Jacob Collier - "Djesse Vol. 4"

Now that it's been released I'm allowed to tell you that I had the great pleasure last year to spend an evening in the studio with Jacob Collier to play a very small part in recording his newest record, Djesse Vol. 4.  No drumming, I'm afraid, but I do appear on two tracks singing backing vocals and doing hand claps.  The vocal track features rhythms from all over the world segued seamlessly from one to the next, as seen in the very cool video at the link below.

Unfortunately, embedding was disabled, but you can still check it out on YouTube: 
https://youtu.be/f7oGC2mdlkQ?si=7qf76oymlzFsNT6C

10 years of "That Drum Blog"

It's hard to believe, but I first posted to this, my own little nerdy corner of the internet, 10 years ago today.  Thank you very much to everyone who has read the blog, and been in touch with questions and comments.  I have enjoyed it immensely.  Some years I post more than others, but regardless, I have no plans of stopping any time soon and hope that 2024 will afford me some more time to transcribe, write, post and share with all of you.

Happy New Year!

Handmade pandeiros

If you're a regular reader of the blog then I certainly apologize for my incredibly light posting in recent months.  For one, I'm working on a new record with my band, Samba Azul.  But also, I've been building my own pandeiros, which I'm delighted to share with you now.

I'm not bending my own shells, yet.  But everything is cut, drilled, filed, and finished by hand.  And most importantly, the platinelas (jingles) are completely hand cut, hammered, and lathed.

I've been working with blank shells, but I've also experimented with upcycling old toms that have been separated from their drumset family.

If you're interested in purchasing one, drop me an e-mail and we'll chat about the different options available.

New release by Joy Ellis - "Dwell"

Pianist/singer/songwriter, Joy Ellis, with whom I've been working for 10 years now has just released her new album, Dwell, to some lovely reviews.  Putting this record together was a lot of fun and a good challenge for me as Joy was after some unique rhythmic ideas.  Trouble was, she didn't know exactly what she wanted, but she did know exactly what she didn't want.  So, I was forced to come up with some new grooves with which I am pretty happy.  Two in particular that I felt came out nicely were "Castles" and "Family Tree"




I've also gotten a lot of compliments on the snare sound of the title track, "Dwell".  Funnily enough, this is an old Yamaha Maple Custom which was missing one lug entirely.  I tuned it all the way down until it was just barely finger tight, and put a wash cloth on about a quarter of the head.  We recorded at the phenomenal Eastcote Studios in London, and despite being surrounded by thousands of dollars of drum mics, engineer, George Murphy, opted to simply put a good ol' SM57 on it.

You can check out the entire album in the sidebar.

New blog on the block

Kyle Andrews, a great young drummer from West Virginia, now has his own blog over at kyleandrewsdrums.com.  Kyle studied at West Virginia Wesleyan College with my good friend James Moore and went on to do a Masters at Indiana University.  He is now freelancing in Philadelphia, and no doubt tearing it up as he is a very fine drummer.  Kyle has some great knowledge to drop, so do swing by and check out the new blog.

Guest blog post on Brazilian music

The folks at the Omnibus Theatre, in Clapham, London have asked me to put together a list of Brazilian records ahead of our show on Sunday. Check it out if you're looking for some "new" music.

TDB featured on Tutorful.co.uk

Rachael Sprague at Tutorful, has put together a nice collection of drumming reference material ranging from YouTube channels, books, apps, forums and *ding* blogs.  It appears that there are people out there who enjoy what I do here at That Drum Blog, and Rachael was kind enough to include the blog in her editorial.

Do follow the link and check out the article.  There's a lot of great stuff, some of which I wasn't yet familiar with and am looking forward to checking out.

Many thanks to Rachael for her efforts and for including my little slice of the internet, and to all of you who read the blog.

John "Jabo" Starks

It appears as though the drumming community has lost another one of it's greats.

According to his Facebook page, John "Jabo" Starks has passed away.

Spin a little James Brown or B.B. King today and play some grooves to thank Jabo for all the great music.

Joy Ellis album launch, tour, and videos

I'm currently on a week long tour of the UK with Joy Ellis after a completely sold out album launch at Pizza Express Dean St.  Joy has released a couple of music videos to promote the album, so I thought I'd throw them up here, especially as some of the grooves I played were inspired by some things I've written about on the blog.

You can listen to the album in it's entirety (and buy it!) here...

(More)chimbombo

Another clip recently became available from the filming I did with Machimbombo earlier this year.  The audio from this session is also available as an EP if you're interested.  See below.

Project Terrarium

It's been a busy spring, and I've been lucky enough to be asked to play for some fun projects.  Here's another one I did recently led by saxophonist Josef Stout called Project Terrarium.

Machimbombo

Here's a little video of a new-ish project I've been working on led by Portuguese guitarist Pedro Velasco called Machimbombo.


Machimbombo - Yellow Is The Fastest Colour from Freeze Productions on Vimeo.

14th Darmstadt Jazzforum

Back in October, Joy Ellis and I presented a paper at the 14th Darmstadt Jazzforum in Darmstadt, Germany, which has since been published.  The theme of this year's conference was Gender and Identity in Jazz which was broken down to three thematic blocks:

*Topics such as masculinity/gender/intersectionality/identity

*Analytical case studies, in which the art of specific musicians was to be approached without first looking at the gender aspect of their music

*The third block was to bring us into the lived-in reality both of days gone by and of today's world, allow for focused views into jazz history and for conversations with men and women active on today's jazz scene.

For our part, we wrote paper about the participation of women at jam sessions; the biases they face, the effects on their employment, etc.

Pick up a copy of the book here.  There was a wide range of fascinating topics presented by musicians, university lecturers, and journalists from all over the world.

Check out the video below which explains more about this year's conference, and also check out the Darmstadt Jazzinstitut, which houses the largest jazz archive in Europe.

A few pictures from the studio

Wow, this year is going by quick already.  I've been really busy with lots of playing and teaching which is great for the hands and the bank account, but not so great for the blog.

A couple of weeks ago I was in New Jersey, just across the Hudson from NYC to record a new organ trio record with Pat Bianchi and Dan Wilson.  I'm currently in the process of mixing it down and working on some cover art.  With any luck at all it will be available come spring time.  I'll keep you posted.  In the meantime, here are a few pictures from the session.

On the right is my new 22' K Constantinople Medium Thin Low, which, when recording a bit at home on a little digital recorder, I was starting to have my doubts about.  But the with real mics in a good room it sounded phenomenal.  I really wanted some sizzle on it, but just didn't have the heart to drill into it, so I put a chain on it.  In the past I've tried one of those Sabian chains, but the links are just too big and have a clunky sound rather than a gentle hiss.  So, I went to my local hardware store, and bought a pull chain for a ceiling fan.  Perfect!

On the left is a 20' K Left Side Ride that I picked up on ebay a few years ago and just never had the chance to take into the studio.  It, too, did not disappoint.

The rest of the cymbal setup includes 14' Istanbul Agop Sultan hats and a 20' Sabian Jack DeJohnette flat ride from before it was called the "Encore" series.

Something to tide you over...

I realize posting has been a bit sparse lately, but I've been working on my new record with guitarist Dan Willson, and organist Pat Bianchi.  I'm writing this from Paramus, New Jersey, as we speak, where tomorrow we'll be heading in to Tedesco Studios to lay down tracks for the record.

Hopefully, when everything slows down a bit next week, I can get a few of these projects out of my drafts folder for you.  In the meantime, here's a little goodie a just discovered!  A young Charles Lloyd quartet, with Jack DeJohnette in Prague, 1967.

HBD, TDB!

TDB is officially one year old today!  Many thanks to all of you who are reading, commenting, requesting PDFs, etc.  We're not going anywhere any time soon, so keep coming to visit and keep interacting with us.  We love hearing from you!

Please help support the blog by subscribing and sharing your favorite posts on social media, with your students, and fellow drummers.  Thanks for your help!

-Adam

On the road again

Well, gang, in less than 24 hours I'll be on my way to Asia with my group The Georgetown Trio.  I'm flying from Pittsburgh to Hiroshima, Japan, and from there we'll be visiting 3 cities in Korea, 4 cities in China, and finally Hong Kong before heading home.

I'm going to try to finish some projects I've been working on during the travel time, but with gigs most nights, sight seeing, and eating killer food I'm not making any promises.  If nothing else I'll post some pictures from the road.

In the meantime, look over to the right hand side of your screen and dig through the archives for some posts you may have missed.  Shoot me an e-mail if you'd like any PDFs.

Modern Drummer - October (and September 2014)

I failed to tell everyone that part 3 of my series on samba drumming for Modern Drummer was out in the September issue.  Hopefully you saw it, because it's no longer on newsstands.  You can still order it online if you missed it.

In addition, part 4 of the series is out now in the October issue.

Modern Drummer - August 2014

I was having a pretty bad day today until the mail man came with a check from Modern Drummer Magazine, which means that the second part of my series on applying batucada style drumming to the drum set is in the August issue.

Check it out!

Modern Drummer - May 2014

I'm very excited to announce that I've got an article coming out in this month's issue of Modern Drummer Magazine.

The digital issue is out now, and print copies will hit newsstands April 1st.