Daily best music in the world: RIP Jon Christensen

Dexter Gordon to Jon Christensen: “You’re not from Harlem, and you’re 20 years old – play how you feel!”

My brother, John Bishop, said this on Facebook: “He was the sound, aesthetic, time feel, phrasing, that defined [ECM's] world. Any drummer making an ECM album after him had to have him on their minds, otherwise it's very noticeable in the outcome. Like that Sonny video where he's having to try to live up to Sonny, all those artist's coming to ECM later had to adapt to Christensen's thing, even if he wasn't on the record! That's one powerful legacy...”

VOQOTD: Jon Christensen on technique

From Jon Christensen's Modern Drummer feature in the early 80s:

MD: What makes a drummer interesting to you? What do you look for?

JC: Having watched a lot of drummers over the years, you can tell that some of them play very correctly and that they are schooled drummers. But in some instances, that seems to have resulted in a stiff and not very interesting feel, at least in my opinion. I have always been more influenced by drummers with a more naive, spontaneous way of playing. You might even call it an amateurish way of hitting the drums, as opposed to all the drummers who play correctly.

If you look at Jack DeJohnette, who definitely knows his rudiments inside out, he has been able to incorporate all that knowledge—you might even say camouflage it so that his playing still sounds fresh. With some other players, it is too obvious that they are playing things they already know—things they have been practicing.

Transcription: Jon Christensen — Keep It Like That- Tight

Here's Jon Christensen doing some nice open, dynamic playing on a slow, static vamp: Keep It Like That — Tight from Terje Rypdal's self-titled album on ECM from 1971. We love Christensen because he's a very cool, musical, non-flashy player— I think of him as sort of the Billy Higgins of the fusion era. And he tends to play very linearly between all four limbs, which makes the time spent working through 4-Way Coordination more worth it. We'll see if I have the wherewithal to write up the obvious companion to this, Miles Davis's Yesternow, with Billy Cobham on drums.

The dynamic markings are extremely general— there's quite a bit of range within every level. The crescendos only refer to the dynamic shape of a lick— they don't signify a larger dynamic change. I've been a little irregular in how I label the subtler accents and ghost notes— sometimes I indicate them, sometimes I don't. I suppose if I submit this to Down Beat I'll go through it and model each measure more finely, and maybe add some pocos and piùs where necessary. You'll just have to use your ears, and be aware that Christensen plays a lot of shape.

Get the pdf

Audio after the break

DBMITW: Jon Christensen is great

Jon Christensen, on Ralph Towner's Solstice:




Maybe it's not a perfect analogue, but I think of him as the Billy Higgins of the fusion era-- an egoless (in his playing, at least!), perfectly musical drummer.

A couple of more tracks from this record after the break:

A crash course in the ECM feel

Look for the photos with water
and the Helvetica font.

The "ECM feel", as it's now being called, is a style that evolved in the late 1960's and 70's, and has since become one of the major time feels of modern jazz. It's associated with the ECM record label because that's where you find most of its major early practitioners and first/best recorded examples. Before you do anything, I suggest hitting the read more link at the bottom of the page and listen to the audio examples.

Some of its features: Even 8th notes, non-repetitive, linear, broken-up (pick your adjective), possible suggestion of a backbeat, Brazilian influenced. Light, airy, ride cymbal based feel (get yourself a Paiste 602 Flat Ride to complete the period effect). Had it's beginnings in the 1960's work of Tony Williams, Roy Haynes, Paul Motian and Barry Altschul. The drummers it is most generally associated with include Jon Christensen, Jack Dejohnette, Bob Moses, and Airto.

There is no standard method that I'm aware of for developing this feel, but if you work through one or more of these suggestions and do a lot of listening and playing you should begin to find it

UPDATE: In the comments Clint lets us know that Berklee professor Skip Hadden has a method book and mini-series of videos at the Vic Firth site dealing more broadly with this style. Onward:


Practice methods:

Basic coordination using the 8th/2-16th cym pattern. You can also think of it in cut time:

Use regular jazz vocabulary with even 8th notes (converting them 8th note patterns to 16ths if you're thinking of it that way). Working out the same materials with two or three more complex cymbal patterns- and with plain 8th notes- would also be helpful; you could pick a pattern from Syncopation pp. 34-37 (new edition) and put it in double time, for example.

Stick Control- the first section, and maybe the flam section- and the same part of Syncopation as above, plus the long syncopation exercises. Play this (and all the following) with the right hand on the cymbal and the left on the snare. Also play the first section with the hands together on the cymbal and snare on the Rs, and the bass drum and/or hihat (w/foot) on the Ls.

Paradiddles and paradiddle-diddles and their inversions, plus plain old doubles- RRLL and RLLR RLLR- with/without a flam at the beginning of the R or L hand double:

And Swiss triplets in a 16th note rhythm. They make a 4:3 polyrhythm, so find a place to stop to fit them within one or two measures of 4/4:

Using the feet:

Again, with the right hand on the cymbal and the left on the snare, play all of the above over an ostinato with the feet; either samba or baiao, or double some/all of the right hand part with the bass drum. Also play an ostinato with one foot let the other play sporadically to fit with the hand part.

Note: It would seem to be an obvious choice for developing this style, but I don't like to recomend Dahlgren & Fine's Four Way Coordination to anyone seeking immediate results; as I've written before, I've seen it turn into a bit of a tar pit for more than one young drummer. But if you keep your eye on the practical result you want to achieve, and don't get bogged down with the need to learn it "completely", it should also be useful here. Vol. 2 of Dahlgren & Fine's Accent On Accents would be a good substitute/supplement for Stick Control for the exercises above, though.

Audio examples and discography after the break:

Transcription: Jon Christensen - Dansere

This goes out to my old friend Tim Willcox, who turned me on to this record- Jan Garbarek's Dansere, with Jon Christensen on drums. Christensen is pretty important to the current thing going on in drums in the Pacific Northwest- a lot of younger-than-40 drummers here are working in this vein. I think of him as sort of the Billy Higgins of the 70's- unpretentious and infinitely musical. This transcription starts at the beginning of the 5/4 section in the middle of the tune.

Notes:
- Covers the beginning of the 5/4 section through the piano solo.
- He appears to be using three cymbals on the recording, which I've transcribed as two- a ride cymbal and a smaller cymbal. I believe the ride is a Paiste 602, possibly a Dark Ride, by the way...
- I've used parenthesis to give a sense of shape within measures. Notes in parenthesis are very soft ghost notes, and accents in parenthesis are just for shape- play them slightly stronger than the surrounding notes. Regular accents and housetops have their normal function.
- Each measure of 5/4 is divided into 3/4 + 2/4, with a tied note on the & of 3.
- The main cymbal line is played on the ride cymbal, until the last measure of the piece, where the right hand plays the hihat, as noted in the transcription.

Get the pdf | Get Dansere by Jan Garbarek | get mp3

YouTube audio after the break:

Three Paiste cymbals

UPDATE: I think I've correctly ID'd one of the other cymbals.

I've been on a vintage Paiste cymbal-buying kick recently. Here are the findings on my finds:

22" Formula 602 Dark Ride - circa 1975-76 - approx. 3266 grams

The Dark Ride family of cymbals- which includes the later Sound Creation (and SC New Dimensions) Dark rides, and the "transitional" cymbals- has something of a cult following; on the aptly-named Cymbalholics forum they are discussed in terms bordering on mystical. Designed with input from Jack Dejohnette, other noted users include Paul Motian, Al Foster, and Jon Christiansen.

Here's what cymbalsmith Matt Bettis says about these cymbals, and how they compare to their successors:

The ultra-rare 22" Paiste Formula 602 Dark Ride is one of those cymbals that very few ever get to play much less actually own. The ideas behind them eventually became the Sound Creation Dark Ride, but they are definitely different beasties. The 602 has hammering that is more dense, and a markedly different sound. She has that killer, dark and complex wash, but her stick and bell are much more 602-ish than the Sound Creation Dark Rides.

So, this thing is, ah, quite prodigious. It even looks imposing sitting on the stand. It is actually about 1 cm larger than my other 22's, in fact. The sound is huge- an order of magnitude bigger than the light 22" Bosphorus Turk or Sabian Raw rides I've been playing. It's very imposing in the practice room, but when I played it on a session it snapped into a perfectly balanced Paul Motian sound. You can get a great range of sounds out of it lower volumes, and I'm really digging that the thing actually cuts- that's kind of a forgotten property for jazz cymbals. I noticed it influencing my touch on the rest of the instrument as well; it led me to pull a little fuller sound out of the drums. Yes, that means I played a little louder because of the louder cymbal, but it's more complicated than that. I actually think that trying to come in under the very delicate Bosphorus has led me to play excessively quiet; this cymbal balances with the natural volume of the instrument, which is a little bigger than I had been playing.

Using it in a combo situation definitely requires a refined touch- I don't think I would've been able to handle it as recently as five or six years ago. I play it with a Vic Firth SD-11 Slammer, a maple stick the size of a largish 5B. Cymbalholics devotees speak about "the haunt" of this cymbal- I see what they mean. It's not an overtly "pretty" cymbal like, say, a Bosphorus, but I can't get the sound out of my head, for reasons that are completely mysterious to me.


After the break are brief reviews of two other vintage Paistes, and some recorded examples of the 602 Dark:

Jon Christiansen @ 4OTF

Go read this post about Jon Christiansen at Four on the Floor- I haven't even had a chance to read it yet, but it doesn't matter. One of the great facilitators in drumming, I think of Christiansen as kind the Billy Higgins of the 70's, for his supportive, relatively egoless playing, and beautiful light sound. He also epitomizes the ECM style and sound.

Here's one of my transcriptions of his playing, Long As You Know You're Living Yours, from Keith Jarrett's Belonging.

They have a bunch of clips of him, but here he is playing with Michael Brecker in the '80's:

Jon Christensen solo

Via Trap'd, here's a solo by Jon Christensen:



He has always struck me as being sort of the Billy Higgins of the ECM era- egoless-seeming, non-pyrotechnic. I'm working on a transcription of one of his most famous performances, The Windup by Keith Jarrett, from Belonging. If you're interested, be sure to download my other transcription from that record, Long As You Know You're Living Yours.

Transcription: Jon Christensen - Long As You Know You're Living Yours

Here's Jon Christensen playing some of those ECM backbeats on Long As You Know You're Living Yours, from Keith Jarrett's Belonging. I mean to tackle the big one- The Windup- soon, but in the mean time:

Get the pdf