I received this question in the comments a while ago: I wanted to ask you a quick question about listening to (not playing) up tempos. I find that sometimes my brain shifts the hi-hat 2&4 […]
Practice loop: slow blues
Here’s a loop you’re going to need this week, as I finish writing the 6/8 prep for my patented(?) Harmonic Coordination Improved™ method. Sampled from Melvin Sparks’s Blues for JB, the tempo is a stately […]
Very occasional quote of the day: random factors
“Life is a cut-up; consciousness is a cut-up. Every time you walk down the street or look out the window, your stream of consciousness is cut by random factors.” — William S. Burroughs, The Adding […]
Page o’ coordination: 3/2 over 12
Adding to our already-voluminous background for playing an Afro feel, or any 6/8 or 12/8 feel. Here we’re phrasing in 3/2 and 12/8 at the same time, using a common cymbal pattern. It’s easier to […]
Daily best music in the world: what it is
Slow getting back into regular posting, but here are two great tracks that are better than anything I could write. If you don’t have a good jazz radio station in your city— you probably don’t— […]
Hemiola funk – repeated beats
More of this hemiola funk idea, putting the two basic 3/4 patterns into 4/4 by repeating each beat of the pattern… starting on each beat of the pattern. I don’t know if there’s a special […]
Ten tunes: oxygen
What a lot of people usedto learn this tune. A professional drummer friend wanted to get my take on ten essential tunes to learn, for drummers playing jazz. It’s a hard question, because an actual […]
Transcription: Art Blakey – The Egyptian
Here’s a drum intro… hey, this could go in my Book of Intros, which HAHAHAHA is still languishing a few hours of work away from completion… a drum intro, played by Art Blakey on The […]
Groove o’ the day: Like Sonny – alternate version
An Afro 6 feel recorded in 1959 by Lex Humphries on an alternate version of Like Sonny, from the John Coltrane Alternate Takes compilation. The master version of the tune was released on the album […]
I’m back
As you know, I just made another cymbal demo-and-delivery tour to Germany, with a side visit to Istanbul to meet Cymbal & Gong’s production team… which is just a bunch of guys working in a […]