Tenor Madness In Three Voices – PASIC 2011 – Part 3

I hope all of you had a great holiday season and are off to a great start in 2012! I’m determined to practice as much as possible this year and have accumulated a stack of drum books/DVDs to attempt to absorb: John Riley’s Master Drummer, Stanton Moore’s Groove Alchemy, Florian Alexandru-Zorn’s Complete Guide to Playing Brushes, Bill Bachman’s Stick Technique, and Bernie Schallen’s Mind Matters.

The following lesson is the last in a series based on John Riley’s recent clinic at PASIC 2011. If you haven’t had a chance to peruse the previous material, you may want to do that now.

Back when I was in college at Arizona State University in the late 80’s (seems like hundreds of years ago), Chuck Marohnic, jazz director at that time, would bring in world-class clinicians for an event called “Jazz Week.” Joe Diorio, jazz guitarist, appeared at a combo clinic (I don’t recall who else was there…), played a short set of tunes with Chuck and asked for volunteers to come up and play. I bet you can’t guess what unsuspecting young drummer raised his hand.

I didn’t have much of a clue how to play jazz at that time, but Joe somehow made it a positive playing experience. After the clinic was over, I asked him to critique my playing.

Thank goodness that Joe didn’t go down that road, but he did demonstrate a lick that Max Roach showed him. A guitarist demonstrating a drum lick!

In the above lick, a hi-hat chick, snare drum, and bass drum produce a triplet flow, while the traditional jazz ride pattern remains in place. After experimenting with this Max Roach pattern, I quickly realized that many permutations of this three-voice comping pattern could be produced.

1. HH SD BD (already shown in drumset notation)
2. SD BD HH
3. BD HH SD
4. HH BD SD
5. SD HH BD
6. BD SD HH

Fast forward 10 or more years later, and I was in NYC taking a private lessons with John Riley. I asked John for a diagnosis of my playing, and he mentioned that my “time” seemed to be devoid of any 3-voice comping patterns. He showed me what he meant, and I realized that I already had that somewhat under my belt (from Joe Diorio). I just hadn’t assimilated the concept into my playing yet. John showed me that I could also play the lick as a 3-note pattern of swung 8th notes.

Over the years, I began to experiment more with these 3-note comping patterns, varying the rhythms beyond triplets and swung 8th notes. I’ve been especially influenced by David Stanoch and his great book, Mastering the Tables of Time (which is also part of my ever-growing stack of practice materials). Recently, a fortuitous weekly jazz gig has allowed for even more experimentation.

One more time, here is Tenor Madness.

Now, here is my version of Tenor Madness using three-voice comping and the accompanying video lesson.

Functionally, this type of playing works great, because the other band members still have the obvious component of the ride cymbal to latch onto, while the alternating textures and varying comping rhythms create interest.

This ends my Tenor Madness series of lessons, but as you can tell, there are many other possibilities, including soloing over the melody and broken time-playing in the style of Jack DeJohnette (Check out John Riley’s book Beyond Bop Drumming).

Business Items:

• Thank you to Bart Elliott of Drummer Cafe for publishing this press release of my new book, Drumset for Preschoolers. http://www.drummerca…-year-olds.html

• I will be at NAMM in a couple of weeks and The Drummer Stand will be on display at the Manhasset Booth. Please come by, take a look, and say hi. Here is the first ad that I’ve discovered for the stand: http://www.musicstan…DM-DrummerStand Pretty exciting stuff!

• I support the Global Drummer’s Alliance for Hunger Relief. http://www.drummerca…ger-relief.html I’m having all of my students learn “Three Camps,” and am offering a free 10-minute Skype lesson for anyone who needs a brush-up lesson before the big Jan 14 event. If you’re interested, please contact me through onlinedrummer.com or www.andyziker.com.

• Please join my facebook page called Drumscapes: http://www.facebook….5407506?ref=ts.

• Check out OnlineDrummer’s own Dan Brigstock’s new books: http://www.lulu.com/…_shelf/center/1

Happy Drumming!

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