Page o' coordination: Elvin's Afro-waltz - starting off the 1

Hearkening back to one of the very first pages o'..., in which we worked on developing an Elvin Jones-style waltz, the way he played it on John Coltrane's Your Lady. It's an interesting groove, with a linear 6/8 BD/HH/SD pattern underlying the waltz rhythm on the cymbal. But I noticed in performance I had to be pretty deliberate about coming in with it on the 1— I had to actually “work it in” to play it, which I do not like to do. I don't want to be playing licks I learned, I want these things to happen organically.

So this page should help that— we're learning to fall into the groove somewhere other than the first beat 1. And in leaving the beginning of the phrase open it disrupts things a bit, so we don't just fall into playing it from a habitual muscular thing.

This is jazz, so swing the 8th notes. When you can play all the patterns, your real practicing can begin: play the entire page without stopping, with two, four, or more repetitions of each pattern. Move your left hand around the drums freely, or according to these stock moves, moving after each note or double. Try eliminating the circled bass drum note.

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