Transcription: Zigaboo Modeliste — The Mob

Here's the rest of that thing we were looking at the other day: Zigaboo Modeliste's playing on The Mob, from the Meters album Look-ka Py Py. On the first and last A sections, he improvises a non-repetitive groove, with the hihat sparsely played in an interesting way. See that previous Groove o' The Day from this album, and you can play the whole tune, except for a couple of fills.

The hihat is played pretty softly, except where it's accented, and by itself— on the accented snare drum/hihat unisons, play it light. Listen to the recording.

The 1 is a little hidden at the beginning of the track, so seeing the basic rhythm of the guitar riff written out will help you get oriented:

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Grooves o' the day: all the grooves from Look-ka Py Py

Let's do a whole record for the groove of the day— and a very famous one at that: Look-Ka Py Py, by The Meters. The drummer is Zigaboo Modeliste, the New Orleans funk legend. We've covered him pretty heavily here, but if you don't know who he is, get thee to the archives, and go buy a bunch of Meters albums— don't think, just do it.

Mr. Modeliste is still actively performing, and you can follow him on Twitter to find out what he's up to, and to go see him play.

I see a couple of typos as I'm going to post this. Worst of all, I've left out the tune Rigor Mortis altogether [UPDATE: wtf, also Dry Spell!]— oops! I'll fix those for the book, I guess. Most of these examples give a pretty accurate picture of what's played on the actual tune; most grooves are not heavily varied, and fills are generally pretty sparse. On The Mob the A sections are completely improvised and non-repetitive, in the broken-up style of the example I transcribed— I'll write out the whole drum part soon. One notation you might wonder about are the tenuto marks on Yeah, You're Right. Those are slightly open hihat notes— just a little sizzle without being a full-fledged open. Accented snare drum notes are solid rim shots.

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Audio is after the break:

Groove o' the day: Zigaboo Modeliste — Keep On Marching

Here's a funky Second Line groove from Zigaboo Modeliste, on the song Keep On Marching, from the Meters album Good Old Funky Music.

Play the open hihat strongly— it helps if you have some pretty light hihats, as Modeliste does. On the downbeat of beat 3, he plays the hihat both with his hand and with his foot, or sometimes just with his foot— the sound is a little different, and accents that note a little bit.

Here's what he plays in the first measure of the recording, which you can use as a fill. The tenuto mark on the & of beat 3 indicates a half-open hihat.

The track:

Groove o' the day: Jungle Man

Another Zigaboo Modeliste groove today, from Jungle Man on The Meters album Rejuvenation:

Half-swing the 16th notes-- listen to the track to hear the correct interpretation.

YouTube audio after the break:

Groove o' the day: Zigaboo Modeliste - People Say

Today's groove o' the day is Zigaboo Modeliste's part from People Say, by The Meters:

The 16ths are half-swung in the New Orleans style ("in between the cracks", as Stanton Moore calls it). Listen to the recording for variations in the bass drum part- often he'll add it on the "&-a" of 1 of the first measure. The variations in the hihat part are basically optional- it would sound just as good with 8th notes all the way through.

YouTube audio after the break:

Transcription: Zigaboo Modeliste - Good Old Funky Music

This is a permanent favorite of mine- Good Old Funky Music by the Meters, with Zigaboo Modeliste on drums. Not a single day goes by without me hearing this internally at some point. There is another version of this floating around; this is the shorter of the two- here they've edited out half of the intro, and I like it a lot better- it puts the Hawaii 5-0 fill right up front.

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YouTube clip and a few notes on the transription after the break:

Transcription: Zigaboo Modeliste - Stay Away

Another older transcription, Zigaboo Modeliste on Stay Away by the Meters. This one has a lot of fills.

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Drum! Magazine piece - Inside "Cissy Strut"

This is an educational piece of mine, entitled Inside "Cissy Strut" And Beyond, which ran in the Nov. 2010 issue of Drum! magazine. After reviewing New Orleans drummer Stanton Moore's book Groove Alchemy for Oregon Music News, I devised a method for developing something Moore revealed about Meters drummer Zigaboo Modeliste's way of playing the famous tune Cissy Strut. The groove featured a two-handed, broken-up approach to the hi-hat which anticipated the linear fusion thing more fully explored later in the 70's and 80's.

The method is fully explained in the piece. You'll need your copy of Syncopation to cover it thoroughly- it's recommended that you apply it to the quarters and 8ths pages ("lesson 4" in the new edition), the 8th note rest pages, and the syncopation sets, before eventually moving on to the long syncopation exercises.