This morning, while eating a delicious bowl of oatmeal and listening to Billy Cobham’s classic album, “Spectrum”, I realized that I haven’t posted an odd meter loop in quite awhile. The whole intent of this blog is to record and write about as many musical genres as my baby soft hands can handle. I can’t just cater to the pop songwriters and dance producers… I also need to show the fusion crowd a little love as well. As the final few measures of “Red Baron” faded out, I pounded my third cup of coffee and went into the studio to lay down some tracks for those of you looking for something outside the world of 4/4.
Billy Cobham
Loop #112
When most people think about odd meter music, it’s typically one measure of a certain meter, repeated over and over (7/8, 5/8 etc). While this is great, and I’ve spent hours upon hours wanking some serious fusion jams in 9/8, I like to mix up odd meters alongside more straight ahead time signatures. In this case, I take a 4/4 groove and place it next to a bar of 7/8. Now, you can look at this phrasing in a lot of different ways. One could call it 15/8, or you can think about it smaller rhythmic chunks (4+4+4+3). Whatever floats your boat. These types of grooves allow the average listener to grasp on to a back beat while, at the same time, contains enough rhythmic complexity to satisfy even the most jaded of fusion musicians.
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Every winter, when I travel home to West Des Moines, Iowa to celebrate Christmas with my family, I also take part in a “reunion concert” of sorts with some old friends from high school. Fourteen years ago, just before packing up my bags and heading to Berklee, I teamed up with some other members of my high school jazz band to find a way to get into bars without a fake ID. The solution? Start a funk band. And give it a really bad name.
At first we were called Pushin’ Chunky. Then we were D.I.M. (Drunkards In Motion). Several years ago, we somehow transitioned into the rather unfortunate moniker, Chach. Our name may change a lot, but the set list never really does. Stocked full of quintessential bar-funk-soul-r&b-band standards such as Sex Machine, Superstition, Everybody’s Everything and Pass The Peas, it’s three hours of music that we can pull off on an annual basis… without a single rehearsal. Consistent? Yes. Tight? Eh. Tight enough.
Chach - Circa '95 - Excuse the shirts.
Loop #104
In preparation for this year’s Chach-fest, I’ve been brushing up on the ‘ol funk chops. Today’s loop is one of the many Kenwood-esque grooves that will be making the annual appearance down on Court Avenue. Two measures, some swung sixteenth notes and an open hi hat on the “one”. It’s what the best bar bands are made of. And yes, it looks like I finally quit the drum replacer habit.
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Last week I had the pleasure of seeing my old classmate, Adam Deitch, perform for all of the incoming babies students at Berklee. Adam had a great band playing with him, including Eric Krasno and my former NYC roommate, Adam “Shmeeans” Smirnoff on guitar. While the band was officially billed as “Chapter 2″, it also consisted of half of the members of Lettuce. If you haven’t checked out their 2008 release, “Rage!”, then you’ve missed out one of the funkiest, most soulful albums of the past five years. These guys graduated from the University of Wally’s with honors and keep getting better every year.
Adam Deitch
Loop #93
With the snare cranked up tight, and a steady flow of ghost-notes, today’s loop cops more than a few of Adam’s licks. You’ll hear I still haven’t tamed my overly live tracking room (weekend project #172), but for this groove, it seems to work in favor of the mix. I’ll be including the rest of the grooves and fills from this session in the release of Gruss Loops V.
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While cleaning up my studio and preparing for the big move, I stumbled across a folder of notes and lesson materials from my Berklee days. Inside this folder was everything from Max Roach solo transcriptions, to South Indian rhythmic cycles, to 4-way independence studies. Flipping through the pages of sheet music was like stepping into a time machine and being transported back to the grimey, unventilated practice studios on Mass Ave. Awh, the good old days.
Casey Scheuerell
While taking a closer look at the contents of the folder, one page of handwritten transcriptions jumped out at me. Quintuplet based grooves?? It took me a few minutes, but I finally remembered the source of the music. It was from one of my lessons with the great, Casey Scheuerell. I studied with Casey during my last two years of college and learned a tremendous amount from him. Not just about drumming, but also about the music business as a whole. We spent just as much time talking during our lessons as we did playing on the two kits he had set up in his office.
From the archives
Loop #85
You Zappa Heads and prog-rockers will enjoy today’s loop. It’s geek funk to the fullest and should probably never leave the confines of your own studio. Loosely based on the above transcription from my lessons with Casey, it’s a 4/4 groove with quintuplets on the hi-hat and a 2+3 rhythmic phrasing. To make things easier for tracking to a click, I actually recorded this as a halftime groove in 5/4… just listen to the shaker for the 8th note pulse. Anyway, I’d like to see someone try to dance to it. Let the math rock begin.
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Today, as I was recording and editing drums for “Gruss Loops Volume II”, I thought about how much more interesting it would be (for both me and my subscribers) to collaborate with another artist during the creation process. Scrolling through the massive Rolodex of musicians in my head, one name immediately jumped out as the perfect partner in crime: Bob Reynolds.
Bob Reynolds
Bob is one of my best friends and one of the greatest saxophonists (and composers) I’ve ever had the pleasure to play with. Based in Los Angeles, Bob is an accomplished musician who keeps a busy schedule in both the jazz and pop worlds. He recently finished up a two year long world tour with another one of my old friends, John Mayer, and has also performed and/or recorded with Nellie McKay, Brian Blade, Tom Harrell and a host of others.
Bob and I spoke on the phone for almost an hour, brainstorming of all the possible ways we could collaborate in a method which would be intriguing to subscribers as well as push our personal creative boundaries. After some deep thought and a heated game of rock-paper-scissors (I don’t advise trying to play this over the phone), here’s what we ultimately decided to do:
No loops today. I’ve got something much better. Sit back and enjoy the hip hop stylings of my old mentor, Kenwood Dennard, circa 1985.
I just stumbled across some old cassette tapes of my lessons with Kenwood. As soon as I can find the right adapter, I’ll digitize and upload a few highlights. Don’t worry, the keyboards and headset mic are present in these tapes as well.
On my way to Tulum. Can't wait to visit the ruins where Montezuma had his revenge. One of the ugliest, stinkiest battles in history.about 4 hours agofrom web
