A drumming blog written by Todd Bishop.
I'm hard at work writing this new book that you will want to BUY BUY BUY, so enjoy this Freddie Hubbard record Keep Your Soul Together, with Ralph Penland on drums. I've been playing this on a loop for about a week.
I got to see Ralph play with Hubbard, and with Joe Henderson when I was in school in Los Angeles. He was never a very famous, but he was a great drummer, and worked with a lot, with some great people.
The new book should be coming a little before Christmas.
From Freddie Hubbard's Keep Your Soul Together album, here's Ralph Penland playing an ensemble section from a very nice tune, Brigitte. I saw Penland play a couple of times in Los Angeles when I was at the U. of Southern California. With Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Cedar Walton, and I think Cecil McBee, and at the John Coltrane Celebration at the Wiltern Theater, with Joe Henderson and I think Reggie Workman. Great LA drummer, not a famous name, played with Hubbard for many years.
This section of the tune happens twice, at the end of the head. The tune is a ballad, that goes into double time for this portion, and stays in that feel through the solos. The sections happens at 2:22 and 8:23. The figure is four bars long, played three times— the last measure has a triplet figure at the end the first three times, but the major accents are accurate.
Swing the 8th notes. There are quite a few rolls here, some closed, some open with a triplet pulsation. I like what he plays on this whole record, I'll probably transcribe some more of it just because I like listening to it. This is just what drumming is, this is what we do. The rules haven't changed. You're never going to go in and play more stuff than this, or more complicated stuff than this. Unless they decide to continue the vamp and make it a drum solo.
