CYMBALISTIC: videos are up!

4/24 UPDATE: Bumping this— I have the other two 22" Extra Special Janavars now— I just played them and, yeah, I'm not hyping them, they're great. I may keep one for myself, my birthday is Thursday.   

CYMBALISTIC: It took me awhile— hey, it's tax time— but the videos of the new cymbals are up! 

I now have these cymbals available to purchase, all from Cymbal & Gong: 

Two 22" Extra Special Janavar Crash-Rides 
This is a new item, custom made at my request— Janavar series cymbals with K-type hammering and lathing, with a heavy patina, and three rivets. We did a first round of 20" cymbals in this style last year, which are a nice variation on a regular Holy Grail Jazz Ride. 

I decided to go lighter with the new 22s, and they are awesome— archetypal jazz cymbals. I didn't at first think they were particularly Tony Williams-like... the Nefertiti cymbal everyone wants... but comparing especially with that cymbal as recorded on the Plugged Nickel album, that's a good way to describe them. 

[Update 1 hour later: one of these, “Samantha”, has already sold.]

[4/15 update: ...and the second one, “Charlotte”, has been sold.]

 

20" Holy Grail Hammered Bell Jazz Ride
[4/27 UPDATE: This cymbal sold— more coming in the summer!] 

Another custom item at my request, made with a hammered bell, which changes the cymbal in some interesting ways. As a jazz cymbal, it's pretty stout at 1824g (we could call that a “jazz medium”, maybe), but it acts a lot lighter than that— it opens up nicely, and feels soft under the stick. Overall the sound seems to decay quickly. The crash and bell sounds are lovely, and a little bit subdued.

The pitch is low and the crash has a sort of bend to it that reminds me of Art Blakey's cymbal on Big Beat and Indestructible. It's a genteel cousin of that cymbal.

17" Special Janavar Crash and 16" Holy Grail A-type Crash with heavy patina
Just a couple of great crashes that will go well in the Tony Williams spot on the left side. Both light enough to crash easily, but great for light riding. Check them out. 

I'm not saying a lot about them, but both are great. It's easy to not think much about the smaller cymbals, but I have a 17" that is one of my favorite cymbals, and I never gig without it. 

14 and 16" Custom Wide Chinas
Cymbal & Gong's “wide” Chinas are a unique design that, for me, makes the perfect Chinese cymbal. They are very thin, with a wide flange and small bell. My concept of a Chinese cymbal comes from the 70s, from Billy Cobham and Weather Report, and these cymbals make it possible to get that effect at sub-Weather Report volumes. 

That's the problem with Chinese-style cymbals: they can be very obnoxious, and get way out of balance with the rest of the set. A lot of them you have to play very loud to get the right sound; at combo volume they sound like a gong. The Wide Chinas give you the sound through a full range of dynamics, and none of them that I've played hurt your ears with wild harmonics. 

These two small Chinas remind me of something Ed Blackwell would use: 

Check them out, along with the other cymbals I have in stock, at my site Cymbalistic.com.