Ndugu Leon Chancler with George Duke

Here's a cool video of Ndugu Leon Chancler in the studio with George Duke, playing Dukey Stick, which ended up on his record Don't Let Go. They start playing after about 1:45. The way Ndugu counts it in is hilarious: 

That's Napoleon Murphy Brock, best known from Zappa's band, doing background vocals here, and Sheila E. (Escovedo at the time) on percussion. The guitarist (“Goin' surfin baby!”) is Charles Johnson who much later became a well known blogger, writing the Little Green Footballs blog— which was very pro Iraq war during the Bush years, and has since become much more politically liberal. 

Groove o' the day: Ndugu Latin

Listening to Ndugu Leon Chancler is always a great lesson in how to play funk, and how to use a set with a lot of tom toms. How to use the tom toms period. I really, really love his playing. This is the opening groove from Yana Aminah, from George Duke's album Feel. This is the intro right after his little lead in; the double bar is where the vocals come in. It's a sort of 70s fusion Latin groove— obviously it's not a traditional clave-based thing.

There are three toms used on this portion of the tune, but you can easily do this with two. I would practice this by making a repeating groove out of each two bars. At the double bar he he catches a crash on 4, and comes back in on 2 in the first measure of the verse. We developed a similar thing in a Mozambique feel on this page, which will be in the new Book of the Blog, as soon as I wrap that up.

The rough rhythmic outline of what he plays for much of the tune:

Check it out:

Groove o' the day: Ndugu Leon Chancler afro 12/8

Here's a very fun tune, with Ndugu Leon Chancler playing an unusual form of an Afro 12/8, on the late, great, George Duke's 1977 album Reach For It. The track is called Omi. There's lots of percussion, and Ndugu mostly provides the foundation, and marks the big phrases. He uses a bell pattern I've never heard anywhere else— I'll start calling it Ndugu's pattern unless anyone can remember hearing it actually being used in Afro-Cuban music. He plays this on the intro:

Here's the variation he plays on most of the tune. The bass drum note at the end of measure is played lightly, often not at all:

From some months ago, here's a transcription of another thing from this record, Watch Out, Baby!, with some great large-drumset funk drumming.

Audio after the break:

George Duke 1946-2013

There was some kind of magnetism about George Duke that made you think he was going to live forever, but then it doesn't work out that way. Hearing him on Frank Zappa's Roxy & Elsewhere means becoming an instant fan; his big feature, Bebop Tango, is not available on YouTube, so instead here are two adjacent tracks from his 1977 album Reach For It, one of my favorites:





This would be a good time to revisit the other things of his we've looked at.

DBMITW: Milton Nascimento with George Duke

George Duke's Brazilian Love Affair, again. Ao Que Vai Nascer, by Milton Nascimento. I'm glad someone put this onto YouTube, and you will be, too, in a moment:

Groove o' the day: Ricky Lawson — I Need You Now

Getting back to our regular stuff, here, we've got the groove for I Need You Now, from George Duke's Brazilian Love Affair, played by Ricky Lawson:

The accents are for the hihat part only. Visit the previous DBMITW post on this tune for audio.

DBMITW: more George Duke

This is a little bit of a listening test from George Duke's Brazilian Love Affair, again, with Ricky Lawson on drums. It would be easy for a lot of people to give this a cursory listen and dismiss it in ten seconds as a piece of lite R&B fluff, but it's a great piece of music. If that isn't immediately apparent, just take it on faith, give it a few listens through and try to figure it out:

Busy

Busy all day doing tour-related junk, and transcribing charts-- Blood by Paul Bley, Priestess by Billy Harper, following Gil Evans's arrangement, and a couple of Don Cherry tunes I used to play in the 90's. If they turn out OK we'll be playing those along with the Ornette Coleman stuff on my little Europe tour in November.

In fact, what the heck, here are our old recordings of Mopti and Guinea, by Don Cherry-- you can buy those if you want:





Man, my playing has really changed. And yet it hasn't. Oh, and in keeping with the 6/8 theme, you should cruise over to Four on the Floor and see where Jon McCaslin outlines his own favored version of the Afro 6/8 groove, using the more African-style (that's the way I think of it, anyway) bell pattern.

After the break is some bonus DBMITW:

DBMITW: George Duke

Here's Sugar Loaf Mountain, from George Duke's Brazilian Love Affair, one of the three essential albums of his, along with Reach For It and Frank Zappa's Roxy & Elsewhere. That's Ricky Lawson providing the crushing funk groove:

Transcription: Ndugu - Watch Out, Baby!

Here's one of my favorite funk drumming performances ever, which I originally transcribed years ago off of my brother's bootleg cassette- Ndugu Leon Chancler playing on Watch Out, Baby! from George Duke's 1977 Reach For It album. Stanley Clarke plays bass on this track, in case you're wondering. Between this and my recent Good Old Funky Music and Use Me transcriptions we've got a veritable school of funk going here. It's got to be a school of funk if they use the word "veritable."

As I mentioned when this piece was a DBMITW, this is is pretty NSFW, so don't play the track loud during tea with the Reverend... save yourself some embarrassment...

Notes:
- There are a couple of tempo changes, the first at the edit at measure 19, the second when the time pulls back a little at measures 72-73, for a new slower tempo at 74.
- Chancler uses a pretty large set here- at least five toms and two bass drums, but you can easily play through this without them.

Get the pdf

YouTube clip after the break:

DBMITW: Ndugu

Here's one of my favorite funk performances ever, by Ndugu Leon Chancler on Watch Out, Baby!, from George Duke's Reach For It. It's pretty NSFW, so you may want to put on the headphones if there are sensitive ears about: