Syncopation in 3/4

Here's a sheet to go with the 3/4 ride and hi-hat patterns from the other day.  Really it's just the phrases from "Syncopation Set 2" in Ted Reed's Syncopation with beats hacked off of it.

Try each of these with different ride and hi-hat combinations from the last sheet.  If you want to go deeper, Todd Bishop at Cruise Ship Drummer! has an entire book dedicated to Syncopation in 3/4.

Basic 3/4 ride and hi-hat combinations

I try not to post too much stuff here on the blog that is already widely available in a million other places, but I recently put this sheet together for a student and figured there was no harm in sharing it with all of you as well.  If nothing else maybe it will serve as a reminder to occasionally revisit the "basics".

I generally try to play through anything I give my students to make sure that A) the sheet is right, and B) I'm not asking them to do anything I haven't shed myself.  And funnily enough, while not difficult, this sheet showed me that there are certain ride and hi-hat combinations that just never made their way into my day-to-day playing.  It's not that I couldn't play them, but they just didn't feel as natural, especially when getting the left hand involved.  So it's been fun putting on Max Roach's Jazz in 3/4 Time and take these for a spin.

Groove Transcription - Eric Harland, "Karma"

The other day I mentioned that I went to see Eric Harland give a masterclass, which of course made me pull out some records with Harland on them and do a bit of playing.

As I've been doing a lot of 6/8 stuff lately I transcribed this groove from a small section of the Aaron Parks tune, Karma, from the Invisible Cinema record and spent some time with it this afternoon.

And speaking of this record, if you're a fan of it, it just so happens that Aaron gives away the charts to every tune on the album completely free over at the NextBop blog.  Do check it out.

Groove starts at 1:05

Groove Transcription - Marcio Bahia, "Minas"

It might just be coincidence, but there seems to be a trend among Brazilian drummers - at least the ones I listen to - of taking African or Afro-Caribbean bell patterns, and shifting the emphasized notes from where we college jazz program graduate gringoes would play them.  You might remember seeing the post on Kiko Freitas playing the Edu Lobo tune "Vento Bravo".

This time around it's former Hermeto Pacoal and current Hamilton de Holanda drummer, Marcio Bahia, who I've written about before.  Along with bassist Eduardo Machado, and pianist Gil Reis, the trio released an album last year called simply, "Em Tres".

There are two similar grooves here, mainly differentiated by what's going on in the right hand.

The groove itself is in 9/8 or 3/4, and feels pretty much like your standard Bembé minus one beat.  Bahia plays the Bembé pattern pretty much by the book on the ride cymbal throughout the first section.  But in the second bar, much like Kiko Freitas does on "Vento Bravo", he then shifts the bass drum to the third 8th note of beat 1.

The next section has a very cool little twist to it.  For the most part the bass and snare drum parts stay the same, save a few extra ghost notes.  But, now moving to the hi-hat, Bahia plays quarter notes in the right hand (or in his case, the left) and accents every other note.  So although the main groove is only two measures long, it now takes four bars to resolve.

I don't have a link that I can post, but the album is on Spotify if that's you're thing.

Groove Transcription - Will Kennedy, "Capetown"

Pedro Velasco has been keeping me busy with this Machimbombo stuff.  He's really inspired by many different styles of African music (particularly Malian) and is showing up to rehearsals with a lot of interesting 6/8 and 3/4 stuff.

So, on the one hand I'm just trying to continue to come up with new groove ideas in 6/8 so that I'm not constantly playing the same thing on all of his tunes.  And on the other hand I'm trying to get a little deeper into African rhythms that I'm not familiar with.  If you're a regular reader of this blog then I'm sure you're aware of my disdain for the term "Latin" in all it's vagueness, so believe me when I say that the hypocrisy is not lost on me when I use the equally vague term, "African".  But I'm working on it.  So here's a groove I've been fooling around with.  Apparently the parent rhythm originates in Cameroon, but in this case we're looking at a drum set orchestration by Will Kennedy on the Yellowjackets tune "Capetown".  Will calls it "Magabe" or "Mugabe", but a little Googling shows that the real name appears to be "Mangambeu".

The basic groove (as Will plays it) looks like this:

Now, I've notated it the way he counts it in, but I can't help but wonder if it would be more accurate to notate like so:

Again, I'm no expert on this rhythm, but it seems to be characterized by three things:

1. This shuffley hi-hat pattern, which presumably is derived from a bell pattern:

2.  The low sound - in this case a bass drum - emphasizing beats 4 and 5

3.  A high sound on the upbeats

Here it is in context with three quarters of the Yellowjackets and Will using one of those weird tilted drum racks that I didn't think any drummer ever used.

Transcription - Kenny Washington, "Where or When"

I love playing in 3.  But lately I've found myself struggling for vocabulary, falling into that rut that we’ve all experienced of feeling as though you’re playing the same ideas over and over and over.  So I thought it high time for me to transcribe something in 3.

This recording of the Rodgers and Hart number Where or When comes from an album that re-piqued my interest in straight ahead jazz, Bill Charlap’s Written in the Stars.  At a time when I was digging hard on players like Jeff Ballard, and Horacio Hernandez, and also listening to a lot of ECM music I came across this album - given to me by a great friend and piano player in Malaysia, Tay Cher Siang - and instantaneously fell back in love with the classic piano trio sound.

The album features bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington who is easily one of the finest straight ahead jazz drummer alive today.  Conjuring up audible images of players like Philly Joe Jones and Billy Higgins, Washington could have stepped out of a time machine from 1958.  But in no way do I mean to say that he sounds dated; simply that he clearly has a vast knowledge of the history of jazz drumming which informs his playing, all the while creating a sound that is distinctly his own.

Bill Charlap is another modern gem of straight ahead jazz.  Charlap is a living and breathing encyclopedia of the Great American Songbook with an affinity for unearthing great standards that many of us may have forgotten.  Admittedly, Where or When is not exactly an obscure standard.  A quick jump to Wikipedia shows us just how many times and by how many great artists this tune has been recorded, but still Charlap breathes new life into it without sounding the least bit trite.  As a strong advocate for learning lyrics even when playing instrumentally, his classy and sophisticated arrangements stay true to the meaning and heart of each song while still creating something unique and exciting without a hint of pretension.

On this recording Kenny could’ve played a stock 3/4 pattern, or very easily picked up the brushes, but instead he brings us a great 3/4 variation on the “Strollin’” groove.

This is the groove in it's simplest form.  Notes in parenthesis are played in some bars and not in others.

And below is a full transcription of the opening head.  Here notes in parenthesis are ghosted.

If you would like a PDF of this, or any transcription, please send me an e-mail.

As a side note, be sure to check out Peggy Lee singing Where or When with the Benny Goodman Orchestra.  Quite possibly my favorite arrangement of the tune.