In honor of the 80th birthday of the great saxophonist Wayne Shorter, here is one of my favorite solos of his— or of anyone else’s, ever— from Miles Davis’s Complete In A Silent Way Sessions […]
Category: jazz
More meter-within-meter phrases
Here’s a little supplement to the meter-within-meter introduction of a few days ago: some additional two, four, and eight measure practice phrases: It’s easy to get yourself into trouble with this, so it’s important to […]
Getting started with meter-within-meter
Playing meter-within-meter— playing in one meter during a tune in a different one— is a very common rhythmic element in jazz, which became fully realized in drumming during the 1960’s by Roy Haynes, Elvin Jones, […]
Page o’ coordination: metric modulation — 2/3
Part 2 of this little three-page o’… unit. Actually, there are a couple of other previous pages you can work up as well— once you’ve learned any one page of this series, the others are […]
Page o’ coordination: metric modulation — 1/3
Or rather superimposed metric modulation, per Vinnie Colaiuta’s term, which few people use, but is actually correct. This is the first of three pages ‘o… developing a swing feel in 2 within a measure of […]
Paradiddle-diddle variations, for jazz
Hey, we haven’t done anything for the snare drum in awhile— in my own practicing I’ve been preoccupied with Dahlgren & Fine’s Accent On Accents books, and Buster Bailey’s Wrist Twisters, and my students are […]
Kenny Clarke plays an intro
Putting together a bebop podcast (which we’ll see here whenever I get it finished), this intro from 1941 by Kenny Clarke jumped out at me— the tune is Hot House, and the playing feels more […]
Page o’ coordination: another 5/4
OK, if you get burned playing a 5/4 because you haven’t practiced enough, don’t come crying to me. I’m doing all I can. This page is based on an ostinato that is sort of a […]
Perspectives on cymbals, part the first
You may have noticed that I’ve lately been advocating for heavier cymbals than are currently in fashion, especially among jazz drummers. After pursuing ever lighter cymbals for most of the oughts, finally settling on some […]
Page o’ coordination: 5/8 + 5/8 — 02
More fun with 5/4, gateway to all odd meters. I guess. Getting it together does seem to make the others quite a bit easier. This is our second entry using the 5/8+5/8 construction: When getting […]