What an insult for Fusion to impose the repetitive BackBeat on Jazz drummers! How ironic, since the BackBeat is merely the handclap used by American slaves when they were forbidden to have drums! How bizarre […]
Category: jazz
Two videos
Here are a couple of nice videos from my fellow drumming blogs while I recover from my little Oregon coast mini-vacation: First, a video on practicing by Steve Smith, from the excellent new Melodic Drummer […]
Transcription: Four – more intros
Once you get going on these, it’s hard to stop. And it looks like I’ll have to do one more, because in a near-inconceivable oversight, I left off my favorite one, by Tony Williams on […]
Very occasional quote of the day: Randy Brecker
It’s a reality these days that it is harder to tell guys apart trumpetistically, because we all study out of the same books, and there’s a certain trumpetistic artistry that’s prevalent these days. So it’s […]
Big band figure builder
Here’s another installment of a thing I’ve been doing with several students, using Syncopation lesson 4 to get familiar with the basic moves and reading associated with setting up and kicking big band figures (“cutting” […]
Very occasional quote of the day: Jack on Max
“…and he could play the fastest tempos!” – Jack Dejohnette on Max Roach I thought this one deserved its own post.
Know your tempos: what’s meant by up
In case you were wondering how fast you need to be able to play, here are a bunch of your favorite tracks spanning the break between “medium up”- where it’s still possible to swing- and […]
Kenny Washington overheard
Or the cyber-equivalent. Mark Feldman at the Bang! the drum school blog features a Facebook post by jazz drummer and scholar Kenny Washington, in response to a question about how to take one’s drumming “to […]
Basic Mambo
I guess I had to eventually post something directly drumming-related on my drumming blog, so here is an older piece I’ll be sharing with a couple of students today- some variations on a generic, very […]
Bill Evans speaks
Here’s a nice, timely (given the last post) find from Ted at Trap’d: pianist Bill Evans talking at length about music: