Ritimista Percussion Play-along (Review)

Several CD's arrived in my mailbox last week so lots of fresh listening to do these days. One album that I've been looking forward to receiving and working with is entitled "Ritimista: World Percussion Play-along Series, Vol. 1".

Produced by percussionist Mark Powers, this CD provides 11 different percussion grooves, each at two tempos (slow & fast) to practice with. The grooves include common Afro-Cuban patterns such as the 6/8 Tumbao, Rumba Guaguanco, Cascara, 3-2 Son Clave and 3-2 Rumba Clave as well as several popular West African patterns.

The recording quality is excellent and the grooves are solid, making it an excellent resource to practice with any Afro-Cuban or West African rhythms, either on drum set or hand percussion.

I've been working out of Billy Martin's remarkable book entitled "Riddim" and I look forward to using this new CD to practice Martin's coordination patterns along with. I find it can be a bit more interesting to play these rhythms within a specific stylistic context so Ritimista definitely will help.

One can find out more about this great resource and order it here:

http://www.powerspercussion.com/products.htm

Speaking of play-along CD's to practice along with, I would also highly recommend this fantastic CD:



When I studied with Terry Clarke two years ago, during my first lesson he handed me a copy of this CD (which he had gotten from Jim Blackley) and my assignment for the year was clear - play along with this entire CD perfectly from start to finish. Well this proved to be quite a task considering that the 18 tracks ranged in tempos from 40 to 340 beats per minute !!!

Produced by British drummer Allan Cox, this CD features a bassist and guitarist playing blues and rhythm changes at tempos ranging from very slow to very fast with everything in between - and the execution, precision and recording quality is dead one making this another great resource to play along with.

You can order this gem directly from Allan's website here:

http://www.allancox.co.uk/allancox/%22Meet_The_Bass_Player%22.html

(although I have seen it on display at Soul Drums in Toronto)

Okay, time to go practice....