WELCOME TO FOUR ON THE FOUR: A BLOG ABOUT JAZZ DRUMMING AND ALL THINGS UNRELATED, BROUGHT TO YOU BY JON McCASLIN

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Play-Along 2.0

My last post on the importance of playing along with recordings generated a few comments. Here's a few other suggestions from you, the reader, for things to practice and play along with:

Christian McBride - "Fingerpainting: The Music of Herbie Hancock"

Christian McBride/Roy Hargrove/Stephen Scott - "Parker's Mood"

John Coltrane - "Coltrane Plays the Blues"
(apparently the drums are only on one channel so you can mix them out...)

Mike Murley/Ed Bickert/Steve Wallace - "Live at the Senator"

Any of Ahmad Jamal's 1950s drummer-less recordings
(thank you Todd Bishop from Cruiseship Drummer for this great suggestion!)

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Also, there are a few other very good educational resources out there that I neglected to mention in my previous post:

Tommy Igoe's "Groove Essentials" series apparently has many very good tracks to play with.

John Riley's "The Art of Bop Drumming" and "Beyond Bop Drumming" both have excellent play-along tracks contained on the accompanying CDs. I've used these both extensively over the years and quite like them.

This one recently showed up in my mailbox and I look forward to checking this resource out in the coming weeks:























This one is unique in that there are two sets of tracks of each tune so you can hear Hart's drumming, interpretation and approach (with accompanying transcriptions) on one set of tracks and then try out your own ideas out on a second set of tracks without the drums (many of the tracks on John Riley's  CDs from his books also follow the same approach, however minus the transcriptions). I hope to play with Dave Liebman someday, so maybe this one might be a good start ; )

Okay, any others we should know about?


2 comments:

  1. Following is a list of titles to which I've enjoyed practicing and playing along:

    -Cesar Camargo Mariano & Romero Lubambo, "Duo"
    -Tal Farlow, "A Sign of the Times"
    -Bill Frisell, "Nashville"
    -Kirk Lightsey Trio, "From Kirk to Nat"
    -Bill Mays & Red Mitchell, "Two of a Mind"
    -Steve Nelson, "Fuller Nelson"
    -David Sills, "Light Touch"
    -Kenny Wheeler, "What Now?"

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  2. Hi Jon,
    Here are a few other drummer-less recordings to play to:
    Stan Getz and Kenny Barron "People Time"
    Monty Alexander "Triple Scoop"
    Jim Chapin "For Drummers Only"
    Lee Konitz "Alone Together"
    Colin Bailey 'Drum Solos-The Art of Phrasing" Book and cd
    Nick Brignola "It's Time"
    The new Kenny Barron and Dave Holland cd
    I prefer play along recordings that feature real life tunes (like Cherokee) with people actually soloing.
    Take care
    Pete Sweeney



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