RIP David S. Ware

One of the most unique tenor sax players to emerge in the post-Coltrane era has died at age 62. Here he is with his quartet: Matthew Shipp on piano, William Parker on bass and Guillermo E. Brown on drums. Parker is laying down this amazingly bizarre bass line. I counted out the beat and I believe the song is written in a 10/4 time signature...

A Tale of Two Drum Solos

I am not a drummer nor am I even a musician, so take this commentary with a grain of salt if you know more than I do about drums. But I tend to think that Neil Peart is one of the most overrated drummers ever. I mean, if all you listen to is classic rock and prog rock, then he is definitely a standout. But the minute you turn to jazz, he just seems way overproduced and laughably predictable.

Let's grab two videos from you tube and put them side by side.

Neil Peart has a gigillion piece drum set that completely surrounds him, a spectacular light show and a gigantic stadium screen behind him showing the audience his every move. Yet everything he does on this gigantic drum set falls squarely and predictably within a 4/4 time signature. Everything about this seems slick, clean and tame.
UPDATE: Case in point, the video was taken down from you tube for a copyright violation. It seems that Rush and Atlantic Records' astronomical profit margin from the DVD sales just isn't wide enough, so they've decided you can't even see a low quality version of it. Well, here is a website that still has it until the Atlantic copyright sharks take that one down as well.


Jim Black is a jazz drummer who has a simple trap set and is playing to a small crowd in a nightclub. There is no light show and the camera angle doesn't show much. I have no idea if the guy is sticking to one time signature because I can't count it out in the first place. It is chaotic, unpredictable and dirty, yet he stops and starts on a dime with millisecond timing. Chaos becomes silence and then chaos again within one single second. I love it at the end where he tosses all of the drumsticks onto the kit and the sound of them hitting everything becomes part of the piece. At that point, the audience can't even tell when the piece ends (in a John Cage, "sound is music" sort of way).

Albert Ayler

Albert Ayler has always been one of my heroes in the jazz world... His sax playing is somewhere between spirituals, folk songs and complete outright chaos on the tenor saxophone...
New Grass is my favorite album cover of his, but the list of his great albums is too long to mention.

This is a really good NPR story on him...
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=90627436&m=91279984

And here is a recording of him doing the classic song, Summertime...  This may very well be the most toned-down you will ever hear Albert Ayler.

Miles Davis - Herbie Hancock - Wayne Shorter - Ron Carter - Tony Williams

A great piece from the period that was after the Kind of Blue cool jazz of the fifties but before the Bitches Brew era electric space funk of the late sixties when Miles was doing abstract jazz with his classic acoustic quintet. I am never short of amazed at Tony Williams' machine gun virtuosity on the ride cymbal.

Chicago Underground Duo- Boca Negra

I've been a fan of the Chicago Underground Duo at least since their seminal album Synesthesia from 2000...This newest album, Boca Negra took me by surprise because this is their first release since 2002 or so... What I loved about it is how comfortable the band was in spanning the genres of jazz, experimental electronic, indie rock and 70's progressive rock without missing a beat.

Here is a great review by Chris May from www.allaboutjazz.com

If you're not familiar with the group, this is a stripped down You Tube clip of the duo with just trumpet and drums... No electronics or vibraphones.