A light little 60s pop beat by Idris Muhammad— I don't know what to call it, part boogaloo, part bossa nova— from George Benson's album Shape Of Things To Come. The whole record is like this, little 3-5 minute pop covers meant to go over on radio. If somebody turns on a pocket transistor radio on TV or in a movie, it's the kind of music you'd hear. Gilligan's Island, Hawaii 5-0, Thomas Crowne Affair, that type of thing.
It begins very light, and gains some intensity throughout the arrangement— early on, very flat dynamics between all the parts of the set; more varied later. You'll hear more activity on the bass drum in the last minute or so— he plays it more strongly as well.
The stuff I've transcribed covers almost 100% of what he actually plays— a couple of variations on the main beat, and he catches a rhythm figure at the end of the form. There is one more figure I didn't write out, you'll hear it. His only fill or embellishment is that little five stroke roll at the end of the measure, which he does quite often later in the track.
Idris Muhammad plays a hip train beat on George Benson's cover of a Monkees hit, Last Train To Clarkesville, from his 1968 album Shape Of Things To Come. He's playing rim clicks with a stick in a bossa rhythm with his left hand, and filling in with a brush with his right:
Both hands work together to build this groove— he accents the last note of those doubles; the RH accent right before the rim click gives the rhythm some structure. He plays the straight groove all the way through, with a few stops. No bass drum at all except on the breaks.
Listening to someone play a composed beat like this, I'm always listening for how (and if) they vary it, and develop it, and how they make ensemble accents, and get away from it to do a fill— and get back to it afterwards. All those little ordinary things you do without thinking when playing a stock groove, create a special problem when doing a specific worked-out groove. Usually people have to scale way back on the other stuff, and mostly just play the groove, and that's basically what's happening here.
I heard this on Portland's jazz station KMHD yesterday— on Ben Turner's excellent afternoon show. You probably don't have a decent local jazz station, so you should be streaming KMHD online and becoming a monthly supporter. A much better use of that $10 monthly than that Hulu subscription or whatever.
This is Sookie Sookie by Grant Green, with Idris Muhammad on drums— because he's everywhere— and it's everything I like in drumming. There's a lot here to be learned about the difference between human musical repetition and machine repetition.
Here's approximately the groove Muhammad is playing on the solos:
He may not be stating all of it all the time— some of that bass drum rhythm is being played by the bassist and/or percussionist. That's the overall vibe— with a strong 1 in the first three measures and building intensity in the fourth measure. He does some different things with the cymbal— listen for how he uses the bell later on in the track.
It's very repetitive, clearly, and it's engaging because you feel that it's being created by a group of very engaged humans. There's a feeling of suspense that's totally absent when someone plays over a loop created on a device. Humans are sensitive to that, and mechanical repetition has totally different implications for them.
Hey, I've concluded that Idris Muhammad is awesome. There's a lot going on with him, that doesn't necessarily give itself up to the casual drumming listener— it's a very deep fusion of jazz, R&B, funk, and New Orleans drumming. To the extent that those things are even distinct from one another.
I was listening to Charles Earland's The Mighty Burner, from the album Black Talk! It's just a three minute bright swing groove item.
This is the kind of situation where it's impossible to play bad time— there's guitar, percussion, and organ all playing strong time, and you couldn't derail it if you tried. You might think this calls for some very simple drumming, hitting backbeats, regular cymbal rhythm, etc, but Muhammad moves around a lot. No backbeats (hihat is on 2 and 4, though), he varies the cymbal rhythm, and is pretty busy playing some aggressive syncopated comping and accents. This is all about propulsion— it's a different way of playing groove from just slamming backbeats.
He's repetitive in the way he varies the cymbal rhythm, which is a very important clue about his playing. There's a piece of his rhythmic DNA hiding there, a personal clave. Which, I promise, developed naturally over a lifetime of playing— it's not something he worked out. The main thing is that he plays minor variations on these rhythms, suggesting a 2+3+3 beat phrasing over two measures:
In places he suggests a 3+3+2 phrasing— which is more common in music generally:
You'll hear drummers do that at the beginning of a solo, or section. Any time you hear someone hitting the 1 and 4 at the top of a chorus (try Philly Joe Jones), see what he does after that— if he goes into straight time, or does something on 3 in the second measure. Elvin Jones or Roy Haynes, or any number of other modern players might continue playing groupings of three beats longer than that.
...aaand since I sell cymbals now, I'm always listen a little closer to people's cymbal sounds. We're hearing another totally classic sound here— very much in the same bag as the Cymbal & Gong Holy Grails. I think it's a 20" K. Actually it's a lot like my own 20" C&G.
UPDATE: A student brought it to my attention that according to Wikipedia, Idris Muhammad is the drummer on this track. Which surprises me, but there you go.
A combination groove o' the day and page o' coordination here. On MC by Andrew Hill, from his album Grass Roots, Freddie Waits plays a Afro feel with a simplified cymbal rhythm that is similar to the “Afro Blues” rhythm (my phrase) I wrote about a few years ago. It's a good introductory groove for this type of thing, and, with a stronger dotted-quarter note pulse, it's probably good if you're playing with a weak rhythm section. Or, what the hell, if you just want a cleaner groove with a stronger main pulse.
On the top line are the cymbal/feet ostinato, and the complete groove as Waits played it on the record, and the rest of it is the practice patterns:
A page of beats based on a snare drum rhythm used a lot by Idris Muhammad. It's a sort of one-bar clave, an inversion of the rhythm commonly called tresillo, starting on beat 3. I've set it to a cymbal rhythm, and added some bass drum rhythms and ghost notes on the snare drum:
Two similar grooves played by Idris Muhammad with the guitarist Melvin Sparks. The tunes are also very similar, following the same basic template. Both grooves have this as the main snare drum rhythm:
It's a normal hip funk rhythm, with the backbeat on 2 and the & of 4, with the more unusual extra snare hit on 3. Or maybe it's a New Orleans thing, and more common than I'm aware of.
This is from Spark Plug, from the album of the same title. Muhammad stretches out in a cool way during the solos— maybe we'll see a transcription of that... as soon as I have time to work on transcriptions:
Here is the main groove on The Stinker, from the album Sparks!. The tempo is slower, and the interaction with the cymbal and bass drum is a little more complex:
Here is Idris Muhammad playing a Mozambique-like Latin groove with Melvin Sparks, on Speak Low, from the album Sparkling. Muhammad isn't on many of the records I listen to all the time, but he is one of my favorite players just for his general vibe; he's got the New Orleans thing happening, a deep R&B pocket, and he always gets a full sound. And he's not a real finicky subdivision guy— I'm always hearing the broader phrase with him.
Muhammad feathers the bass drum on beats 1 and 3 throughout— the written bass drum notes are accents. One thing I have noticed in doing a million billion transcriptions for this site is how sparingly many drummers use their left foot— it may be moving while they're playing, but there's often not much sound actually making it onto the recording.
I call this a Mozambique-like groove only for the bell rhythm— it has the familiar 8th notes/rest on 4 and 1 going into the second measure. Otherwise the bell rhythm is quarter notes— it's sort of a New Orleans Mozambique, in fact, with a strong R&B flavor.
Here's what I'm listening to as I finish writing the 2017 Book of the Blog, which will be available for you to order by Monday. I've played this thing like 10 times. My theory is that the more you study and try to play like people like Idris Muhammad and Ndugu Leon Chancler, the more people will want to play with you. 70s funk and studio drumming is where it's at.
Stay tuned for that book... the last 5 minutes of work has a way of dragging out to 5 hours... or days...
Mortality is a real bitch— just in the past couple of days we've lost Idris Muhammad, and Frankie Dunlop. I can't ignore their passing, but I'm no good at just showering superlatives on people, which is usually what's called for here. Dunlop was one of those drummers who will make you work a little bit to figure out why they are so great— he was great in a smaller way than someone like Tony Williams or Jack Dejohnette. If your views and priorities as a musician are out of whack, you could mistake him for a mediocre drummer; so, your response to him can tell you something about your own musical maturity.
I have less history with Muhammad, but he was an exemplar of a different way of playing funk than the alternately hyperactive, formulaic, and harshly forceful style currently in fashion. Seeing him play with Ahmad Jamal in the late 90s, I liked the big, spacious way he handled the tom toms; there was a touch of the funk drummer in it. That's a thing that's missing from a lot of young jazz drummers; they never worked soul gigs, and there's some element of bottom missing from their playing. Idris's recordings are still around, but having the man go away makes him literally less of a living influence, and more of a historical one, which is too bad.
Here's a funk groove with a couple of unusual touches, and a New Orleans flavor, by Idris Muhammad. The tune is The Windjammer, from Grant Green's 1970 album Green Is Beautiful. On the intro Muhammad plays the ride cymbal— sounds like a little 602 Flat Ride, in fact. The ruff at the end of the second measure will be a little technical challenge:
The main groove, played on the hihat, with a 7-stroke roll at the end of the second measure:
And, what the heck, the first big fill:
The rolls here are 5-stroke, played quiet and loose. The bass drum hits on beat 4 of the second measure are pretty sloppy, but this seems to be what he was going for.
Here are two different Blue Note/soul/boogaloo-type grooves on the tune Cantaloupe Woman, from albums by Grant Green.
First, from the great session drummer Ben Dixon (who also wrote the tune), as played on the 1965 Blue Note album His Majesty King Funk:
Then on the 1971 album Visions, played by Idris Muhammad (or possibly Harold Caldwell— I think it's IM, though):
In both examples the bass drum notes in parentheses are optional— those notes are played maybe 50% of the time. The snare drum hits are played at roughly an even volume, with the buzzed note in the second example maybe a little lighter. None of them are loud.
There's some nice late-60's funk drumming by Idris Muhammad (named Leo Morris at the time) on Grant Green's Carryin' On album. This is from the James Brown tune I Don't Want Nobody To Give Me Nothin':
That same little linear pattern in the last half of the measure happens again, with some elaboration, on the Meters tune Ease Back, from the same record. This has a little more of a New Orleans feel:
During the intro play the first measure only, with a buzz roll on the & of 4. The snare hits are at a fairly uniform volume, with a slight emphasis on the 2 and 4 & in the first measure.
