Charlie Watts meets Stan Levey

Here's a video my brother mentioned to me— Charlie Watts hanging out with Stan Levey and Jim Keltner back in 2003. Levey was one of Watts's heroes. Lots of chit chat about Charlie Parker— we get to hear a recording of an interview with him— and about studio work, boxing, drugs and alcohol, weird encounters with Frank Sinatra and Elvis. You kind of which it had just been the principles though— just the drummers. 

Half time country rock with Reed

This swingy country, folky, gospel type of half time feel groove is all over the music of the late 60s/early 70s. You Can't Always Get What You Want, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, for example. It happens on a couple of tunes I was working on for a show with my wife, Casey Scott, on Friday, and I realized I wasn't very good at it. At least in the practice room, at the tempo of that song— in the show it worked out fine. 

But let's talk about a strategy for working on that— it requires some creativity and interpretation on your part. 

We're in a half time feel, so when reading out of Syncopation, the backbeat will fall on beat 3. The 8th notes will swing in a legato way, which will give it a feel not unlike a sixtuplet funk shuffle, though different. Don't overdo the swing feel.

For the grooves, use lines 1, 3, 4, 13-18, 42-43, 46-47 from pp. 34-36 of Syncopation. Play most of the book rhythm on the bass drum, except put beat 3 (not the &) on the snare drum. Play quarter notes on the cymbal.  Get out your four color pen and circle those lines in green or whatever. Note that all of those lines have notes sounding on beats 1 and 3. 

Basically do this, except play quarter notes on the cymbal instead of 8th notes:

To simplify the bass drum and add some interaction with the snare, play line 4, alternating notes between bass drum and snare drum:

That 8th-quarter-8th rhythm happens a lot— when it happens on beat 1, start with the bass drum; when it happens on beat 3, start with the snare, so lines 1 and 3 would be played:

You can then voice the other groove rhythms similarly— start and end on the bass drum on beats 1-2, start and end on the snare drum with beats 3-4:  

For the fills, you can use any of the book rhythms, played down the drums, with whatever sticking you like: 

You don't always have to go high to low— improvise the moves around the drums and see what else is effective. 

If the book rhythm has a rest on 1, play the cymbal or cymbal/bass drum there just to mark it: 

You could play quarter notes on the bass drum through the fill, to nail down the time. Especially on the sparser rhythms. If you watch the Dixie video linked to at the top of the post, you'll notice that Levon Helm played this type of groove with four on the floor bass drum all the way: 

This is the phrase I was practicing, from a particular song— but it's universal enough: 

Improvise the groove portion, and get the fill rhythms out of the book, and focus on the timing. For me the big problem was laying back enough. The vocabulary isn't necessarily new; this is more a template for refining it and nailing down the proper phrasing. 

Ba-dum tss

This is not a follow up to my death post. You'd have to have some kind of sick mind to post this and immediately die. It would be funny, but... no. Come on. 

Let's talk about the “ba-dum tss” style rim shot— that's how I know them: “rim shots”— for a comedian or entertainer, or the odd musical/dinner theater setting. It has become a full blown internet meme, so people are probably going to be working it into all kinds of lame acts, and you may have to actually do it in public sometime. I've had to a few times in the course of working cruise ships. Even if the performers or the material were hacky, there was always a level of professionalism— so I'm talking about doing it during an actual act, not just to screw around when the singer says something dumb. God help you if you get stuck doing it at the Firestone company picnic talent show or something— that's a  situation you cannot rescue. Anyway, let's talk about doing it and not sucking. 

First, you don't have to play “ba-dum tss.” You shouldn't play ba-dum tss. It's so obvious it will probably be interpreted as sarcastic, like you're inviting people to laugh at the comedian for sucking. That's not good. We don't need to do this at grandma or pre-school level. Usually all that is needed is a quick punctuation in one or two notes. You can be more interactive by listening to the joke and playing something appropriate for the rhythm or the subject. Not unlike what's happening here:

That's all worked out to correspond with the physical comedy, and normally you wouldn't go that long, but that's the basic idea. There should be some energy and variety. Though on one particularly awful show I played, there was a segment with several cast members telling rapid fire horrible hillbilly jokes, and after each punch line, one of them would hit a cowbell. It was actually effective, in a Pavlovian kind of way, and it became kind of funny. 

Here are some examples of things to play— those can go on any drum with any sticking you want, where applicable: 

Or whatever. I thought about it for five minutes. Think 1-5 notes, played fast. 

There becomes a little bit of a free jazz element to it, where you're winging translating a comic punchline into drumming language. On one show there was a joke about giving a mule a pill by blowing it through a tube— the punchline was “not if the mule blows first”, and I did a buzz stroke on the floor tom with a mallet. Reminiscent of a mule surprising you by blowing the pill back in your mouth. That was about the level I achieved on the whole sketch. You can use any unusual sounds you have on hand for variety— splash cymbal, cowbell, ratchet, bird whistle, whatever. It would have to be a pretty cornball show to get into too much of that.   

Some rules: 

• You can't bootleg it. The performer needs to ask you to do it, before the show— doing it on your own is heckling, and is not cool. Offering to do rimshots is in poor taste, like offering them a clown wig to wear in their act. They need to request it.  
• Don't interfere with the performer's timing. This takes some sensitivity. 
• Your timing is important— listen closely and follow the rhythm of the joke. You may hit something in the same groove as the joke, or you may go for a contrast— fast if the delivery was slow, slow if the delivery was fast. I've seen people deliberately blow the timing of the rimshot to highlight a real clunker of a joke, and that becomes the joke. Follow the performer's lead on that. 
• Unless the performer wants to feature you in some way, don't try to compete with him or one-up the joke.  
• You are not a comedian, actor, or entertainer. Have a good time, but don't mug for the audience, don't try to participate or get attention visually. 

Schticky hack comedy doesn't need to suck completely. Embrace it a little bit for what it is, when forced to do it. See it as a link to our vaudevillian past. 

Very occasional quote of the day: Bozzio auditions for Zappa

I had to fly myself down to LA just to audition like the rank and file rest of the people that auditioned for Frank. It was scary, you know, it was ridiculous. I walked in, and I'm this little kid from San Francisco. I walk into Frank's huge warehouse with this big stage, and all this equipment and road cases and stuff. And these ridiculous charts spread all over the stage. 

And I thought I could pretty much read anything, you know. But I mean this was like the hardest stuff you'd ever want to see. You know, just the odd groupings and odd times, and he had melodic things written out around the toms and the drums, so you didn't have to read just rhythmically—you had to read melodic things as well. I thought, "Man, I can never do this. I've lost." But then I thought, "Well, I've spent the airfare to go down here. I'll give it a try." 

I watched a couple other drummers audition, and they were sort of trying to flaunt their chops rather than really listen to what was going on. So I said, "Well, at least I'll listen." I went up there, and I fumbled through some charts the best I could. There's not too many drummers who could sight read that stuff, so when a real hard part would come, I would just stop and say, "Oh, this is this," and I'd play it for him. And he said, "Right, now stick it in with the rest of it." And I would. 

We jammed a bit and he said, "Okay, you sound real good. I want to hear you when I'm finished with the rest of the guys." And everybody there split, so he said, "Well I guess you've got the gig if you want it."

- Terry Bozzio, from his 1981 Modern Drummer interview with Robin Tolleson

More reality

Well, you can't say this hasn't been an eventful couple of years. I've always been a basically healthy guy, and, having no health insurance for most of my life, I'm not in the habit of going to the doctor often. I did go yesterday, and found out I have extremely high blood pressure— well into the “hypertensive crisis” range. Fortunately, after an examination, urinalysis, and EKG, they're not finding any signs of imminent organ failure so far. The doctor and staff were definitely jumpy about it, but they didn't send me straight to the emergency room— which is currently clogged with unvaccinated COVID cases from rural Oregon. They put me on some meds, and we're following up every couple of days. Still, that phrase hypertensive crisis - seek emergency care makes you feel like you could drop dead any time— but the doctor has assessed that I'm merely hypertensive urgent, meaning “you probably won't die in the next week, but deal with this now.”  

What the hell do you do with that? I always assumed I would just drop dead from something heart related— my father died of a heart attack when he was 41, and I was just turning 4, way back in 1971. Other family members have been very long lived, so I figured there were one of two ways it would go. 

Anyway: I don't want to be maudlin about it, or over-dramatic, but if something happens, I'd hate to check out without leaving a note.

I don't feel incomplete. A lot of people feel like frauds their entire life, and I don't— I can play the drums, I am a musician, I am a player... even if my playing career has never been massive. If I needed adulation or attention I would have sought it out harder— all I ever needed was to make some of my own music, and prove I am a player to myself... plus a little confirmation from people I trust that I'm doing the right thing. I do need to record more. And I've got a studio with 50+ unfinished paintings in it— I need to wrap some of those up. 

I'm very happy with the way the site has developed— I know I've made a contribution with it. I've written things I was always looking for, and never found, because they didn't exist. Or made workarounds for problems/impediments in the existing literature. I think the site makes a decent case for this 60s-70s modernism which is underrepresented in media and literature and especially on the internet as a way to play. What I've posted here would have been massively helpful to me when I was younger, I'm confident it will be massively helpful to some other people like me— I recognize you guys. 

I always tell the story of the weekend cruise ship singer, who I believe worked in a bank, and was bragging about his quite excellent retirement plan (“Two words: compound interest.”). Then one day shortly after retirement, he woke up not feeling well, discovered he had cancer, and was dead a few months later, and he may as well have just been a jazz drummer, a poet, an actor, WHATEVER HE REALLY WANTED TO DO. The end. 

So if I happen to die suddenly, I see it as a huge joke on society and all of its tsk tsk he should have gotten a real job. They'll have to shove that one more time. 

8/27 UPDATE: No organ damage, thank God. They're reducing my blood pressure with medication, and sometime in the next week it should be into long term survivable range. At that point I could just stay on medication forever, or make some lifestyle changes to reduce it. It was so high that the doctor believes there is something hereditary at work, so I imagine I'll be on the medication long term to some extent. 

Three practice rhythms inverted

This is a page I wanted when I was practicing yesterday— whatever I was doing was hard enough that I wanted to see these written out, all together. They're simple, so they're good starting independence rhythms together with more complex ostinatos. Most of the time I don't actually want the denser practice rhythms found in Syncopation. 

Also see my pages of tresillo/cinquillo inversions. Together that all makes a pretty robust, functional independence/comping vocabulary. 

Get the pdf

Cymbalistic: 16" Holy Grail thin/med. thin crashes

CYMBALISTIC: Someone was looking for a 16" crash, so I went over to Cymbal & Gong HQ in southeast Portland and played some nice 16" Holy Grail crashes. Check them out: 

The 949 gram cymbal I purchased for my own stock— if this other customer doesn't buy it, it will be available on my Cymbalistic site soon. The others will be at C&G until someone buys them. All are excellent cymbals— responsive in crashing, and handle light, jazz style riding well; some have more character, some are more straightforward. 

I also bought a 1725 gram 20" Janovar crash/ride to play, and sell on Cymbalistic. The Janovar series is a kind of copy of Paiste's Giant Beat cymbals, in B20 bronze. It's a moderately clean, moderately bright sound, with a very lush body. Good companion for Leon, American Artist, or Merseybeat cymbal— or Holy Grail, for that matter. Not every cymbal in your set up has to have the exact same timbre or character.

More cymbal videos coming soon— I have about six 20-22" rides sitting here waiting to for someone to build a musical career around them. 

UPDATE: LOUD YOU DIG, HIT IT LOUD
In the comments, anonymous noted that the last cymbal sounds like Art Taylor's cymbal on Played Twice, on Thelonious Monk's record 5 by 5. See what you think: 

Delecluse patterns on the drum set

A rare-ish book outside of conservatory percussion circles, that is worth having in your permanent library, is Methode de Caisse-Claire by Jacques Delecluse. It's an odd-sized book, so to print pages for my students I snagged one of the pdfs of it kicking around “free” online, but you should buy it. I'm on my second copy myself— a bass player borrowed my school copy and never returned it.  

It contains a lot of very modern etudes, and 10-15 pages of technical studies, which are a nice alternative to the usual technique books by Stone, Morello, et al. Lately I'm working on pp. 3-4 with some students: 

Playing these rhythms with an alternating sticking is a kind of stick control system in itself— practice them like you would Stone, 30 second to one minute on each line. It's also easy to adapt them for drum set— try any of the following, moving your hands around the drums. 

Start by accenting any 8th notes in the patterns: 

With some different stickings, you can make a pretty complete bebop snare drum vocabulary. You can do doubles on the 16th notes, “side” triplet stickings on the 16th note triplets: RLL, RRL, LLR, LRR. 

The remainder of these ideas seem more suitable for a rock/funk/fusion interpretation. Wherever there are two 16ths notes followed by an 8th note, you can put a bass drum in the middle, and start or end with a flam or double stop (both hands in unison on two different drums): 

On any 16th note triplets, you can play a RLB sticking. I like to always end that with the right hand, which makes it RLBR. Work out the rest of the sticking so that falls naturally: 

You can also end that RLB pattern with a double stop or left handed flam. I prefer left handed flams on the drum set— since the right hand falls first, it's easy to convert them into RH-lead singles. 

Where there are four 16th notes, play bass drum on the first and last 16ths— again, I like to play the following note with the right hand, BRLB-R: 

Where there are six 16th notes, or two sixteenth note triplets, play the bass drum on the first and last of those: 

There are some other rhythms on those Delecluse pages, using a 16th rest or a 16th triplet rest— I don't have any great ideas for how to handle those yet.  

Billy Elgart

Here's a nice, short profile on avant-garde drummer Billy Elgart, I only ever knew from a couple of 60s Paul Bley records— it turns out he's been thriving living and teaching in Germany all this time: 

Here's a favorite he plays on— Paul Bley / Blood, from Mr. Joy. I thought I posted a transcription I made of the tune, but I can't find it. Searching this site kind of sucks. One big project I'll do if I can get some regular supporters kicking in $$$, is move the entire site over to a new platform where all the materials are more accessible. Anyway: 

Elgart playing Everybody's Song But My Own with Kenny Wheeler— I've been playing this tune a lot lately:

By the way, looking up that song, I found a site that looks like it will be a very valuable resource: secondhandsongs.com. It lists all the recorded versions and adaptations of any song, and gives you the basic information on it, along with YouTube and Spotify links. A big help if you want to find out how people are playing Stablemates or whatever....

[h/t to Seb77 at drumforum for posting the Elgart video]