Listening to Keith Copeland

Let's listen some more. This is Charlie Rouse playing After the Morning, a tune in 3/4 by John Hicks. The great Keith Copeland, who left us too soon, is on drums. This is normal modern, mainstream jazz drumming to me— having obviously assimilated a lot of developments since Philly Joe Jones's day.

It was recorded in 1981, and the drum sound is quite dated now: there's a 20", non-tonal bass drum, and a wet, Steve Gaddish snare drum sound. Drum sounds today are very cute in comparison. And Copeland is playing with a somewhat Gadd like energy, very deep in the pocket. It's a sound and feel I associate with people who have also played a lot of R&B— with a lot of bottom. There is a lot of activity with the bass drum and snare drum, and they really drive the groove. A lot of what he plays you would get by doing normal jazz triplet methods with my book Syncopation in 3/4.  For the most part he's keeping a straight waltz rhythm happening with the cymbal and hihats. It's kind of an exceptional level of independence, given how expressive he is with the two drums. In my listening, I feel like most players don't bother with it.

The tune has strong harmonic motion, and he's largely playing in support of that. It's a good example of playing actively but not intrusively. He does interact with the soloists, but when his rhythms line up with them, he doesn't do the obvious college student thing of continuing it and making a big climax out of it. He lets the parts diverge, and finishes the phrase differently. And he doesn't obviously jump on the soloists' rhythms to begin with.





Courtesty of Daron in the comments, here's another great version of this tune, played by Hicks, Cecil McBee, and Elvin Jones.