Ari Hoenig show and jam session

There was a wild night last night— Ari Hoenig played at Portland's 1905 Club, followed by a jam session, led by Ron Steen— a great drummer and long time jazz community leader in Portland. Several of the best, most active drummers in town were there: Alan Jones, Michael Raynor, Chris Brown, the young Domo Branch, several other younger guys I didn't know. We all played and had a nice time. One unfortunate younger guy had to play right after Hoenig sat in— and played very well despite being nervous. 

I posted some thoughts about Hoenig's playing after seeing him with Kenny Werner's trio in 2014, and I guess those comments hold up as well as they ever did. Here are some more notes— they're kind of rough, I keep polishing them...   

They played the standards Shiny Stockings and My Ideal, and Deluge by Wayne Shorter, a couple of Hoenig's tunes— including a Balkan style blazing 7/8 (I think if averaged out to that?), which I guess all the New York guys are doing now?— and this tune, called Scoville, which is either a John Scofield tune, or an homage to a Scofield tune: 

He's kind of a rhythm cubist. There's some next level stuff happening with rhythm, which... I'm damned if I can follow a lot of it. I guess it's a philosophical thing about music whether time should be followable or not— and another question how much we as drummers should be able to handle that stuff ourselves. Either way, the energy and creativity carry the show, as did the big resolutions— where the time seems to have completely shifted, and then resolves on the 1, or on a key hit in the arrangement. I feel like there's a game element to it. 

There is that very advanced rhythm thing, but the major thing happening is that he's a jazz drummer , and is playing the tune. There's the time, the harmonic rhythm, and the melody of the tune, and the space around the melody, and any other arrangement elements— rhythm figures. And he knows the idiom extremely well, and knows a huge amount of drumming content. He has a lot of ideas for how to express those things on the drums— stating a melody, setting it up, guiding the group from section to section— and what he's doing is a couple of levels beyond what's obvious much of the time. Or sometimes it'll be very obvious— he's using the entire range.     

You can't help but notice his technique. He uses a very ugly German matched grip, even on the cymbal, back fingers off the stick half the time, striking the snare drum at a funny high angle. I wouldn't call it a beautiful sound— rendering an impeccable beautiful sounding performance is not the idea. Plays largely heel up with the feet. At times he was hitting a pulse with the heels of both feet in unison. I wouldn't call it a chops-heavy performance, though you can see in the video there was plenty of that at times.

There's a sort of vaudeville/show drumming element happening— I'm thinking Jo Jones— to degrees among some of the other players present, too. Lots of drumistic announcements being made— I am doing this, this is about to happen. It is part of the craft and tradition. Doing it very actively requires good judgment— done badly, listening to someone go Now this! Now this! Now do this! Now do this! all night can wear you out. We're helping the other players out with that, but we're also giving orders and asking for attention. 

It was a great, exciting, inspiring evening of music. I do find myself differentiating between music like this, which feels geared towards blowing away a festival audience, and regular music I listen to, and play as a job, and do as art.   

We were lucky to have Ron play a couple of tunes at the beginning of the jam session, to reset things from blow-your-mind mode to regular nightclub mode. Watching all that, your head kind of empties out. What do I do? What do I play? Your own thing kind of goes away. I used to be bad about worrying about I don't do what they do. But I can play the drums. You start and your ears engage and your hands do their thing. I like where my playing is— I don't try, I just engage, and things I like happen.  

About these overwhelming performances: there's room for everything— simple music played simply as well as complicated music played complicatedly, and everything in between. Everybody has the same problem of figuring out how to make it worth the time it took to listen to it. 

Mike Clark gig and clinic

A few thoughts and observations relating to a Mike Clark / Donald Harrison gig and clinic in Portland on Sunday and Monday:

First: It continues to impress me that everybody knows that same stuff. Whether it's Mike Clark, or John Riley recently, or any of 50 or so excellent professional drummers I know in Portland and Seattle, or me, it's all the same information. People with long careers playing with famous players will have better stories, professional educators and clinicians will have a worked out presentation, someone like me will have spent time learning to write about it and express it. And individuals will have their own emphases, and pet theories. But it's all the same stuff. There's always an instant recognition that somebody is telling you something you knew, or that you didn't know you knew.

Mike Clark is best known for playing with Herbie Hancock's funk/fusion group Headhunters in the 70s, most famously on the album Thrust, but he clearly considers himself to be a jazz drummer— a modern player in the post-Tony Williams, Elvin Jones mode. The band did a funk tune on Sunday, but you got the feeling it was for the audience. He said of his funk playing in the 70s that he just learned the style to keep up with the times so he could keep working.

He played fairly forcefully, really digging into the ride cymbal— there is a different kind of groove happening with these older players, who did a lot of funk/R&B gigs. They dig in more, and play with a whole lot of bottom, even when they're not playing anything different. Clark didn't necessarily use more bass drum than normal, definitely didn't feather the thing, but his overall sound was coming from deep in the instrument. Even as he was playing pretty strongly, you could still hear the unmiked bass and upright piano— of course they were expert players who are able to make themselves heard.

...I like to think I play that way, but I have probably moderated my touch to adapt to the prevailing Pacific Northwest thing of playing very softly. I try to get that kind of intensity at a low volume, but was also disappointed when the guitarist John Stowell once told me to play “More New York, less Portland.”

Incidentally, I use a lot of the same licks as him— much of the dense stuff I do here is from the same post-Elvin bag as Clark's stuff. A lot of it is standard vocabulary if you worked through Syncopation the normal ways, some of it I can't recall having deliberately worked out. Most of it easy stuff to do fast.

In the clinic Clark remarked that he sacrifices a lot of his chops in favor of playing directly in the moment— he plays instinctively, and does not try to put his worked-out stuff into the performance.

Solos would be long, with consistent energy. Sort of a Chasin' The Trane vibe. Dynamics tended to be fairly static over the course of a solo— at least relative to the current introspective thing, where dynamics are a primary featured element, and it takes a long time to build up to actually hitting the instrument. Overall it was less climax-oriented than is common now, though there was some of that. I see that climax-seeking way of playing as a crowd-pleasing thing— virtually a device.

Since I think a lot about cymbals now: He used Istanbul Agop cymbals, 22/20/14, I'm not sure what line. They looked similar to Turk and 30th Anniversary series. Very dark and dry. My usual complaint about that type of cymbal was borne out at the gig: they sound great from the playing position, but they're rather insubstantial out in the room. Maybe that's what enables him to play strongly without being overbearing, but you do sacrifice on sound, and to some extent, energy.

Quotes that jumped out at me, from Clark, and from Donald Harrison:

“Swinging is an addiction.” 

That's an idea that comes up when you speak to Brazilians about samba: “like a drug.” They are talking about groove— an infectious, consistent (though not without push and pull), unrelenting pulse. It's a very different thing from what younger musicians think is groove today— either as an arena for displaying your abilities, or as an optional thing that you have to actually be cool to get. You don't have to be cool to understand samba.

“Music is always about vibe. Always.”

Some students played a bossa nova, the same way people always play bossas: routinely. Harrison started his critique with a very immersive story about being on the beach in Rio with a woman, and ended with that line.

Harrison was a very interesting guy, very knowledgeable, and a charismatic personality— a very relaxed, quiet and slow speaker. It was sort of like listening to Monk speak, except that speaking was maybe not Monk's bag, and it is definitely Harrison's. An extremely captivating personality.

One thing he remarked on was call and response in bebop. Usually that idea is illustrated very literally as players repeating each other's motifs; Harrison was talking more about filling in the gaps in a bop line— either a tune or a solo. I've never studied this specifically— I've noticed it more in Brazilian music than in jazz. I'll be looking into it.

Some observations on an Ari Hoenig performance

A few weeks back I saw Ari Hoenig play in Portland with Kenny Werner's trio, and scribbled down a few notes after the fact. Hoenig is one of the leading current guys, but I haven't been exposed to a lot of his playing; mainly the technically mind-blowing highlights, which to me are the most meaningless part of anyone's playing. So I went in feeling that I didn't know his playing, but expecting to be shocked and awed. I was happy to see he's playing the same game as the rest of us, more or less; the gig could've been played nearly as well by a number of drummers I know— non-famous ones.

For whatever they're worth, and in the spirit of my previous concert reports, here are a few thoughts on what I saw and heard at the performance. Some of this may look like criticism, but it isn't— I'm just reporting some neutral observations, and my own feelings, which really have nothing to do with Hoenig:

He plays the ride cymbal with a flatter wrist than most— more of a German grip, so-called.

It was good to see someone good drop sticks in pretty random places, like I do.

He's a very tasteful, deliberate player with a funny stage presence.

He's a very wrist-y player. Downstroke-y. Apparently very little finger, and very little arm. Very refined technique, very precise, very practiced.

He moves the sticks at an uneven, rather slow velocity, as if he's refining his timing mid-stroke.

Certain people do things that defy analysis; you don't know where the things they play came from, and you don't know how you would duplicate them— Steve Pancerev, my brother, John Bishop, Jim Black, etc. With Hoenig you feel you understand what he's doing, and that it largely would make logical sense on analysis; he seems to be very intellectually engaged.

Just as a matter of my own taste, I like a little more of a chaotic/organic edge, like I see from players like Elvin Jones, Roy Haynes, Jack Dejohnette, Billy Higgins or Paul Motian. I think I need that quality to be present to get really excited about a player.

Hoenig definitely has a 21st century drummer's touch— very well-adapted to playing softly, very fine control at the lower end of the dynamic spectrum.

He will do a thing which many good, well-known players do, but which I feel is not good practice— matching the soloist's rhythm exactly.

Is it a New York thing to cultivate an uncomfortable-looking stage presence? I feel like I see this a lot. Angular, shoulders slightly hunched, and a funny glower that reminds me a little bit of Animal, the muppet drummer. But it's good to be memorable. Remember the Terry Southern rule.

An issue I have with many jazz drummers is that they operate on such fine gradations of pulse, with so much action in the subdivisions, that the broader groove loses some depth. That seemed to be a little bit in effect here. I don't believe it's just a necessary result of jazz's faster tempos, because I've heard Dannie Richmond (later in his career especially), and Brian Blade, and Idris Muhammad, for example, maintain a broad feel while playing those tempos. Al Foster, too. Steve Gadd.

Here's the group playing in New York in 2010:

Another Brian Blade performance

Since I've established a precedent of writing about it when I see Brian Blade play, I should write something feeble about last night's show. Blade was playing with the guitarist/composer Joel Harrison, in a pretty all-star group including trumpet player Cuong Vu and bassist Kermit Driscoll, and bassoonist Paul Hanson. The band had mostly just met each other a few days earlier, and was playing very hard music. Sitting in the little balcony at Mississippi Studios, the sound was about one million times better than the last time I saw him play.

So, a few hastily-written impressions. I can't promise I didn't miss the big lessons of the performance (they're probably unwritable, anyway), or misapprehend what was really going on, but we have to start somewhere:

Everything he plays has dynamic shape; everything goes somewhere, usually in a way you can't miss. He shapes his lines dramatically, even while staying at a very low volume.

Most of his playing occurred in the pp-mf range— in a zone of very low stick heights for the drumset— and he appeared to be very comfortable expressing the music at that level.  The bigger, more dramatic stuff, in the zone Blade is famous for, was very occasional; the group wasn't quite at an Inglourious Basterds-level  build up : actual action ratio, but they were getting there.


He is a master at following a soloist's line.

Absolute confidence in the other players, that the time and the form will be there no matter what he does. I wonder how he would play with weaker musicians; you would think he would have to play more straightforwardly for them, but you also suspect he does his thing so well that he induces people to play far above their normal level, and that they will be able to play with him in spite of themselves.

He always seems to have a higher gear.

He has a right hand worthy of some of the Brazilian players I've been listening to— capable of playing very fast, very soft 8th notes.


Very little repetition. Gives the impression of very little straight functional drumming; plays his functional things in a fractured way— I want to say “displaced”, but that conjures up an area of drummer-jive that was not at all present in the performance. Let's say he moves things around from where you expect them to be, while still maintaining the feel. Plays more in terms of lines and colors.


Very post-Tony Williams— 60's Tony Williams. Very much in the “jazz percussion” mode I've talked about before— I've nibbled at the edges of understanding it, anyway.

He pays attention to sound, drawing a lot of different timbres out of the instrument.

When he needs to switch sticks during a song, he lays the unused set across his lap. Never used brushes, did use mallets.

He used some interesting— sticks, I guess?— possibly home made. They appeared to be sticks fully wrapped in soft material, with some padding. Laid a cloth across his floor tom during one tune.

Comping instruments should not jump on the drummer's rhythm when the drummer does a cross-rhythm; we've all heard it done a thousand times, to the point that we think it's good, but it isn't. It's a pretty crass form of playing for effect; an easy, highly abused device for giving the audience some tension and release. Still, a lot of very good players do it, and last night there seemed to be a couple of instances where the guitar Mickey Moused (that's Peter Erskine's term for it) Blade's cross-rhythm during a big crescendo, and Blade pulled away, declining to make the easy payoff.

Nothing to to with Blade, but Kermit Driscoll is an incredible musician.

Some observations on a Brian Blade performance

Last night Brian Blade played in town, and I thought I'd share a few impressions from it. I can't promise they hold any sway outside of that concert as perceived by me from the side of the room, around row 15. Some of them are contradictory, and none of them are criticism- except regarding the sound of the room. That was just bad. 

- Here's an example of a drummer generating energy by his engagement and his presence. The vibraphonist, Joe Locke, would've filled that role if Blade hadn't been present.

- Huge range of dynamics, of course. There were brief moments when the drums were the loudest instrument on stage. Maybe once per tune, or less, and for just a few notes at most. Not always at the obvious spot in the form, or at the peak of the arc, and usually not in unison with another instrument. The music had a notably more one-dimensional feel when he wasn't making those; the more sustained-dynamic sections would've fared better on a recording, or in a more intimate setting. The take-away: make big punctuations, but judiciously.

- Noting to myself the difference between music designed to wow a large live audience and music made for other purposes. At one point in my life these massive climactic moments seemed to be the central purpose of music; now I see them more as a device for appealing to a festival audience. I don't especially look for them in recorded music.

- Those Gretsch hoops sure sound clunky. They're part of the terrain of jazz drumming, but they really don't make a musical rim shots.


More astute observations and a few BB YouTube clips after the break: