
Category: jazz
Listening: more Freddie
Let’s listen to some more Freddie Hubbard, again with Louis Hayes on drums. The album is The Black Angel, recorded in 1969, same as Hub of Hubbard. With James Spaulding, Kenny Barron, and Reggie Workman— […]
Accents on 8/8 jazz rhythms
A background project lately has been to create some ways of practicing feathering the bass drum as part of a modern, varying, organic jazz texture. This page is related to some things I’m hearing in […]
Transcription: Elvin Jones – Chasin’ the Trane – 05
Here is part 5 of this transcription— the 25th-30th choruses of Elvin Jones playing Chasin’ the Trane, from John Coltrane Live at the Village Vanguard. The transcription begins at 4:38 in the track. We’re nearing […]
Reed tweak: bass in the middle of the triplet
Let’s take a break from watching the national degradation of the United States and its democratic form of government reach its apex live on Twitter/TV, wanna? Yesterday I was practicing one of my recent Reed […]
Listening: holy shnikeys
A couple of standards from the album The Hub of Hubbard, by Freddie Hubbard. With Louis Hayes on drums and Richard Davis on bass, plus Roland Hanna and Eddie Daniels. Recorded in Germany in 1969 […]
Transcription: Elvin Jones – Chasin’ the Trane – 04
Happy actual new year, everyone. Here are the 19th-24th choruses of the ongoing Elvin Jones / Chasin’ the Trane transcription project. We’re about 25% of the way through. Not a lot new to report— there’s […]
Page o’ coordination: feet in the gap
Another little item inspired by the ongoing Chasin’ the Trane transcription— in which Elvin Jones does this a lot. Here we’ve got both feet in unison, played on the &s of 1 and 3, in […]
Transcription: Elvin Jones – Chasin’ the Trane – 03
Third minute of Elvin Jones playing Chasin’ the Trane, from John Coltrane Live at The Village Vanguard. The 13th-18th 12-bar choruses. I just noticed that the tempo— around quarter note = 235— is about the […]
Bass drum rhythms for feathering
I wrote this up after listening to Mel Lewis’s history of jazz drumming tapes, where he was raving about the importance of playing time on the bass drum (he really gets into it after 43:30). He […]