Transcription: Max Roach solo - I'll Remember April

A Max Roach epic here, a chorus of fours and two solo choruses on I'll Remember April— not a short tune. This will probably go in an e-book sometime, so get it free while you can. Chuck a few $$$ in where it says DONATE in the sidebar if you feel like it.  

It's from Charles Mingus's live recording The Charles Mingus Quintet & Max Roach— Max is sitting in on this tune, the drummer on the rest of the record is Willie Jones. I'll Remember April is a 48 bar tune— ABA, each section is 16 bars. Often the A sections are played 8 bars Latin / 8 bars swing, swing on the bridge. The transcription ends 8 bars before the end of the second chorus— on the last 8 they play a rhythm vamp, and then vamp for 16 more bars before the horn comes in with the head out.  

The fours start at 7:24. Tempo is about 180— it picks up some during the solo, and settles back to 180 on the head out. FYI the tune starts around 180, and settles to around 175 through the horn and piano solos. 

He plays a lot of 16th note singles, so mind the abbreviation— a quarter note with two slashes on it isn't a roll, it's 16ths. Jones's drum set evidently has just one tom tom, a floor tom. There's also a cowbell. He plays a triplet figure repeatedly— you see it in bar 49— the unaccented notes are probably a double. 

There are some quintuplets in bar 69-70— I don't know if he's playing them deliberately. I would look for some kind of doubles to be involved on that whole passage, bars 65-71. And rudimental stickings generally— there are a couple of spots where he's obviously playing paradiddles. I think all of the 16th notes on one drum are singles. 

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Daily best music in the world: Mingus

Please forgive the light posting— in honor of Charles Mingus's birthday, dig this record:
 

Mingus riffs

A quick little transcription project, before I get into making a lot of cymbal videos. These are the rhythms for the horn riffs on some Charles Mingus tunes. A riff is a repeating background figure, usually played behind a soloist— an essential ingredient in large ensemble jazz arranging.

In jazz drumming we're accustomed to playing off of tune structures, or playing off of the soloist, or playing a drum groove, e.g. the Philly Joe beat; this is another way of thinking about your comping. We're looking to develop riff consciousness here. Listen to the tunes, play the rhythms as an independent part, along with a jazz time feel, on the snare drum, bass drum, or both. Several of these emphasize the 1 more than we typically want in drumming— handle that with care. You don't have to play as fast as the original tunes.

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Rub-a-dub lesson: Fables of Faubus

Another example of rub-a-dub applied, using a passage from the Charles Mingus tune Fables of Faubus. In previous lessons we've just used this idea on the head of some tunes as an exercise. Here we're using rub-a-dub for its actual purpose: setting up, playing, and filling in between arranged ensemble figures. When you play Fables of Faubus, you could actually play this part of the tune this way... if you choose, after having duly listened to the way Dannie Richmond plays it on Mingus's recorded versions.

Which... by the way: if you do play Fables, and are reading it out of the Real Book, that chart has this figure notated incorrectly. It puts the hit on 3 in the third measure on the & of 2— it's written as 1&-&. That's wrong. Make the band get their pencils out and change it to what is written here.

Practice each line individually, repeating several times at least— the figure doesn't repeat on the actual tune though, remember. The accents just indicate the rhythm of the figure; you don't necessarily have to accent all of those notes on the drums. I've given the running rub-a-dub lick in all its inversions, and a couple of lines with the lick modified to better fit the figure. As always, this is written in the initial orchestration, with the right and on the cymbal, and left hand on the snare drum. As you learn it you can move the left hand around the drums, and move the right hand note with no bass drum to the toms or snare.

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Here, I've made a loop which with which you can practice this:

DBMITW: Mingus

I am one lazy blogger- but what am I going to write that's 2% as good watching Eric Dolphy during Johnny Coles' solo?



If that isn't enough for you for today, go read Andrew Hare's series on how to play a shout chorus, or visit Trap'd, where Ted Warren was kind enough not to laugh at me for the hubris of my waltz post, and links to another new drumming blog I hadn't heard of.

After the break: Mingus plays Mood Indigo.

Favorite tracks: Charles Mingus - Hog Callin' Blues

Here's a feature I've been meaning to start- my favorite individual tracks ever.

Our first entry will be Charles Mingus' Hog Callin' Blues, from the album Oh Yeah. I think Jimmy Knepper said "there's no place to hide in Mingus' band", and this is a good example of that. I don't know if they sketched this out in advance or what, but it sounds like it could've been completely improvised off of Mingus' opening vocal riff. Mingus plays piano on this one, with Doug Watkins on bass. Rahsaan Roland Kirk plays what I call his "chicken" solo. Booker Ervin is also featured.



Here a more verbose writer than I on this tune.

This / Not This - episode 3 - duets with bassists

This:


Not this: