My 2010 Europe tour with my group Pop Art 4 is firming up, ever so slightly. It will run approximately from October 26th through November 9th, with the bulk of the dates in Belgium- Ghent, […]
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 […]
Princess Wee-Wee
In his 2008 interview by Marc Myers at JazzWax, Roy Haynes talks about Lester Young and his reaction to Roy’s first 20″ bass drum: Roy Haynes: [Lester] was a very humorous guy. He had his […]
Erased De Kooning
Believe it or not, this work came up on a drumming forum. Admittedly, I was the guy who brought it up, but it was in response to this quote from GK Chesterton, posted by someone […]
Elvin Jones analysis – Big Nick
Here’s a little analysis- or catalog of ideas- extracted from my transcription of Elvin Jones playing on Big Nick, from Coltrane’s album with Duke Ellington. It’s a good introduction to Elvin’s playing for novice drummers- […]
Learning to comp with 16th notes is a necessary misery.
Here I’m elaborating on what some comments in a Drummerworld.com discussion on these pages/recorded example from Jim Chapin’s Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer: I could just be trying to drag everyone else into my […]
Jerry Bergonzi on drums and drummers
Just a few short pieces while I finish transcribing Vinnie Colaiuta’s playing on the epic guitar solo in 19/16 on Keep It Greasey, from Joe’s Garage… Here’s another nice piece from Ted Warren at Trap’d- […]
Humanizing the hard stuff
Over at Four on the Floor Jon McCaslin has posted several great duo videos featuring Max Roach, including clips with Dizzy Gillespie, Randy Weston, and this with Cecil Taylor: Max really warms up Cecil’s thing, […]
Favorite albums: Thelonious Monk Trio
Thelonious Monk – Trio Prestige 7027 Thelonious Monk – piano Percy Heath, Gary Mapp – bass Art Blakey, Max Roach – drums This record doesn’t seem to get talked about much, and I don’t know […]
What all the damn numbers on your camera mean
I encourage all of my friends to take up film photography, so to help them out of the trouble I have gotten them into, I’ll be posting a little series of pieces about my methods. […]