Man, there’s just a whole lot of stuff besides blogging on my mind lately— like a Europe tour and recording project— so we may not see a lot of hugely substantive posts in the coming […]
Groove o’ the day: Elvin Jones — Tumblin’ Tumbleweed
Just back in town from a short quasi-vacation at the Oregon coast, and nothing on deck except, groan, another hip, generic “Latin jazz” groove, played by Elvin Jones on the tune Tumblin’ Tumbleweed on J.J. […]
Todd’s waltz — two measure phrase
Well, we should all have developed a pretty crushing medium-tempo waltz by the time we’re done here. Elaborating on my earlier “Todd’s waltz” piece— so-called (by me alone) because I don’t very often hear this […]
Groove o’ the day: a Blue Note waltz
Let’s do an easy one. Here’s Billy Gene English sketching out a simple, Blue Note-y, quasi-Latin waltz on the tune Wavy Gravy, from Kenny Burrell’s Midnight Blue: Swing the 8th notes. You can think of […]
Very occasional quote of the day: Monk on rehearsing
“What do you want to do, learn how to cheat?”— Thelonious Monk That’s from Russ Musto’s 2006 interview with Ben Riley on Allaboutjazz.com— highly worth reading. Riley had just been asked to join the band […]
Groove o’ the day: Idris Muhammad on Grant Green’s Carryin’ On
There’s some nice late-60’s funk drumming by Idris Muhammad (named Leo Morris at the time) on Grant Green’s Carryin’ On album. This is from the James Brown tune I Don’t Want Nobody To Give Me […]
With Ornette at the Five Spot
Ornette Coleman Another little excerpt from Scott K. Fish’s November, 1981 interview with Ed Blackwell, from Modern Drummer. Just a little snapshot of the scene at the Five Spot and the neighboring Jazz Gallery in […]
Completism ad absurdum
x10,000. Go. It’s kind of interesting when someone runs a common concept to its logical conclusion, forcing you to examine the premise of the original thing. In this case, the Stick Control model of practice […]
Coordination with a dotted-quarter cymbal pattern, in 5/4 — part 1
Extending this recent series of Dahlgren & Fine/Elvin-style coordination studies a bit further, here’s part one of the dotted quarter series, converted into 5/4: Swing the 8th notes and do the tom moves when you […]
Ed Blackwell in Africa
Since we’re doing a lot with Ed Blackwell lately, here’s a little snippet from his November, 1981 Modern Drummer interview by Scott K. Fish, in which he discusses his 1967 and 1968 tours of Africa, […]