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=7q ..read more

This is one of the first Chick Corea tunes I ever heard.  As a clueless 18-year-old jazz studies major I was told I should check out Chick Corea.  So, I went out and got Verve Jazz Masters 3 - Chick Corea, a greatest hits collection featuring "You're Everything", "Spain", and a number of other Chick classics.  I remember really loving "Lenore", but it wasn't until many years later that I realized how hip the drum grooves were. In the A section Steve Gadd plays open-handed, with his left hand on the hi-hat, much like he does on "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" and other signature ..read more

Right around Christmas I got a message from the prolific drum book author, Joel Rothman, introducing himself and asking if I'd like to check out some of his books.  I was already familiar with some of Joel's work, and had used his book Basic Drumming back when I first started teaching as a good catch-all book that would cover a lot of topics and last beginner students for a couple of years.  What I didn't know, however, was that not only has Joel been living in London for the last 40 years, but he lives a mere 15 minutes from me.   So, a few weeks ago, Joel invited me to his hom ..read more

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.&nb ..read more

I was recently turned on to this recording featuring a young Art Blakey playing with Charlie Parker.  This is an era of Blakey I've not been too familiar with until now.  I know he played in fellow Pittsburgher, Billy Eckstine's band and with Fletcher Henderson in the big band era, and did some work with Dizzy Gillespie.  Bit still, when I think of Blakey I (like most people, probably) tend think of the Jazz Messengers, of driving shuffles, and of hard bop leaders like Hank Mobley, Jimmy Smith, and Lee Morgan.  So I find it really interesting to hear him playing in this muc ..read more

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 s ..read more

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 ..read more

Let’s start the meat of this series with the rhythm of forró that many drummers are familiar with on one form or another, baião.  For most drumset players, baião simply means this groove: And I wouldn’t even say that that’s wrong per se.  It’s just missing a lot of nuance that makes a baião what it is.  And without that nuance one could also be playing a forró or a xaxado as all three of these styles have this cell in them: But it’s the way that that cell is articulated, as well as the other percussion and melody parts surrounding it that differentiate the three styles. In ..read more

I’ve touched on forró and baião on the blog before, but after some questions from friends and students, I figured it was time for a more detailed dive into the defining characteristics of the various rhythms of forró, how to differentiate between them, and how we can apply them to the drumset. First off, the terms themselves can be a little confusing.  “Forró” is a genre of music originating in the state of northeastern Brazil called Pernambuco.  It is a family of multiple rhythms and dances.  Where the confusion often comes in is that one of the rhythms in said family is called ..read more

The other day John Riley did a guest spot on the Memphis Drum Shop instagram page where he broke down a flam exercise he developed that employs 5 flam rudiments in descending order of length.  He created the exercise in response to Joe Morello telling him that a "professional drummer" should be able to play flamadiddlediddles as sextuplets at 120 bpm.  John describes this as "wicked fast", and I couldn't help but noticed that he didn't actually play them at that tempo in the video.  I know I can't!  Either way it's a fun and handy little exercise so I jotted it down to shar ..read more