Practicing Drummer

Big Band Drum Books

The last couple of months have been very busy, but I’ve been finding some time to work on big band drumming. It’s something that I’ve never really put energy toward outside of high school and college.

Naturally, I went down a YouTube rabbit hole and found a great playlist by Rick Dior where he breaks down big band playing and mentions some books that I’ll link to below.

I’m not sure that I aspire to do much serious playing in a big band, but it’s been a good way to shake up my practice routine while working on many things at once: reading, setups, time/feel, and playing with recordings.

The books I’ll link to below are simply the ones that I’ve purchased and am enjoying. There are many others available and if there’s something worth checking out that I haven’t listed, please drop it in the comments.

Harold Jones Interpretation of Big Band Swing Drumming

I’ve talked to many drummers who consider Harold Jones their favorite of the later Basie drummers. He played with Basie from 1968 – 1972.

Danny Gottlieb has done an amazing amount of work to put this book together, working directly with Harold Jones to chart out 76 tunes and provide Harold’s notes for each. This is a gold mine!

Harold Jones Interpretation of Big Band Swing Drumming

Gottlieb has recently released two similar volumes that cover Mel Lewis’ playing with the Terry Gibbs Dream Band: Volume 1 & Volume 2.

The Jazz Drummer’s Reading Workshop

This book by Tom Morgan provides sequential exercises that gradually add new setup figures and longer etudes to help build a vocabulary for playing big band charts. All recordings of the exercises and play-along tracks are available as downloadable MP3s.

This has been a fun one to work out of.

And here are several more that I purchased based on Rick Dior’s recommendation.

Finally, here’s a great Count Basie performance featuring Butch Miles on drums. His energy is undeniable and will live on forever. Rest in peace.

There are two driving principles in my drumming. The first came from my teacher Mr. Frank Thompson who told me, “Always let the band know where ‘1’ is.” The second came from the great Count Basie who said, “LISTEN.”
Butch Miles

Smitty’s Rudiment Ritual Warm-Up

I’ve been practicing Alan Dawson’s Rudimental Ritual for many years and return to it often. Recently I heard about Smitty’s Rudiment Ritual Warm-Up on Jon McCaslin’s interview with Thomas Wendt and Eric Binder (worth checking out).

I can’t believe that was my first time hearing about it! I figured that a quick search on Google would turn up a PDF and I’d have something new to practice. I was wrong.

I became obsessed with finding it and stayed up way too late scouring the internet. I ended up reaching out to other jazz drummers to see if anyone had a copy they’d be willing to share. When I woke up the next morning I had a PDF in my email from a drummer who I have never met. The community of drummers is amazing!

I’ve since sent Mr. Smith a message on Instagram asking if I could purchase a copy directly from him or send him some money for his work. I haven’t heard back, so if anyone is in contact with him please send him my way.

As much as I’d love to share the PDF here, without Smitty’s permission I don’t feel comfortable doing that. I hope he shares it more widely someday.

I’m still digging into Smitty’s ritual and taking it line by line. All of the ideas flow nicely and there are many challenging sections that have been fun to work up to speed.

In addition to the snare drum version, I also discovered a version for drumset that Karl Miklin has developed. It’s really fun and I usually play a page from it each day to get my shoulders and spine loosened up. There’s a link to download it on his YouTube video page.

Happy practicing!

Paul Motian Documentary

One of the many things I love about being a musician is the deep well of inspiration that will never stop providing if you keep an open mind and open ears.

I’ve known about Paul Motian and listened to his playing countless times with Bill Evans, but until a few years ago that’s about as far as I’ve gone. I think I subconsciously avoided his solo work because I was overwhelmed with where to start or how to wrap my head around it.

That was until I met Colin Stranahan after a gig in Minneapolis. He showed me one of his own original compositions and told me about how big of an influence Paul Motian has been on him, both as a drummer and musician. That made a big impression on me and as soon as I got home I ordered both volumes of The Compositions of Paul Motian and began listening to the Uncle Paul’s Jazz Closet podcast as a way to dive in.

Recently I was reminded about the Paul Motian documentary “Motian in Motion” and found it available online. It’s a beautiful film filled with wonderful footage of Paul both on and off the stage. There are too many great moments to mention and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Since watching the documentary I’ve been listening to Paul Motian’s Electric Bebop Band almost exclusively. Hearing familiar tunes is a really great path into his playing and will no doubt lead my ears down paths that I’ve yet to discover.