This is not a great method to self-teach, but for the few intrepid individuals this will help, or for the teachers out there whose students struggle to pick up jazz independence, this approach may help […]
Category: jazz
Ben Riley comping
We lost a very great drummer this week, and one of a dwindling number of his generation: Ben Riley. He was best known for his playing with Thelonious Monk in the mid-60s, and with the […]
Billy Higgins trading 4s
This is from the same tune as the recent post Comping The Billy Way— Things Ain’t What They Used To Be, with Hank Jones and Ray Drummond, from the album The Essence. Here Higgins is […]
Comping the Billy way
Here’s a fresh lesson on simplicity in comping in jazz— file this along with the post about the “Kenny” note from a few years ago. I’ve transcribed some ideas from Billy Higgins’s playing on Things […]
A rant: limits of playalong tracks
You playing along with a backing track. So, I watch the YouTube videos of drummers playing along with their playalong tracks, and sounding pretty OK, and I think you know, I probably wouldn’t sound any better […]
Groove o’ the day: Jimmy Smith / Midnight Special
In about 1991 I lived in Eugene, Oregon, and every once in awhile KLCC 87.9 would play something that would send you immediately to Cat’s Meow (the jazz record store that survived for 30 years […]
Transcription: Blues March – two intros
Two intros to a famous tune: Blues March, by Benny Golson. One is by Art Blakey, from the Jazz Messengers album Moanin’, and the other is by Lex Humphries, from Art Farmer and Benny Golson […]
Transcription: Steve Gadd – Autumn Leaves
We should make a series out of this: “little known records where you can learn more about a drummer than from his really famous ones.” Something like that. This 70s album by Chet Baker gives […]
Tony clichés
This is an interesting recording, with a strange performance by a great drummer, Marvin ‘Smitty’ Smith— it consists almost entirely of Tony Williams clichés. When I heard this in a record store I realized I […]