Groove o' the day: Ed Blackwell - Love

Here's a fast 6/4 Afro type of groove from Ed Blackwell, on the track Love, from a duo record with Wadada Leo Smith, The Blue Mountain's Sun Drummer. There's no tune, it's just free blowing over a groove. People should do that more. These are some variations from about the first 90 seconds of the track. 

We're in kind of a compound 6/4 here— the dotted half note gets the beat, at about 86 bpm. Or if you're counting quarter notes, ~260. 

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Analysis: Ed Blackwell - Strength and Courage

Here's a boiled down version of the Christmas transcription, Strength and Courage, by Joe Lovano. It's a real crash course in Ed Blackwell— a lot of what he plays on many albums throughout his career is in here. 

I've simplified the patterns as much as possible— taken out the bass drum, in a lot of cases. Often the bass is just feathered on beats 1 and 3, or is not necessarily integral to the pattern. You can see what he does with it on the transcription. He has a lot of integrated stuff worked up between his hands— conceptually it's not unlike the thing I called “Max's rubadub”. Inherently two-handed jazz rudiments, of a kind.  

Once again, I'll leave this up for free for awhile, then sometime in the new year I'll ask for a donation to download the transcription and analysis together. Or you can just send a $3 donation when you download it now, if you want to.  

Venmo: @todd-bishop-16
PayPal: toddbishop@[cruiseshipdrummer dot com]  

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Transcription: Ed Blackwell - Strength and Courage

Merry Christmas, everyone. Ho ho hoooeeere's a LONG Ed Blackwell transcription for you, basically all of Strength And Courage, from Joe Lovano's trio album Sounds of Joy, along with Alex Cox on the bass. The drumming jumps around a lot, and, taken two measures at a time, this is a massive crash course in Ed Blackwell. 

The tune is oddly structured— there's not much of a head to speak of. The first time through the form is 8-8-8-10-4-4-4 measures, and then 8-8-10-4-4-4 as the blowing gets going starting at 0:48. The 8 measure phrases are structured 6+2, and the 10 measure phrases is 6+4. So during that blowing form the changes could be outlined as:
  

||: 6-2 | 6-2 || 6-4 | 4-4-4 :|| 

It's noteworthy that the tempo is quarter note = 238— about the same tempo as Passion Dance, Chasin' The Trane, and some other big recordings. I've been thinking of it as Elvin's tempo, but it seems to be a sort of universal up heavy blowing tempo. Nobody should be asking about super fast tempos until you can really kill it in this range. 

There's way too much going on here to summarize now, and I've got Christmas presents to wrap. There are a lot of different cymbals/bells happening— ride, crash, ride bell, crash bell, swish, hihat, cowbell. Snares off. Blackwell plays straight 8ths all the way through. A lot of the bass drum is quite soft, and there's very little left foot activity at all. 

In the spirit of Christmas giving, I'll leave this up to download for free through New Years Day, and then, in the spirit of Christmas withholding, I'll change it to a $3 download, along with an analysis yet to be written.  

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Listen to the tune on Spotify.

Groove o' the day: Ed Blackwell — Tarik

Here's something from I think the first record with Ed Blackwell I ever bought: Tarik, by Dewey Redman. It's sort of Blackwell's tom tom thing boiled down to it's smallest essence:

It will be up to you to find a sticking that works. Though it would be very difficult for most of us, I wouldn't be shocked if his right hand were playing all of the tom notes, plus the accent on the snare drum. Or there could be a LR on the low tom; probably that's the way you and I will have to play it. The flam is pretty “flat”, almost a unison, with the right hand louder than the left. As the piece develops, Blackwell begins playing the hihat with his foot in unison with the bass drum. One day I'll transcribe the solo.

Groove o' the day: Ed Blackwell — Lop-o-lop

Another Ed Blackwell 6/8 today, from an album you may have some trouble finding, Dewey Redman's Tarik, on Aktuel. The drums play in two, and the bass (Malachi Favors, I think?) plays a fast 6.

He moves the left hand around quite a bit— either tom, snare, snare with snares off. This version includes some variations he does, usually not all at the same time:

That is a fast left hand double between the toms at the end there. He'll occasionally just play the left hand in unison with the bell part.

Audio after the break:

Groove o' the day: Ed Blackwell — 6/8 variations

Here are some more variations on the Afro 6/8 feel, played by Ed Blackwell on the tune Mopti (an old favorite from Flatland days, which I'll be reintroducing to the set on the Europe trip next month), from the Old & New Dreams album Playing. Most of these occur close together during the long intro, but I thought I'd present them as individual grooves, instead of as a transcription:

Also apply the left hand parts— the snare and toms— to the generic Afro bell pattern, and BD/HH parts.

Audio after the break:

GOTD: Ed Blackwell -- still more of Togo

Still more of Ed Blackwell's performance on the tune Togo, from the album Old And New Dreams. Michael Griener in Berlin has helpfully informed me in the comments that a transcription of this entire performance was published in the Percussive Arts Society magazine Percussive Notes a couple of years ago, so any of you perc majors who want more of this should know someone with that issue in their library.

Variations on this groove occur in Blackwell's playing a fair amount-- it sounds familiar if you listen to him much.  It comes in after 3:29:

And again, for clarity, without the feet:

See the last entry for links to purchase the album or track.

Groove o' the day: Ed Blackwell -- more Togo

Another Ed Blackwell groove today, from a little deeper in the same tune as the last GOTD, Togo, from the self-titled Old And New Dreams on ECM (there's also one on the Black Saint label, which is also highly worth owning). We're also getting a little deeper into Blackwell's thing, as this one is rather challenging. It occurs at 3:21:

I wouldn't worry too much about getting those open and closed hihat notes exactly right-- that's just what he played at that moment-- I'd shoot for open sounds on 1 and 3, and closed sounds on 2 and 4, and let God sort out the &'s. That feet part does muddy the waters substantially, so here it is with the hands only, with one possible sticking:

A little ungainly. If anyone comes up with a more elegant sticking, feel free to share it in the comments.

Again, this isn't available on the youtubes, so you'll just have to buy the record, or, pathetically, just the one track.

Groove o' the day: Ed Blackwell - another 6/8

UPDATE: Whoops, a typo, gitoutcher pencils-- scratch that last tom note in the second measure.

Here's another entry in my little project of cataloging as many of Ed Blackwell's grooves as I can figure out. Many of them are pretty inscrutable, so I've been starting with the low-hanging fruit. Here's another one in 6, from the song Togo on Old and New Dreams's self-titled record on ECM, one of my favorite records ever:

This tune is not posted on YouTube, but you can purchase the track (and hear the groove played in the sample) from Amazon.com. You should really do yourself a favor and buy the record, though.

Groove o' the day: T & T, too

While you're feverishly working on yesterday's GOTD by Ed Blackwell, allow me to throw at you a similar version of the same groove from later in the tune, which again is T & T by Ornette Coleman, from the record Ornette. Here the busier part is played on the high tom instead of the snare, and the SD has the snares turned off. Instead of playing half notes on the bass drum, he plays a funkier New Orleans/Baião type of pattern on the 1, 4, and 3 of the second measure:

Here it is again with the hands separated, without the bass drum:

Then with the bass added back in:

You know, I remember hearing a radio feature years ago about a French cat who had been studying with Blackwell for years, and who apparently knows his method as well as anyone living. I've been hoping he would come out with a book at some point. If I could remember his name I would hit him up to do that.

See the last post for the audio.

Groove o' the Day: Ed Blackwell - T & T

Here's another Ed Blackwell groove, from the intro to Ornette Coleman's T & T, off the album Ornette:

For clarity, here is the same groove written as separate rhythms, without the bass drum:

We'll be seeing a lot more of these in the near future as I finally after all these years try to get inside these famous drum grooves of Blackwell's. 

YouTube audio after the break:

Groove o' the day: Ed Blackwell

Here's another simple afro feel played by Ed Blackwell on Mu, the duo record with Don Cherry. It's also available on the Cherry album Cool. This also could've been written as two measures of 3/4 or 6/8:

An easy change to this groove which would give it more of a 6/8 feel would be to add dotted quarter notes with the left foot, the right foot, or both feet.

YouTube audio after the break:

Groove o' the day: Ed Blackwell stick and brush

This is one of my favorite things ever, anywhere: Ed Blackwell's opening groove on Charlie Haden's tune Chairman Mao from the first self-titled Old And New Dreams record, on Black Saint (there's another one on the ECM label, which is also great). Here Blackwell plays with a stick in his left hand and a brush in his right:

The brush hand makes the rhythm with a fanning move, which you can hear by listening to the recording; the stick hand just plays the rim click on 2 and the tom on 4. Play the bass drum softly-- when my old band Flatland used to play this tune I would often play it in 4, as Blackwell does when the groove changes a little further on, which has a nice driving energy (on that recording I'm playing the drums with the back ends of rattan-handled marimba mallets, by the way).