GOTD & POC: Elvin Jones — That 5/4 Bag

First-ever combined Groove o' the Day and Page o' Coordination. We're completely off the chain. From Elvin Jones's second album as leader, Dear John C., here is the major groove for That 5/4 Bag, with transcribed variations, and some exercises I've written for developing it.

Elvin doesn't sound quite as comfortable here as on his recording of 5/4 Thing five years after this; he plays pretty repetitively, with a few basic comping ideas. The ride pattern is unusual— quarter notes plus a skip note at the end. One variation he does frequently is to put a tied note on the & of 1. It's all there on the page...

I'll keep re-explaining the tom moves I use with the Pages o' Coordination— I know everybody doesn't read every single thing I've ever written. When working on these pages, I move the left hand to different drums every note, or every note or double— I don't like having to do a super-fast move between drums, so I keep very close-together notes on the same drum. I use a few stock moves; S = snare, H = high tom, L = low tom:

SH, SL, HL, SHSL, HSHL, LSLH, SHL, SLH

I find this to be a real value-multiplier— follow the link above for more explanation.

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