Is Jazz Dead? (No)

Jazz Standards have been on my brain this past week. Maybe blame Jacob Mann, who's currently crushing the wedding/bar mitzvah game with his Jazz Standers Trio.

I have friends who tell me "jazz is dead". Whether it's magical thinking or confirmation bias born of spending 6 years of my life and a consequential sum of money on my "jazz education", I'm not ready to say that by a long shot.

Nor am I fully on-board with the thesis that Kneebody and Snarky Puppy are the "jazz" now. Those are two of my favorite musical acts, but I don't think even they'd say they were "jazz" - definitely "jazz influenced", but not "jazz" per se.

Nor am I ready to say the only "jazz" is completely repertory. Rehashing the 1950s like zero time has passed. I think we've come too far since 1990 to go back.

The "sweet spot" - one some friends insist is so small as to be inconsequential (and obviously I disagree) - is jazz that isn't fusion, but isn't repertory either. And I assert there are *plenty* of records in that vein.

Which begs the question: why aren't any of those tunes in real books?

Seamus Blake's Badlands.

Terence Blanchard's Wandering Wonder.

Zhivago by Kurt, f@#$ sakes.

This week's lesson simultaneously catalogues ten records I think we should add to the real book, and my climate-fueled retreat to the west coast for a few days.

Hope you enjoy.

Nate vs BS YouTube Drum Advice

There's a lot of drum advice out there, and a lot of it is good advice.

"Don't bury your head in the music. Listen and pay attention to the band."

"Watch the dynamics."

"Play for the song."

Etc. All solid advice.

Then, there's some advice that's *not* so copacetic. Like the kind of advice that seems to surface in my comment threads.

"It's all about books and exercises."

"You shouldn't count, bro, you should just FEEL IT."

And more.

I've done videos before about the "small amount of knowledge is dangerous" thing. It's called the Dunning Kruger Effect, and it means that in many cases, the *less* knowledge you have about a subject matter, the *higher* you rate your skills.

But in this video I decided to take a swing not at the tree, but at the apples. And there are five commonly recurring misconceptions for which I'm ready to draw a line in the sand.

Increasingly, I see my role on the Drum-ternet as being the guy who proves there are "layers", or "levels to this game", which might be opaque to a newcomer.

It's tough, because we can't "roll with a black belt" in drums (though we can shed with one) (but a lot of the commenters probably don't)...

...so there are fewer "reality checks".

But anybody who's been playing for more than a handful of years has had at least a handful of those reality checks.

- The first time we learned we didn't sound as good on stage as we did in our heads

- The first time we thought we were nailing it, then we heard a recording

- The first time we thought we killed, then we heard a real master play live, right after us

Myths, misconceptions, and Dunning Kruger effects don't survive first contact with these reality checks well, but not everybody gets to experience one.

So let this be a "video reality check". Check it out here.

Hope you enjoy.

Try This to Make Your Triplet Fills Better Instantly

The post-it version of today's lesson is "practice 2/2 in triplets to make your fills better".

So, why didn't I just tell you that? It would've take two minutes. Well, that probably sells this lesson sort.

But it's not quite "play exactly like Chris Coleman, Aaron Spears, and Sean Wright" either.

If you're expecting transcriptions, this is not the lesson.

The truth is somewhere in-between: and, in a world where I need to entice you to watch as much of my videos as possible, I wanted to take you inside my thought process -

- What got me thinking about triplet fills in the first place

- Why Sean Wright got the sound of groups of 4 triplets in my head

- How that translated into 2/2

- Why that immediately benefited my fills

- How to do it yourself

Which is NOT to say this is the last word on groups of 4 within triplets. There's 3/1 (or 6/2 sextuplets), other permutations, and combinations of them.

I'll keep messing with it.

Here's my promise: if you watch this week's lesson, and practice it for half-an-hour, you will notice a difference in your triplet fills.

How about that?

See you next week

Stop "trying" to groove - do this instead

Time Exercises Transcription

The idea for this week's lesson occurred to me the other day as I watched a Thomas Pridgen video:

Grooving isn't about trying hard.

In the video, Thomas plays opposite a less experienced drummer. The other drummer's trying *super* hard to groove, but it's obvious that Thomas' pocket is better.

But Thomas wasn't "trying" at all.

The whole thing reminded me of all the "jazz face" that happened at my old college after a visit from Marcus Baylor. We all furled our brows and tried to play "serious groove" for months after hearing Marcus.

Did it help? Not at all. Unless our goal was to look, as Ralph Lalama used to say... Never mind. I'm not going to finish that sentence.

It just so happened I was also listening to some Sam Harris podcasts this week on Dzogchen meditation - particular his interview with Mingyur Rinpoche.

Dzogchen teaches that the fact that there isn't a duality between thoughts and the thinker - the "locus behind the eyes" as Sam calls it - is an insight available at a moment's notice to someone ready to receive it.

Sam gives the analogy of realizing one wall of a restaurant is mirrors. Your perception changes, and you can't "not see it" after that.

Mingyur's father, Tulku Urgyen, showed Sam "the pointing out exercise", analogous to telling someone the walls are mirrors.

I love how I don't need to retain people's attention in this written description, so I can make is as long as I want :P

Anyway, what if "trying hard" to groove misses the point?

What if Thomas and Marcus don't have better pocket because they're "trying harder", but because they *see more clearly*?

Well, then we'd probably approach the whole enterprise totally differently.

This lesson suggests one way.