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Tony Williams and Mel Lewis did this - can you?

Eoin Hayes September 27, 2019
Tony/Connie/Mel Exercise

Yet another lesson has me asking "what's clickbait and what's not clickbait".

The original idea behind this lesson was simple: my How to Really Play Jazz Part 1 video was one of my most popular videos...

...but it was also getting long-in-the-tooth, at 5 years old.

Time for a reshoot.

But "the reshot How to Really Play Jazz Drums" wasn't going to fly.

And, to be fair, there's a lot that's updated this time around.

Here's the crux, and if it sounds similar to the problem I outlined in my "how not to get vibed" lesson, that's because it is.

At the time I made the original lesson, drum instruction was mute on the subject of what to practice if you wanted to do anything other than 2 & 4 on the hi hats...

...unless you were ready to play like Roy Haynes or Paul Motian.

Which was mysterious and infuriating to me, because it's not like "mixing it up" while staying relatively "straight ahead" is new.

Indeed, Connie Kay was doing it...70...years ago?

Mel Lewis throughout his career.

Tony Williams, best known for his Plugged Nickel stuff...and maybe those ridiculous clinics at the yellow Gretschs (Gretsches?)...did it.

So maybe it's not clickbait.

I'm going to show you how to do the thing Connie, Mel, and Tony did.

But I can guarantee you they didn't practice it this way.

And, to be frank, this week's lesson isn't opposite-end-of-the-map from the "how not to get vibed" one, which used Max Roach as the template to explore some "non-two-and-four-yet-straight-ahead" playing...

...but it's a different angle from which to tackle it.

And a more "in depth" approach to the teaching. Less storytelling, more teaching.

Hope you enjoy.

N

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