“…you should start with a crash and end with a crash. I see drummers ending with a crash cymbal, but then choking it. When you hit that big chord at the end, let it ring. […]
Kernels of Cascara
My students have been doing so well with my “kernels” concept that I’ve decided to write up a real challenge for them: cascara with the clave in the left foot. It was the hip thing […]
@ The Blue Monk in PDX, 8pm
I’m off in a bit to play at the Blue Monk with composer/pianist Andrew Durkin’s sextet tonight. The group features some excellent players, including fellow blogger David Valdez and Scott Hall on saxophones. We’ll be […]
Bob Moses on “dependent” drumming
Or as he called it a little later in Drum Wisdom, “non-independent” drumming. This is relevant to some of the things I brought up both in the ECM feel post and the open-handed post: “I […]
DBMITW: Lenny White
Speaking of technically-monstrous maverick types, I finally found a copy of Lenny White’s fusion classic Venusian Summer yesterday. And yes, that really is the album cover, not the side of some dude’s Chevy van: More […]
Son Ship 1952-2011
Oh, man- I was surprised/delighted today to find an early-80’s Charles Lloyd record featuring the great, under-rated drummer Son Ship for $4 at Crossroads Music. I got the thing home and while I was listening […]
On “open-handed” drumming
Fine, now spend another hundred years learning to do it almost as well with your left hand. This is a discussion I have to re-litigate on the internet every six months or so: the “open […]
MD column: hi-hat technique
OK, I’m not meaning to turn this into a fair-use abusing, exclusively old Modern Drummer stuff blog, but a longer post is taking its sweet time getting finished, and this is just what I happen […]
Go watch now
The Max Roach story, at Four on the Floor. Here’s part 1/7:
1984 MD interview: Ronald Shannon Jackson
Here are some excerpts from an interview I reread many times on the long bus rides on drum corps tour, about the great avant-garde (that’s where he’s typically filed, anyway) drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. From […]