Conductor of form

The general topic here is jazz comping— some general concepts thereof, getting into what I think is missing from a lot of students' playing, even as they do the basic thing pretty well. The following are not necessarily mutually exclusive categories of playing— they're more ways to listen, ways to think about the functions of what we're playing.  

Our first job with that is just to learn some left hand activity, as running commentary on the snare drum, which we get from practicing out of Chapin or Reed, or by downloading a bunch of junk off my site. Guided by a general need to be doing something, hopefully not in a stupid way, hopefully sounding like they're listening to the soloist. 

There is also an element of groove support— backbeats, the rim click on 4, a bongo rhythm, and riffs— repeated rhythm figures, which people learn early. 

As players mature, they get better about being selective about how they make their bigger statments, thinking more in terms of punctuations, interjections, filling spaces left by the soloist. They'll differentiate their dynamics between that vs. running background texture. 

Through the development of all of this, the mindset is vaguely about “playing better”, playing cool things well, hopefully being a good ensemble player. Apart from the groove stuff, the real purpose of it isn't real clear— beyond just playing the style, or of conversation or self expression. Building intensity. We get closer to it as we get better at playing phrases, at playing off of the tune. But it all happens by vibe. 

The unstated thing is that there is a presentational or guiding function happening as well— introducing changes, conducting the form, guiding the group through dynamic changes— it's the big center of our musical job as drummers. Acting as an arranger, and stater of the arrangement. It usually only gets discussed indirectly under some other categories of things, and not in the sense of what are we actually doing here, what is this total performance about.   

Maybe you can hear Philly Joe Jones conducting us through the form here: 

This is all over the album Milestones— the arrangement is involved, and very show-like, presentational. Everybody's thinking that way. But he's pretty assertive with the snare drum as running commentary as well, that's not all purely functional re: the form.  

We could stereotype Elvin Jones as generally a texture drummer— I pulled this up with the idea of it being an example of primarily textural playing— but you can hear him doing the exact thing I'm talking about, conducting us through this blues form:  

 

Listen for it here, in Al Foster playing very busily with Joe Henderson. To me virtually everything he does here has a function within the form. There is a lot of pure texture happening, some elements of it just driving the groove. The big things you hear him doing are all about blues, the movement of that form: 

Early on, form is just a thing we're trying not to get lost in. Later it becomes the arena for you to do your thing— at which phase you're more attracted to blank forms, blowing-friendly forms, or to very friendly and distinctive ones— and hostile to the obligations of playing an arrangement. The thing we're talking about here is becoming a presenter, and the form is the thing you are pleased to present.  

When you start thinking this way, your job playing unfamiliar material becomes clearer— you'll know the problem you're trying to solve. The mundane details are not just pains in the a** interrupting your flow, they're the whole thing you're doing. 

I can see someone taking this idea and going way too far with it. People like turning suggestions into doctrine. It's one angle to consider in your playing, and to guide your listening, that I haven't seen widely stated elsewhere.