Page o' coordination: Out Of This World

For all of these POCs I've posted, I've actually been writing and practicing quite a few more. Here's one elaborating on one of the very first entries in this series, but with a more advanced ostinato, based on Elvin Jones's playing on John Coltrane's Out Of This World, from his album Coltrane.

Learn the whole page playing the left normally on the snare drum, then do the left hand moves with the tom toms, and rim clicks on the snare drum. Swing the 8th notes, and accent in a way that sounds good to you.

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Daily best music in the world: tracks that used to get me in trouble

Here are a couple of things I was listening to when I was at USC, which used to get me in trouble with some of the other students, for playing too... aggressively, let's say. One bass clarinet player really hated my playing— I did two rehearsals in a row with him one time, and between sessions he started complaining loudly about the drummer he just played with— me— spacing out on the fact that I was still in the room and was standing right there. I'm curious whatever happened to that guy. He was probably not wrong; my playing (and personality) were in kind of an obnoxious state, and I think there was a consensus that my playing was very undeveloped, but that I had a lot of intensity that the other players wished they had. I don't think a lot of them had a real urgent need to express anything in particular.  

Anyway, I was listening to nothing but the kind of thing that really get you excited to kick some weak-tea musician ass. Like this: Roy Haynes playing with McCoy Tyner on a late-80s John Coltrane tribute album. Bob Thiele, who produced the album, was apparently really getting off on the bass drum that day, because it's way up there in the mix:




Then Afro Blue, from Coltrane's own Live At Birdland. I used to listen to this before every combo and big band rehearsal, and as a result probably overplayed my cymbal a bit.