Joe Negri (1926-2026)

We lost Sonny Rollins recently who was truly one of, if not the, last of his generation of jazz musicians.  But another heavy-weight musician, though not quite as widely known left us the other day, just 11 days shy of his 100th birthday.

 

Guitarist, Joe Negri, was a born and raised Pittsburgher like myself.  He was probably best known as "Handyman Negri" on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, a beloved childrens television show that was filmed in Pittsburgh.  But, he was one of the baddest guitarists out there as far as I'm concerned.  Had he made the move to New York I'm certain he'd be named up there with guys like Joe Pass.

 

For nearly 50 years, Joe taught jazz guitar at the University of Pittsburgh, the first place to offer such a course in higher education.  He was also instrumental in setting up the jazz guitar program at Duquesne University, a highly respected music school in Pittsburgh.

 

I had the pleasure of gigging with Joe only once, and I was pretty inexperienced, but it left a big mark on me.

 

Here is one of my favorite performaces of Joe's.  He's playing with his long-time collaborator, and fellow Pittsburgh jazz legend, Johnny Costa, who Art Tatum called "The White Art Tatum".

  

Samba Fills

This is one of the most overlooked elements of playing samba, though I'm sure the same thing happens in any style of music.  When learning a new style or rhythmic tradition, most drummers work out how to play grooves, which is what most book and resources focus on.  But when it comes time to play a fill, they typically resort to the things they already know, leaving seven bars of decent sounding samba, followed by a bar of jazz or rock fills.  These fills often interrupt the directional rhythm of the groove, in this case telecoteco, and therefore the overall flow.  The fills are as idiomatically important as the groove itself because, really, they still ARE the groove.  So, as with anything else, we must listen, listen, listen, transcribe, transcribe, transcribe.

 

Here is a page of some fills by two well-known and respected samba drummers who have been mentioned on this blog before, the late, great Camilo Mariano, and Cuca Teixeira.  These all come from the same Maria Rita album that this repique de anel transcription came from, so this might have to become a little series of material from different albums.

 

These fills are all from phrase endings that have no ensemble hits that are specific that the tune, so these fills should be pretty versatile.  Note how the groove in most cases, retains the structure of the telecoteco pattern or, at the very least, contains a lot of "e's" and "a's".  The double bar line of each example marks the phrase ending as the fills often carry over into the first bar or two of the next phrase.

 

 

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Musings on Social Media and Online Drumming

Someone on the Drummerworld forum recently asked if Instagram and social media were still suitable places for drummers and if they are good places to grow in a digital space.  I ended up having more to say about it thatn I first thought, so I'll share my thoughts with you here.

 

In general, social media is garbage these days.  I shudder when I think about how much time I have wasted on these platforms, and sometimes still do.  But, as much as I disparage it, I still have accounts, and use them.

 

For some drummers, social media is the end; a career goal, to be an "Instagram drummer", or a "YouTube drummer".  And I get it.  The prospect of working from home, playing whatever you like, knowing thousands of people are consuming and enjoying your work, and getting paid of the privledge is appealing.  But anymore, the chances of that happening are not really any better than getting a steady high-end gig like studio work, touring, or Broadway.

 

For most of us, social media is a means to different end.  And for me, it's something like this:

 

As a user/consumer: 

I've never used TikTok, so I can't comment on it, but I still think Instagram can be good, especially if you use it wisely and put a little bit of effort into your algorithm. It will still try to serve you garbage, so you have to be careful not to fall into the doom scroll addiction trap (which is frighteningly easy to do). But if you occasionally hit "Not interested" on the crap, and give likes to the good stuff, then there is a lot of nice content out there.

With less time to practice these days I use Instagram the way many of us used to use Modern Drummer Magazine, when we would all put the magazine up on the stand and try the little nuggets they published in there. On my Instagram account, I have a few different folders, organized by drumming topic.  I save the good stuff, and then try them out when I only have a short time to practice.

 

I still think YouTube is worthy in a similar regard.  There's some great long form content out there.  I remember the days of having to buy or borrow a VHS tape or DVD, and now it's all just there for free.  YouTube comes with a similar caveat to Instagram, though, in that you have to be careful not to get sucked in. But, if you can stay focused there's some wonderful resources.

 

YouTube, in particular, presents another problem though.  In the VHS and DVD days, there was a vetting process.  For the most part, only good (or at least decent) stuff could get made.  But now, it's the wild west.  Anyone with a drumset and an iPhone can be a "teacher", and there's a lot of click bait garbage to the effect of "Do These 10 Things to Fix Your Hands NOW, or You'll Never Get a Gig....EVER". I recall seeing one video warning us to "fix this HUGE problem with your hi-hat", which ended up taking about 10 minutes to say, "move it a little bit to the left".  But again, if you know what you're looking for and dig in the right corners there's lots to be found.

As a creator/professional musician:  
 

I'm not great at posting quality material with regularity, which is something I'm trying to improve, because I do see a correlation between my Instagram posting and calls for gigs. It's almost like a business card these days. It just reminds people that you're around, and it shows them what you can do. I've been called for some really nice gigs with people I'd never worked with before directly from Instagram.

On YouTube I was doing some long form content during the pandemic that I'm hoping to get back to, and again, I got some decent traction for awhile.  It got me some students, and translated to more readers here on the blog, as well as more followers on social media which, in turn, occasionally leads to gigs.

 

So there you go.  In short, social media and online platforms are like prescription drugs.  They can be hugely benefical.  But, handled poorly, or in the wrong hands, they can do a lot of damage.  Keep your head on straight, proceed with caution, and use them to your advantage.

Gear changes in soloing coordination

One of the earliest posts on this blog was this linear idea.  I originally used it to develop new soloing vocabulary, but later found that it was also cool for creating linear grooves, or as a technical exercise for dynamic control between your limbs, and improving your ear.

I've been using it in my teaching for years, and some students take it to the next level where we begin combining different rhythms into the same stickings.  The principle remains exactly the same; it just gets harder as two beats of each phrase switch to triplets.  Some are easier than others.  The very first phrase, for example, comes out nice and square.  But when we move on to the next phrase, the gear change happens in the middle of the three beats.

As with the original post, where this exercise really comes into it's own is with the accents.  Once you can move freely in between any of the phrases, and place the accents anywhere you want you can create pretty much endless melodic combinations.  Another cool sound is to play the unaccented notes almost inaudibly, like ghost notes.

I wrote it in 8th notes and triplets as it's easier to read, but you can obviously think of it and feel it in 16th notes and sextuplets as well.

You can download the PDF here. 

 

Jazzahead!

This past weekend I went to the Jazzahead! trade fair and festival in Bremen, Germany.  The primary goal was to hopefully make some connections ahead of the new Samba Azul record, which will be out later this year, and to help Joy Ellis in the same pursuits with her new album which I am drumming on and co-producing.  I've always hated pitching myself to people, though, so I ended up just roaming around trying to find friendly people who had similar interests to me, and I did end up meeting some nice folks who might be up for collaborating with Samba Azul or Joy in some capacity.  But, much to my delight, it ended up being quite the drummers hang as well.

 

Three or four different people recognized my name from the blog and stopped me to say hello, which was very cool.  I see the analytics, and it does seem like there are quite a few of you out there reading this blog, but it was wonderful to get to meet some of you face to face and chat drums.  Among them was German drummer, Michael Griener.

 

And after more than 10 years of swapping the occasional e-mail and interacting on blogs and forums, I finally had the pleasure of meeting Todd Bishop from the Cruise Ship Drummer! blog face to face.  He was there with his brother, John Bishop, and Evan Woodle, both drummers who respectively own and work for Origin Records.  Todd brought a selection of Cymbal and Gong cymbals which he, Michael, Evan and I spent some time checking out.  There was talk about bring Todd to London with a collection of his Cymbal and Gong pieces, so if you're London-based and that might be of interest to you, please do let me know. 

 

L ro R: Todd Bishop, Michael Griener, Evan Woodle

 

Also hanging about was Peter Primus Frosch.  Peter is an Austrian drummer, based in Switzerland, who is very active on social media.  He's a great player who posts a lot of really handy material.  Check him out if you're not already hip.

 

Throughout the weekend, there were numerous gigs and showcases, with some great drumming.  Standouts (at least that I heard) were Larnell Lewis with the Jeremy Ledbetter Trio; Renato Galvão Santos with Brazilian bassist, Michael Pipoquinha; and German drummer Christian Lillinger who is one of the most unique drummers I've seen in quite some time.

 

A blurry Larnell Lewis, with the Jeremy Ledbetter Trio

  

Going in with pretty low expectations for my own sanity, it ended up being a great weekend.  I could see myself going back in the future.  But for now it's back to the grind.

16th / Triplet Paradiddle Grid

Here’s a fun little grid to try next time you’re on the pad.  Play constant paradiddles, always accenting the first note of each one, but move between 16th notes and triplets every four beats, then two, then one.  The paradiddles will cross the bar lines so that not only will the accents and doubles shift through the bar, but some of the paradiddles will be part 16th notes, part triplet.  It’s a great challenge of stick and timing control.

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Solo Transcription - Max Roach, "Gerkin for Perkin"

It's been awhile since I've done any Max Roach, but I've got some students working on his stuff at the moment, so I've been revisiting a lot of it and transcribing it the week I assign it to them so I can check their work on the spot.

 

So here's "Gerkin for Perkin" from Study in Brown, the same album that brought you "Jacqui", the first ever transcription on this blog.

 

 

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Solo Transcription - Gregory Hutchinson, "Jet Stream"

I finally caved and bought an iPad, and it's been a surprisingly positive move.  Not only is it really handy for gigs and rehearsals, but I've ended up doing a lot more transcribing by hand while I'm on trains and planes, or in waiting rooms.  So, some things might occasionally look a bit different around here, starting with one of the first things I scribbled out on it.

 

This is Gregory Hutchinson trading on Peter Bernstein's "Jet Stream" with Brad Mehldau and Christian McBride.  Each solo section features two six-stroke rolls; one as triplets and the other double that speed, a sound you'll hear Hutch do fairly regularly, especially in this period.  After this he does a great solo over the whole form that I haven't had a chance to write that out yet.  Trading section start around 5:19

  

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