Trombonist, arranger, and educator Bob Brookmeyer has passed away; visit Jazz Wax has a nice obituary and retrospective of his career. Here he is playing with one of my favorite groups of the 50’s, the […]
All the grooves from Still Bill
Today we’ve got all of the grooves from the Bill Withers album Still Bill, with drumming by soul master James Gadson: Notes: – Swing the 16th notes on “Lonely Town, Lonely Street”. – Bass drum […]
MD interview: Ben Riley on Monk, more
Here are some excerpts from a Ben Riley interview I hadn’t read before- I didn’t know who he was when the September, 1986 issue of Modern Drummer came out. It’s a nice companion piece to […]
Transcription: Ndugu – Watch Out, Baby!
Here’s one of my favorite funk drumming performances ever, which I originally transcribed years ago off of my brother’s bootleg cassette- Ndugu Leon Chancler playing on Watch Out, Baby! from George Duke’s 1977 Reach For […]
Two more Paul Motian memorials
This time from someone who actually knew him and played with him, Ethan Iverson. Here’s the introduction: “Who was Paul Motian? A bald white guy without proper technique? One look at his trademark grip, choked […]
Ralph Peterson interview
Here’s a nice interview with Ralph Peterson by now-Portland pianist George Colligan. They talk about a lot of things, but I’ve pulled out the bits most related to actually hitting the drums, because that’s what […]
A stack of books
I got a nice deal on a pile of old books, and I thought I’d just give a quick overview of them, along with representative excerpts. Here, in no particular order: Rolls, Rolls, Rolls by […]
One more thing…
A word of advice: always, always, ALWAYS request USPS Priority when ordering online. I just received two book orders from the east coast, and they each took all of two days to get here- one […]
Typos in Wilcoxon
I just received in the mail a copy of an older edition (circa 1969) of Wilcoxon’s Modern Rudimental Swing Solos, and confirmed my suspicion that there are some typos in the new Sakal edition. First, […]