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.

Dave Tough's Advanced Paradiddle Exercises

Here's a great book that I stumbled upon a few years back and use quite often.  I generally don't give away stuff that isn't mine to give, but Dave Tough is no longer with us and this book has been out of print for quite some time.  So I figure the only people getting ripped off by not sharing it are other drummers.

If you know your jazz history and remember the Austin High Gang, who are credited with playing a big role in the formulation of the the Chicago style of jazz, Dave Tough was one of them.  His bio over at Drummerworld describes him as "a subtle and versatile drummer who hated to solo".  Truly my spirit animal.

The book is nothing but different combinations of single, double and triple paradiddles.  But you never realized how many different ways you could play these damn things until you spend some time with this book.  Tough, himself, says of the book in the foreword:

"I have designed this book for the advanced student who has a knowledge of the rudiments of drumming.  The book deals with the three forms of paradiddles - single, double and triple, each form represented and mixed in each of the two hundred exercises.This will assure him of improved coordination, technical development and fluency of sticking in his practical day to day playing.  It will be invaluable to the individual, while practising these exercises, to play two or four foot beats to the bar.To my knowledge, this is the only book published that is devoted entirely to varied paradiddle exercises.In conclusion, I have found that too little time is devoted to the practising of varied combinations of paradiddles, and it is my sincere hope that this book will prove to be an aid in acquiring a well-rounded system of drumming."

You can download the book here.  That link redirects to Mark Feldman's Bang The Drum School blog.  If that link is no longer working by the time you discover this post just drop me an e-mail and I'll happily send you a copy.

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

Weekly Wisdom

I had the great pleasure of seeing Eric Harland give a masterclass last week at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where I teach part-time.  It ended up being a lot of Q&A not just about the technical side, but also the conceptual and mental side of playing.  And one of the things that really jumped out at me was a quote that Eric mentioned by Teddy Roosevelt which is:

"Comparison is the thief of joy"

Right away the quote seems obvious.  Don't compare yourself to others because we're all different and you'll just make yourself miserable.  But while this is true, Harland went on to talk about a different type of comparison that I hadn't thought of.  He said that not only should we not compare ourselves to others, but we shouldn't compare ourselves to ourselves.

On one hand I don't necessarily agree, as I think it's important to look back to see how far you've come, and to look ahead to see where you want to go, but what Eric was getting at was that we shouldn't waste our time thinking, "I'd play this much better 6 months from now", or "I wish I could go back and play that gig from last year now".

The gist of it was, when you're playing, gigging, practicing whatever, don't waste your mental energy thinking about what you could have done better before, wish you could do better now, or what someone else can do better than you.  Rather, put that focus into the music you're playing right now, and make the best music you can make with the skills you have today.

The Steve Gadd Book

I try my best not to be a "re-blogger", but I was over at Cruise Ship Drummer! the other day and saw that Todd posted about a Steve Gadd book that is now available as PDF for free, so I figured it would be irresponsible not tell you about it.

This is a very cool book by Danish drummer, Hans Fagt, that features some of Gadd's best stuff.  And, to be honest, there were a couple of recordings in here that I was unfamiliar with and got to discover for the first time.

The format is great as well.  Rather than multiple page layouts of whole tune transcriptions, Fagt has broken everything down and gives us the main grooves of each tune and a handful of fills. 

It was originally published in 1985 and apparently has been out of print for awhile.  Hans is now giving it away if you simply sign up to his mailing list.  As he is so kindly handing it out essentially for free you should do him the courtesy of actually signing up to the mailing list to get it rather than just sharing the PDF.

Baião

I've been playing a lot of northeastern Brazilian music lately.  When people say "northeastern music" in terms of Brazil, they're generally referring to music from the state of Pernambuco, in easternmost South America.

The music up there has a completely different vibe to that of samba heard in the south around Rio, and dare I say (as much as I love samba), it's much funkier.  There's far too much music in Pernambuco alone for one blog post, so let's start with the most recognizable rhythm that some of you have most likely already heard of or played: Baião.

Baião comes from a family of rhythms and dance steps called Forró.  You can almost think of Forró like ballroom dance.  Foxtrot, Quickstep, Waltz, etc. all refer to both rhythms/tempos and corresponding dance steps.  When a particular rhythm is played, the dancers know what steps to do.  Forró is very much the same.

We already talked about the basics of baião in an earlier post in which I transcribed Edu Ribeiro playing one.  So today I've got a page today help you develop your baião vocabulary.  A lot of you really seemed to enjoy the Jazz Samba Builder, so I figured I'd put together a similar sheet for baião.

E-mail me for a PDF

Baião is very much characterized by upbeats.  There's an accent on the upbeats in the triangle part, and often on wood blocks.  So, when practicing this I'd recommend putting your metronome on the &'s.  Or, better yet, play along to some music...

Luiz Gonzaga is considered the "King of Baião", and is credited with creating it.  Here's a recording of one of his most famous tunes, conveniently titled Baião.  This recording sits a very manageable tempo, perfect for working through the sheet above.

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...

That Philly Joe Thing

Welp, I'd say it's high time for another Philly Joe Phriday.  Today I'm going to pull out my Jazz Police badge and sound a bit like a crotchety old man.  And I'm directing most of the "get off my lawn!" to the bassists out there.

There's a very cool thing that Philly Joe does quite a bit, that very few other drummers used.  This is one of the most noticeable defining characteristics of Jones' playing, and it's really quite simple.

Often times, as a solo builds in intensity, Philly Joe will play his hi-hat double time.  That's about it.  Yeah, the ride pattern tightens up a bit closer to 16th notes, and he sometimes accentuates the "a" of 2 and 4 on the snare, like so...

...but really everything is pretty much the same, save the hi-hat going double time.  It creates a nice momentum push without killing the groove.

The problem is, a LOT of bassists don't seem to be hip to this thing and damn near every time I try to do it the bassist just goes full on double time, and total kills my vibe.  Maybe that's my punishment for trying to do something that is so intrinsically Philly Joe, but damn it, I want to do it.  I suppose there may be an ever so slight change in the way the bassist needs to articulate their line, just as the ride cymbal feel will get tweaked a bit despite the fact that the rhythm is technically the same, but really, if you just keep walking it'll be cool.

Here is one of the most well-known examples.  Blue Train.  He does it in every solo.  The first time happens around 1:36.