Repique de Anel Rhythms for Drumset

I first got this idea in a lesson I had with Kiko Freitas.  Kiko took Dotô’s rhythms of the repique de anel, and orchestrated them for drumset.  

You can revisit this post for more on Dotô and the repique de anel, but as a brief reminder, here’s what a common version of his signature groove looks like.

 

The left hand plays the “dois do bumbo” rhythm on the bottom head, while the right hand taps out a telecoteco-ish pattern on the shell of the drum.  The right and left hand together also make interjections reminiscent of 3rd surdo phrases.

I don’t want to share Kiko’s arrangements without his permission, and working on it gave me some new ideas.  So, I’ve come up with my own interpretation.

Kiko’s version required more in the way of chops.  At points there are four or five 16th notes in a row with one hand.  That’s no big deal at moderate tempos, but I thought the groove also had the potential to work well at brighter tempos.  And, I wanted to get a third pattern in there with a rim click, rather than using the snare.

So, here’s what I came up with….

 

The bass drum covers the left hand part, and the right hand on the hi-hat plays an almost identical rhythm to that of the right hand on the shell of the repique de anel.

The left hand then serves two roles on the rim click.  The accents outline a very common samba/bossa nova pattern.  But each note of that pattern is followed by a second note, intended to be played much quieter, ideally matching whatever volume you choose to play the hi-hat.  If done well, the rim click and hi-hat should blend together, creating a steady stream of 16th notes.

The result is constant 16th notes with two separate comping patterns while not having to play more than three simultaneous 16th notes.  The creates a more relaxed feel and should allow you to play it longer without fatigue.

Slide Technique

For years I’ve wanted to by able to play 16th notes in my right hand with the speed and sensitivity of my favorite Brazilian drummers like Edu Ribeiro and Celso de Almeida.  But despite huge amounts of effort, I always seemed to top out around 115 bpm, at least with any kind of touch.  I could go a little faster, but then it started getting clunky.

I tried playing around with the push/pull technique, but it just never clicked with me.  It felt very unnatural and I found it difficult to make it sit.  I could go a little bit faster with it, but the couple extra clicks I gained were at the expensive of good swing and finesse.  Besides, I’d always been a bit of a traditionalist and wary of such extended techniques.  I remember being in a master class with Kenny Washington where he said something to the effect of, “I don’t mess with all this push/pull or any of that bullshit.”  But on the other hand, I thought, if it gets me to where I want to go sonically, then who cares?

So, a few months back I started putting in some serious effort to what most people call the “slide technique”.  There seems to be a handful of different approaches to it, but they all work in essentially the same fashion.  Rather than bouncing the stick, or push and pulling, it’s swept from side to side, so that each motion that would traditionally yield one sound gets us two.

I asked Kiko Freitas about it in a lesson shortly before I started working on it in earnest, and he pointed out that it comes from brush technique.  Marcio Bahia's style of playing with brushes is a perfect example.  

But, as I started to get more comfortable with this technique I realized that for me, even more so than brushes, it feels very similar to playing a shaker.  And to my ear that vibe very much comes out in the sound as well, to the point where I’ve been using it even at slower tempos that I would be able to play normally because it creates that relaxed feel so indicative of Brazilian music.

One thing to note that can be either a drawback or a bonus, depending on who you are, is that it can be difficult to get a big sound out of this technique.  For me it’s great because it naturally has that very light sound that I’m after.  But, If you’re a hip hop or metal drummer looking for speed AND power then this may not be for you.

Let’s take a look at this technique in action.  It’s popped up on the blog once or twice before.  The video below appeared in this post from 2018, which features an unknown drummer who might be Cesar Machado.  His technique is more of a twisting motion, which seems to me would hurt after awhile, but clearly works for some.  The original video is no longer on YouTube, but you can see it here.

 

This technique also appeared last week in the Arismar do Espirito Santos video.  Like in the video above, Arismar uses a bit more of a twisting motion.  However, he places his index finger over the stick on the same side as the thumb.  This helps him get more power.  For me, though, I found this made it much more difficult to get into and out of the slide, so I’ve avoided it.

There are three other drummers out there today who use some variation of this technique and, not too surprisingly, they’re all Brazilian.

Ramon Montagner who plays one handed rhythms that seem to defy the laws of physics also uses the slide technique in addition to all of the crazy contortionist push/pull motions he’s capable of.  Here’s a slow-mo of his motion:

Douglas Alonso plays a sort of variation on the slide technique.  In the video below, you’ll notice that his style is based on the motions of pandeiro playing and is more complex than the simple back and forth motion.  He starts discussing it around 3:20, and is worth a watch even if you don't speak Portuguese.  But if you want to jump straight to the meat and potatoes, it's at 7:45.

The most recent person I’ve discovered using this technique to great effect is Diego Zangado.  His version seems to be the most straightforward and what I looked to the most when trying to put this together.

So, I tend to think of it a bit like full strokes in German grip, but your thumb is on top like French grip.  That way what would be each down stroke and up stroke you achieve a note with a glancing blow.  You'll have to let your hand relax at the wrist a bit so that the stick isn't moving in a perfectly straight line.  It takes a little tweaking to really feel it and find the sweet spot.

And I tend to lead with the back of my hand, at least when playing samba, so that the downbeats and "&s" move away from me, and the "e" and "a" move towards me.  This is 1. to more closely mimic the motion of a shaker, and 2. because the strokes coming towards you will almost always have a little more weight to them.  This puts a slight emphasis on the "e" and "a", which is exactly what we want when playing samba.

All that said, I do practice it in both directions, so it's more applicable to other styles.

 

Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions about this technique.

Dig This - Arismar do Espírito Santo on drums

Arismar do Espírito Santo is one of those enigmatic figures in music.  He is a prolific composer, and is very much beloved in Brazil and abroad.  Many of his compositions are already modern day standards, and I think most would agreed that it's fair to label him a living legend.

Beyond his incredible writing, Arismar plays most instruments to a very high level.  Many other multi-instrumentalists seem to have a primary instrument, and then happen to be good at others as well.  I'm not sure that is the case for Arismar.  He seems to gig regularly on guitar, bass, piano, and drums, and many of his albums are multi-tracked with him playing every instrument.

About a year ago he released a series of videos on his YouTube channel in which he talks about and plays many of his instruments.  My Portuguese isn't great, and he tends to speak fairly quickly and colloquially, but still, the musical content is fantastic.  Even if you don't speak a word of Portuguese, the playing alone makes it worth the watch.  His style is incredibly creative, while being steeped in tradition.

Below are the videos on drumset and percussion, but as a rhythm section player the others are certainly worth a watch as well.

 

Groove Transcription - Celso de Almeida, samba cruzado

Samba cruzado is one of, if not the, earliest forms of playing samba on the drumset, predating the use of cymbals as pioneered by Edison Machado.  You can hear this style in the playing of drummers like Walfrido Silva and Luciano Perrone.  

Cruzado, which means "crossed" in Portuguese, refers to the way one must cross their arms to play this style.  But, rather than crossing our dominant hand over our weaker hand as most of us do with our hi-hat, we cross our weaker hand over our dominant hand.  This is because the dominant hand plays telecoteco on the snare drum, while the weaker hand mimics the surdos on the toms.

I've had a more in-depth post on samba cruzado in the draft folder for ages, and I really am hoping to get to it soon, but in the meantime, I've been doing a lot of playing along to this loop I created of Celso de Almeida playing a more modern style of samba cruzado from his self-titled 2014 album.

Here Celso plays a steady stream of 16th notes on the snare drum in his right hand, and uses accents to present a typical bossa nova pattern:

 

In his left hand, Celso plays the toms to mimic surdos, including a third surdo-like turn of phrase:

And with his feet, he plays what is probably the most common bass drum/hi-hat combination:

 

 

Here it is all together, with a loop of Celso playing it to help capture the feel:

 

Transcription - Enéas Costa, "Sonho Meu"

Enéas Costa is a real mystery as best as I can tell.  His discography is impressive, having recorded with the likes of Gal Costa, Chico Buarque, Edu Lobo, and Caetano Veloso. But I've never been able to find out much else about him; where he is/was from, whether he's still alive, nothing.  The only thing I've ever found is one picture which supposedly shows him playing with the great saxophonist J.T. Mereilles, and bassist Luizão Maia, who played with Elis Regina for many years.

 

 

But we can certainly hear a lot of him, because his name appears on many an album credit.  In addition to the names above, Costa also did considerable work with Maria Bethânia.  Here he is playing the standard "Sonho Meu", from Bethânia's album Álibi.  This recording also features Gal Costa on vocals, Rosinha de Valença on guitar and cavaquinho, the aforementioned Luizão Maia on bass, and a young Tutty Moreno on percussion.

I've done a traditional note-for-note transcription, but below that is a simplified version, which just shows the comping pattern, which is the real sauce of the phrasing and what we're likely most interested in gleaning from a transcription of this nature.  You can then play along with the recording with brushes, a tamborim, whatever you like, really.

 

 

 

Simplified version:

 

Brazil again

I was fortunate enough to kick off 2024 with another trip to Brazil along with many of my fellow Brazilian music nerds here in London.

With only a few short weeks to Carnival, Rio was completely abuzz with incredible music and atmosphere.  Whereas on the last trip in 2022 I saw more jazz, this trip afforded me the opportunity to visit some of the samba schools as they prepare for Carnival.

I did have a chance to catch up with some of my favorite drummers, and new friends that I met on the last trip, like Renato Massa, Marcus Thadeu, and Marcio Bahia.

Marcio Bahia

But thanks to some well connected friends I was able to visit some of the oldest, and most respected samba schools in Rio, like....

Portela

Mangueira

Salgueiro

....and see some technical rehearsals in the Sambódromo.

I also had the great pleasure of seeing master pandeirista, Bira Presidente, at Cacique de Ramos, where Fundo de Quintal was formed.

If, by chance, you're at all interested in seeing more pictures and videos from the trip, you can head over to my Instagram page and see "Brazil trip '24" in my highlighted stories.

Now that I'm back in cold, dark London, I have quite a few posts in the works that I hope to get up here for you soon.

Sticks (Baquetas) ala Toninho Pinheiro

Apparently, this is how the great Brazilian drummer, Toninho Pinheiro, liked his sticks....

And I think his were even sharper.

Now, I didn't want to destroy a perfectly good pair of sticks, so I figured I'd try it on an old pair first.  These were chewed up from many a rim click, and the tips were chipped.  So I sanded the shaft smooth, sanded the tip all the way off, and then applied a couple coats of finishing oil, and I have to say, they're actually pretty cool.  Not sure I'll be doing it all the time, but it was a worthy experiment.

Toninho first started doing this because he was playing background music in restaurants and wanted a more delicate sound without having to mute his heavy Zildjian Avedis cymbals.  It ended up becoming part of his sound as he found the modified sticks to be perfect for the delicate cymbal sound needed to play Bossa Nova.

I didn't do the final step, which was, after removing the tip with sandpaper, dipping the new tip in a mixture on paint thinner so as to draw out any moisture, which further helped to create a light attack.  He used to heat his sticks for the same reasons.

I've read that other Brazilian drummers of the time did this as well so as to be able to play faster tempos at lighter dynamics, but I can't seem to find reference to any names other than Toninho.

Tonhino's name doesn't seem to get mentioned as much as Edison Machado, Milton Banana, and Dom um Romão, but you should definitely check him out if you're at all interested in Brazilian jazz.  He did long stints in Jongo Trio who supported Elis Regina, Som Três, a trio with Cesar Camargo Mariano that backed Wilson Simonal, and with Dick Farney's trio.  And he worked as a sideman with many of the biggest names in Brazil, like Alaíde Costa and Beth Carvalho.

Brazil

Apologies for the light posting lately.  Since Covid "ended" this year has been delightfully busy, culminating in a 17 day trip to Brazil these last couple week for gigs, lessons, and general hanging out.

In those 17 days I managed to study with three of my favorite drummers....

Kiko Freitas

Edu Ribeiro

Celso de Almeida

....and meet quite a few more at the 21 gigs we went to.  I heard and was able to chat to a number of other musicians whose work I've listened to for many years but have never had the chance to meet or see live, and discovered some serious young musicians who should definitely be known outside of Brazil.  I also had a chance to sit in on some choro, samba, jazz, and even at Vila Isabel escola de samba with Andre Siqueira whose playing I've transcribed for the blog before.

There is, of course, always more to learn, but the trip also confirmed and reinforced much of my understanding of certain Brazil styles, especially samba and forró.  I've had a few pieces in the works the last couple months that I'll soon be publishing with renewed confidence.

I don't want to gush too much here on the blog as this is meant to be an educational resource, so if you'd like to see more pictures and videos from the trip head over to my Instagram page and see "Brazil trip '22" in my stories.

Telecoteco-ish phrases from Syncopation

A couple of my students have been working on Allison Miller's Latin bell patterns with Syncopation idea that I posted last year, where we play some sort of constant latin groove with both feet and the left hand and then read "Syncopation Set 2", or page 38 with the right hand.  Be sure to revisit the original post if you're not sure what I'm talking about.

This got me to thinking about how I could apply this to samba and Bossa Nova drumming.  If you remember from some of the posts on samba rhythms, particularly Partido Alto or Telecoteco, the underlying rhythms in samba generally have an "up" side and a "down" side.  The phrase then goes UP, DOWN, DOWN, UP or DOWN, UP, UP, DOWN.  It suddenly struck me that if we take each bar in Syncopation and play beats 1, 2, 3, 4 and then follow it with beats 3, 4, 1, 2 we end up with a similar "up" and "down" pattern.  For example, in "Syncopation Set 2" number one looks like this:

If we play that bar as written, and then immediately follow it with beats 3, 4, 1, 2 we get this:

Now that's looking a lot like a phrase we would expect to see in samba, especially if you think of it as 16th notes in 2/4:

You can now use that rhythm the same way you would any other telecoteco rhythm.  Put it in your left hand behind a hi-hat/ride cymbal ostinato, or put it in your right hand behind a samba groove.  As always, you can reach for the "Jazz Samba Builder", or some of the Kiko Freitas samba ideas.  If a note appears in parenthesis try playing it the first time only and leaving it out each subsequent time it goes by.  It will feel even more like a true samba phrase.

Because some of the examples in Syncopation are already reversed farther down the page we would end up with a lot of repetition.  So I've gone through the four pages of "Syncopation Set 2" and written each example out as 16th notes in 2/4.  Try it out in any of the ways mentioned above.  Send me an e-mail for a PDF.

Rafael Barata samba practice loop

It's been a little awhile since I've done one of these practice loops, but this one has really been coming in handy lately for both teaching and my own practice.

This comes from the opening track of Rosa Passos' 2011 album É Luxo Só named after the Ary Baroso tune of the same name that is very much a Brazilian standard.  The whole album is an absolute clinic of samba and bossa nova drumming.

The loop below is simply Barata playing surdo and a telecoteco pattern on tamborim, leaving lots of room for you to try things out with it.

And, as there is no harmony or melody on this loop, you are free to practice on both sides of the rhythm, feeling it like this:

...or like this:

Transcription - Rubinho Barsotti, "No Balanço do Jequitibao"

So, I finally got around to that Rubinho transcription I promised ages ago, and it turned out to be a nice intro to playing samba in odd meters, something we've yet to cover on this blog.

Released in 1966, Zimbo Trio's album Volume 3, the album on which this track is found, came out at a time when odd time signatures in jazz, and especially samba and bossa nova, were still pretty novel.  I don't know of many before this.  So that could explain why there isn't a whole lot of improvising going on here.  Or maybe Rubinho was just holding it down and intentionally being understated.  Either way, the bulk of the tune is the same bar or two orchestrated just a couple of different ways.

Spending just a little bit of time with the four examples above should give you a pretty good grasp of a common samba feel in 5/8.  But if you want to play along with the recording, here is the transcription in full.  The track starts at 22:11, and the transcription starts after the intro, when the bass line comes in.

Transcription - Wilson das Neves, "Deixa Isso Para Lá"

One of the great Brazilian drummers whose work we have yet to explore on this blog is Wilson das Neves.  Besides being a great drumset player, das Neves was also a percussionist, singer, and composer, and worked in the realms of samba, bossa nova, and samba-jazz

Though he died in 2017, das Neves remained active for the duration of his life, appearing on the Roberta Sá album Braseiro which we've looked at before, and in the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics in 2016.

In 1968, das Neves released an album together with Elza Soares entitled simply Baterista: Wilson das Neves.  On it is the piece "Deixa Isso Para Lá" which is transcribed below.  While it does include the rest of the band, the bulk of the tune is a drumset and vocal duet between the two leaders.

As we've recently been talking about rhythmic direction in telecoteco and how some of the samba-jazz drummers of the 60s and 70s were liberal in their treatment of it it's interesting to note that das Neves actually adheres quite strictly to the rhythmic direction in this recording, (and nearly every other one I've heard).  His rim clicks play very much like a tamborim part from a samba.  I'm presuming this is because das Neves had a background in traditional batucada-style drumming and spent time in one or more escolas.  With that in mind, check out the extra beat in the middle of page 3.

In old jazz recordings it's not completely uncommon to hear what may sound like a bar of odd time, or an extra beat.  Usually, this is from an old-school tape edit where two takes are being spliced together.  However, that doesn't appear to be the case here.  Rather, I think it's more likely the Wilson is playing those quarter notes in the subsequent bars to see where Elza is going to phrase her melodic line in an attempt to stay on the correct side of the rhythm.

Also, note that at the beginning of many of the phrases you can clearly here das Neves playing an entrada before carrying on.

Finally, if you speak Portuguese, or know someone who does, it's worth checking out this short documentary on the making of Baterista: Wilson das Neves.

Transcription - Milton Banana, "Doralice"

A little while back when we looked at the Milton Banana transcription of "Cidade Vazia" I mentioned that some of the jazz influenced Brazilian drummers of the 1960s didn't always follow a specific rhythmic direction, and I hypothesized that part of this may have simply ignorance on their part.  While that could potentially be true for some drummers, it's clearly not the case with Milton Banana.  On the album Getz/Gilberto Banana puts on a clinic on how to properly improvise within the confines of rhythmic direction.  And he's doing it on nothing more than a hi-hat.  We've seen João Gilberto using minimal percussion to great effect before when we looked at Sonny Carr.

If you look at the first and third bar of each line you'll notice that with only two exceptions Banana always starts the phrase with two 8th notes.  In the second and fourth bars of each line there is no instance where he plays a note on the downbeat.  Of course telecoteco goes deeper than just being on the beat one bar, then off the beat the next, but this simply highlights the fact that Banana is staying true to that rhythmic direction.

Also note how subtle Banana is with his improvisation.  He's improvising quite a bit.  On very few occasions does he play the same phrase twice in a row.  But he's never more than a note or two away from a stock telecoteco pattern; an 8th note turned into two 16th notes here, a note omitted there.

The transcription below shows only the accent pattern, but this is filled in with 16th notes through the entire song.  As with the other transcriptions of this style that we've done try orchestrating in different ways around the kit, and with different patterns in your other limbs.  A few ideas to get you started:

• With brushes, play the transcription with the 16th notes filled in in your right hand, and sweep with your left hand
• Play 16th notes on the hi-hat and read the transcription on a rim click
• Play 16th notes on the hi-hat and read the transcription with both hand, sometimes playing a rim click, and sometimes playing an accent on the hi-hat.  This works particularly well when playing the bass drum just on beat two.  We saw Cuca Teixeira do this in one of the first ever posts on this blog
• Read the transcription on the ride cymbal, and:
• fill in the gaps on the snare
• play "e & a" on the snare
• play "1, e, a" on the snare ala Kiko Freitas

You Be the Drummer - Milton Banana, "Cidade Vazia"

If you listen to a lot of music from the 1960s, when stereo was the new hip thing, you may notice that there is some seriously hard panning, presumably because the technology was still relatively new.  Sometimes things are panned to the point where certain instruments are only heard out of one speaker.

This can be really beneficial when transcribing, as it's possible to cut out half of the instruments and isolate more of what you want to hear.  A little bit of fiddling with the EQ can make this even more effective.  I've done this quite a lot in my own transcribing, but for some stupid reason it never occurred to me to do this in reverse.

The idea struck me the other day as I was transcribing "Cidade Vazia", and in playing around with it I figured out how to take this concept a step further in order to make play along tracks.

In this recording, the piano and bass are panned hard left, with almost no drums on that side.  So I dropped the track into GarageBand and panned the channel hard left.  I then copied the file to a new track and, using a built-in GarageBand plugin, flipped the signal so that piano and bass were in the right channel, and then panned that track hard right.  What I was left with was a version of the song with the drums almost completely gone.  I then dug into the EQ, bringing the bass up a bit amongst a few other things, which further pronounced the effect.

So, I now have the original Milton Banana recording of "Cidade Vazia" with almost no drums in it, essentially creating the best play along track you could ask for, and I share it with you today.  Check out the transcription in the previous post and enjoy!

Transcription - Milton Banana, "Cidade Vazia"

Following on from the telecoteco stuff we've been talking about lately, here's a different take on it, by Milton Banana.  Banana was one of the earliest and most prominent drummers of "Samba no Prato" (Samba on the cymbals).  Prior to that, samba on the drumset was much more focused on the drums themselves, and sounded more like a batucada ensemble.  They often played in a style called "Samba Cruzado".  I've got a post coming up on that very soon.

Edison Machado is credited with being the first drummer to play "Samba no Prato", but Banana was right there with him, playing on many of the great Bossa Nova records and a lot of samba jazz, particularly with his own trio, which released quite a few albums over the years.

Drummers of the samba-jazz, or hard bossa, genre like Machado and Banana, as well as Rubinho Barsotti, Paulo Braga, José Roberto Sarsano, and many others, seem to be more relaxed about staying true to the direction of the telecoteco. I've heard differing theories on this, the two most prominent and plausible being:

1. These drummers were inspired by American jazz and American jazz drummers, and actively chose to take a more laissez-faire approach to the direction of the rhythmic cycle in order to have fewer constraints on their playing/improvising.  In this case, the telecoteco parts are more of a "vibe" than a true rhythmic cycle and serve a similar role as that of the left hand of an American-style jazz drummers; comping, essentially

2.  The concept of rhythmic direction that we see in telecoteco is a characteristic of the music that comes from African traditions.  The majority of the drummers from this period and genre were white.  It has been argued that they were simply ignorant to correct interpretation of the rhythm and were merely emulating it to the best of their abilities.

I'm not sure which one is true, or which one I would prefer to be true.  Players today, like Marcio Bahia, Edu Ribeiro, Kiko Freitas, Celso Almeida, etc. tend to stay true to the rhythmic direction, but this does not clarify why the older guys didn't.  It could be that these contemporary players have a renewed interest in traditional approaches, or it could be that they learned the traditions that the previous generation were unaware of.

You'll hear in this recording that Banana isn't necessarily flipping the rhythmic direction, but he's also not adhering strictly to the traditional "rules" of it.

Let me be clear that I'm not saying what Banana is doing is right or wrong.  I'm simply observing as I find this stuff terribly fascinating.  Banana is one of my absolute favorite drummers and one of the most beloved and respected ever to come out of Brazil.  But hardcore samba purists take the direction of the rhythmic cycle very seriously, and flipping it or not playing by the rules is sacrilege.

Aaaanyway, here's the transcription.  E-mail if you'd like a PDF, and enjoy.

Transcription - Marcelo Costa, tamborim on "A Vizinha do Lado"

Continuing on with our look at telecoteco and other Brasilian comping rhythms here is a tamborim transcription from "A Vizinha do Lado" on Roberta Sá's record Braseiro.

Just as with jazz or any other style of music, one of the best ways to learn how to execute these rhythms in a stylistically appropriate fashion is to go straight to the source and listen and transcribe.  In this case we hear percussionist Marcelo Costa on tamborim starting about halfway through the tune.  This one will require some serious listening as there is a lot of shape and articulation that is not notated.  I intentionally did not write any articulation A) so as to make it clearer to read, and B) so anyone following along and/or trying to play this wouldn't get bogged down by notation, but rather, would simply listen.  That said, there are a couple of things worth drawing your attention to.

What I've notated in the transcription are just the notes played by the stick on the head of the tamborim.  Quite often, with the hand holding the drum, the underside of the head is tapped with the a finger in between the notes played with the stick.  So, a stock telecoteco pattern would look like this:

Almost 100% of the time when you find two 16th notes side by side, the first is a pick-up note played far more quietly than the second note, which is then accented.

Note that Marcelo is improvising here, but he is always on the correct side of the rhythm.  If you play any stock telecoteco pattern (see the "up" side of the sheet linked here) through the whole tune you will notice that it never crosses the melody or anything that Marcelo is playing.  This is extremely important when improvising in this style, and we'll chat more about how to do this next time.

Finally, remember that these rhythms are completely transferrable.  You don't have to be a tamborim player and/or percussionist for this transcription to be useful to you.  Try orchestrating it a number of different ways while playing along to the recording.  Here are a few ideas to get you started:

*Read the transcription on rim click with any of the right hand and feet ideas from the samba starter
*Play 16ths notes with brushes and accent the notes of the transcription, again with feet patterns from the samba starter
*Play the transcription on the ride cymbal, and fill in the gaps with ghost notes on the snare.  Feet, samba starter.  You get the idea.