One thing I’ve noticed in recent years is that you can’t have a conversation about the drums in jazz without Baby Dodds coming up- he’s become kind of a signifier of seriousness about the subject. […]
Category: jazz
Transcription: Lenny White – Invitation
Here’s my transcription of Lenny White playing on Invitation, from Joe Henderson’s In Pursuit of Blackness. I made note of a couple of suspect measures that gave me problems originally. I haven’t proofed it recently, […]
Straight, No Chaser – two interpretations
You know, I think I’m kind of a Monk guy? Here’s something I did for a student some time ago- a comparison of Ben Riley’s and Art Taylor’s approach to playing on the head of […]
Charlie Haden interview by Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus
As I mentioned, I’m doing a lot of thinking about Ornette Coleman, and happened to find this excellent, extended 2007 interview with one of my favorite musicians ever, Charlie Haden, by Bad Plus pianist Ethan […]
Popular jazz tunes
Via NPR’s A Blog Supreme here is Jazz24.org’s list of top 100 jazz tunes, as suggested by their listeners. It’s not a bad place to start for beginners looking to get their repertoire together. There […]
Papa Jo and Big Sid
Jammin’ The Blues, a short film featuring Jo Jones and Sid Catlett. Watch for the trade off after 5:40: “Big Sid was like my brother. I never go anyplace without a picture of Big Sid […]
Ben Riley on Monk
Thelonious Monk’s other great drummer from the ’60’s, Ben Riley talks about joining the band, and an early performance experience: Performance clips after the break. You could but shouldn’t write a bop drumming textbook from […]
Transcription: Frankie Dunlop – Bolivar Blues
There is just a ton of good stuff on Jon McCaslin’s Four on the Floor blog– like this little 2010 piece on the great, under-appreciated drummer Frankie Dunlop, who was with Thelonious Monk for part […]