This was an interesting exercise–recording a downtempo tune highlighted my serious propensity for overplaying. I subsequently recalibrated my whole style in the process of recording this. The first few takes, I beat so hard that it was just comical. I figure that years of playing on stage with real drummers (who lack volume knobs) and guitarists (who superglue theirs on 11) is my excuse. Anyhow, this is just a relaxing, down swinger that sits in the pocket, and it dawned on me that I don’t have a lot of videos like that in the catalog. Because I rarely play that way.
I’m used to playing this about 50% faster, and precision isn’t really the focus at that tempo. So dialing back and making the lines really flow was a very useful exercise for me. There’s time to think, and time and space to hear any imprecision. This is take 3 of four, it has the best groove overall. I forgot to play the head on the last chorus until we got the first ending, so the out chorus is a halfer.
The Youtube crowd has been more appreciative of the material when I use a backing track, so expect more of that format in the future.
Comment by FatManRedemption — October 18, 2008 @ 1:26 pm
Yesssss! we're playing this in jazz band. It looks SO much easier on the piano, this piece has an inordinate number of sharps and flats in it. Torture on the trumpet. Or maybe it's just me...Anyway, you did an awesome job with this, I really likethe lick at about-mmm- 1:26 I think.
Comment by magspags999 — January 26, 2008 @ 7:52 pm
yea thanks never though about it in that light
Comment by dapressure23 — January 19, 2008 @ 11:33 pm
lolat first i was thinking wtf are you talking about, but i realized that play drums so i guess it doesnt apply to menice vid
Comment by blocksowood — March 18, 2008 @ 11:45 pm
word, great groove brotha.
Comment by patrickmer10s — November 12, 2007 @ 11:42 pm
Your swing is so cool, i wish i could play like that
Comment by Mrguill — November 7, 2007 @ 12:34 am
Nice, 3:13-3:25, very nice! :D
Comment by Kali9191 — August 18, 2007 @ 8:03 am
"Swing" word takes all its sense !
Comment by futurejazzman — May 26, 2007 @ 7:52 am
Hi Me again, I checked out the bebop scale link. Very useful, however the Donna Lee example around the circle of 5ths is what I would describe as pure diminished scale. So Bebop uses both. Any other tips, or bread and butter bebop licks, you could share?Many thanks, I'll post a vid of me once I've got some of this down.James
Comment by ColdBuffetKing — March 26, 2007 @ 3:46 pm
hey, could you please let me know about that bebop scale link? I'm a vocalist student and would be interesting to learn more about this scale.Thanks.pat
