Jazz Session

[crlujan]

Hey Guys and Gals,
You can find an example of my drumming right here...

http://profile.myspace.com/erikmekkelson

This is the sax player's page but I'm on the first four tunes. And not on "Night And Day". We just recorded this on November 14th. Keep in mind I've only been playing for a year and a half. I know where most of my faults lie but am interested in any comments you might have.
Thanks alot,
Chris

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c159/07Negative/Jazzsession028.jpg

[fourstringdrums]

That was great! It's hard to believe you've only been playing for a year and half. To me you had a very nice feel and great timing. Keep it up!

[aydee]

Vey nice playing. As rob says, that pretty quick progress!

[crlujan]

Thanks, guys. I play upright bass as well. For many years. My teacher always says that I've got a head start on the drums because he doesn't have to teach me about jazz or song forms... stuff like that. I'm just applying what I know to a different instrument. But, I will say, the drums has become my main instrument in that year and a half.

[bballdrummer34]

You sound great. You have a great cymbal beat. Very tasty.

[tomgrosset]

Wow, I really enjoyed listening to this. And the fact that you've only been playing the drums for a year and a half startles me. It's true that you've had experience with this genre, but I'm still very impressed.

You have a very nice feel in each of these recordings. I also like how you traded fours in "Have You Met Miss Jones?". Very nice overall.

BTW, your sax player sounds a lot like Sonny and that's what kept me interested the entire time as well.

You've got a great group of musicians and you're making great progress.

I'm really diggin' it man. Keep it going.

[Erik Lund]

I'll add to the "nice year and a half" sentiment. But I disagree with the others on your ride. It's not *quite* happenin' yet. The swung 8th notes didn't "swing" to me, and there wasn't any sense of drive or "edge" to it. After that, the rest is gravy, man.

[Drummer Karl]

Amazing "start" man! I mean you`re playing for one and a half year, great progress for sure!!
Very good recordings and great cats overall. Lucky lucky.

Just keep playing and swinging. If there wasn`t something to work on that would be pretty uncool, huh? =)
As Erik said, your swing isn`t living yet. But this comes with time and listening, definitly...and with practicing of course. Practicing double strokes or triplets...doing shuffle, that helped me very much.

So, knowing that you`re at this point after just 1 and a half year of playing and practicing...keep it up!!

PS: Great band!

Karl

[crlujan]

Yeah. The ride. I was a little disappointed in the feel too. It does sound a little stiff to me. I will be working on that.

I wish I had a chance to play with these guys more often. They are usually so busy with gigs that it's difficult to schedule them in. And we've gotta pay the bass player to come out. The other guys I know so well that they'll just come hang. The guitar player is super busy. His name is Terrence Brewer. I've known him forever. He won this years SF Weekly Jazz Artist of the Year award. You can check him out further at www.terrencebrewer.com if you like.

[Erik Lund]

Ugh. The idea of paying a bass player to come to a session/jam sounds horrible.

Couldn't you just play the bass and drums at the same time and save yourself a buck? Come on - where's the Rahsaan in you?



But yeah - along with actually fixing the spacial relation of the notes on the ride to make it swing - get a swagger in that step. (but don't drag...sometimes when people think they're really layin' down, they're slowing down)

[crlujan]

The ride...

I sat in at a little restaurant gig that my teacher was doing. I played two songs. At the end of my playing, I asked the teacher, "How was that?" He said it was good but that I needed to drive the band more. This was about two weeks before the recording.

I came to realize that I was sitting in the middle of the pulse. Not driving but not falling behind either. Just swinging along with the band instead of pulling it along. In the two weeks between my sitting in and the recording, I, by myself, tried to practice the driving thing. I'm not trying to make any excuses. I know that the ride is a little jagged. But I think the recording just happened to fall into place when I was working on the drive. Making the switch from a West Coast laid-back style to an East Coast pants-on-fire style.

Does any of this make any sense?

[tomgrosset]

Getting your swing to sound good takes a very long time.

So keep it up!