Transcription: Terry Bozzio — Rubber Shirt

Let's consider this a special feature for the funds drive; like the other Zappa thing this week, I'll be taking it down in a few days and submitting it to Drum! Magazine, so get it while you can.

Rubber Shirt is an improvised duo by Terry Bozzio and bassist Patrick O'Hearn, from Frank Zappa's 1979 album Sheik Yerbouti. Aside from being great music, what's interesting about it is that, seemingly impossibly, it was created by putting together bass and drum tracks from different tunes, different sessions, and in different meters. Recording musicians who worry about loss of “chemistry” when overdubbing parts— even solos— take heed. Things tend to work together and make their own chemistry just because you put them together, and that's a beautiful thing.

The drum track is in 11/8, phrased as 4/4+3/8. There's one measure of 6/4, which is either a mistake by Bozzio, or part of the arrangement of whatever tune he was originally recording. I've forgotten O'Hearn's meter, and didn't have time to figure it out; you can get out your copies of The Real Frank Zappa Book if you want to look it up.

Bozzio is using his large Rototom drumset here; I think I've notated for five tom toms. If you don't have that many, it doesn't matter; just figure out a way to do it with what you do have. There are a few special licks which I haven't taken the time to make head or tail of— I just tried to get what I was hearing onto the paper in a realistic-seeming way; aside from being kind of fast, it may take a little analysis to make them work on the drums. Don't hesitate to make changes if what is on the paper is not playable.

Get the pdf [This was a special thing for the fund raiser, and the link is now dead. I'll announce when/if it will occur in print.]

Audio after the break:

Groove o' the day: Blues in Elf

Here's something from what I'm hoping will be the second volume of books of 100 Grooves, this time dealing with odd meters— we'll see if I can track down enough interesting things to merit a whole volume of them.

This is Don Ellis's Blues In Elf, which is a slow blues in 11/8— it's a slow swing feel with the last note of the beat 4 triplet shaved off. The album is Tears of Joy, and the drummer is either Ralph Humphrey or Ron Dunn:

The snare and bass drum parts are repeated a fair amount, but they do vary— the written groove is a starting place. Regardless of the odd meter, the style of comping on this type of slow blues is a little different from the normal jazz thing— rather than interacting with the soloist, it supports the groove, and the built in tension and release of the twelve bar form.

Audio after the break: