Today, we feature freelance drum set artist James Yoshizawa performing Cannonball Adderley’s solo on “Freddie Freeloader” from the Miles Davis’ album “Kind of Blue” on drum set. I have never seen anyone take this approach to soloing on drum set and I hope this inspires more people to try this out. If you have any suggestions or input, please leave your comments below. Follow James on FaceBook.
In one of the handful of lessons I’ve taken with Jason Harnell, he suggested transcribing and playing a horn solo on the drums. I decided to use Cannonball Adderley’s solo from “Freddie Freeloader.”
This was all done by ear. I started by listening to the solo over and over to become familiar with it. Then I started picking out phrases that I thought could be orchestrated on the drums in an interesting way. I didn’t go bar-by-bar from beginning to end. Sometimes a 1-bar phrase in the 4th chorus would catch my attention, then a 4 bar phrase in the 2nd chorus, etc. I gradually did that over the course of a week or so until I basically had the whole solo orchestrated on the drums.
This is a totally different experience than black and white transcription. A lot of creative, interpretive decisions need to be made in order to transfer ideas that sound hip on the saxophone to ideas that sound hip on the drums. There’s a fine balance between being too literal or too vague.
Originally posted on DrummChattr.com on July 26, 2012.
YouTube is one of the great resources on the internet. I am sure I am not telling you anything new, but I truly believe it is only getting better in the recent years. This is especially true since YouTube lifted the 10 minute limit on videos. Recently, I have watched live concerts featuring Miles Davis, Mike Mainieri, and Genesis to name a few. Today’s video of the Monty Alexander Trio is no exception. The camera and audio angles are fantastic and there a lot to learn from watching a live concert. This video features Monty Alexander (piano), Jeff Hamilton (drums) and John Clayton (bass) at Jazz in Marciac. Enjoy!
Originally posted on DrummChattr.com on May 25, 2012.
It has been a while since we featured the music of Peter Klatzow. Today’s video features a recent performance of Figures in a Landscape (1985) by Natalia Gerakis (Flute) and Zhe Lin (Marimba). Have you played any pieces by Klatzow? Which are your favorite pieces?
From YouTube Description:
Peter Klatzow is one of the few South African composers to achieve international recognition. He stats: “Re-establishing the primacy of tonality, without excluding non-tonal music as an extension of musical means. Concerning the musical language his aim is: broadening a vocabulary which can and does communicate”. Figures in a Landscape for Flute and Marimba is a challenging and demanding composition in free form.
Figures in a Landscape makes part of the Concert Programm CONTINENTS.
Natalia Gerakis, one of the most accomplished greek flutists and Zhe Lin, several times award winning marimba virtuoso from China, present an exciting world journey through the continents: from Europe to North and South America, via Africa, Asia and Oceania including impressinonist, modern and contemporary compositions for Flute & Marimba.
The 2012 Trinidad & Tobago National Steelband Panorama Festival is this Saturday, February 18 in Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad & Tobago. The competition begins at 7:00pm (Trinidad Time – 6:00pm EST/3:00pm PST) and features performances of Large and Medium Steel Orchestras. The semi-finals took place on February 5 and Phase II (268), Trinidad All-Stars (268) and Silver Stars (263) are leading the large bands going into finals.
Here’s a video from the 2012 Panorama Semi-Finals of Neal & Massey Trinidad All-Stars performing Play Yourself.
For more Panorama coverage, please visit Pan on the Net. They have links to live video feeds that will be broadcasting the 2012 Panorama Festival. Good luck to all of the bands!
Originally posted on DrummChattr.com on February 14, 2012 by Dave Gerhart
Our job at DrumChattr is to find cool drum/percussion stuff on the web and bring it to you, our valued readers. Today, while checking out Adam Sliwinki’s blog I ran across this clip of one of Dan Deacon’s works called Big Milk. In this post dated January 15th, Adam talks about Dan’s music and connects with his use of sampled keyboard percussion sounds. Click the link above for more of Adam’s thoughts. In the mean time enjoy!
Originally posted on DrummChattr.com on February 13, 2012 by Thomas Burritt.
