Jeff was the Pocket Magician

If you haven't read the book "It's About Time" on him......do it. If for nothing else than the comprehensive list of all the tunes he played on, it's impressive.

He would lay down a magic carpet of groove and feel that fit the songs perfectly with just the right fills in the right places......shuffles for days. Ironically, he claimed he wasn't the best at shuffles......lol
 
I was very inspired by him to be this kind of player. To serve the songs & lock in as best as I can.
Then I met my current bass player who told me that, "pocket players make the band sound like they're lagging. They need to be ahead of the beat & drive it, not just support it".

After I heard that, I looked into his comment & found out that many drummers are in fact a millisecond ahead of the rest of the band. Just enough that the audience will feel the drive, but not so much that it sounds like it's rushing.
JR Robinson demonstrates this really well in a video for when he played Jeff's part for Michael Jackson's Beat It. He showed how his hi-hat & snare groove was "slightly ahead" to give the song a drive.

That threw me for a good loop as I always thought being spot on with a click was the right thing to do. Seems I've been wrong for the last 39 years.
Goes to show sometimes you think you know it all, until you find you never knew a thing.
 
Love Jeff..saw him live.....real close at The Baked Potato. Studio City, CA.
 
Cmdr. Ross said:
I was very inspired by him to be this kind of player. To serve the songs & lock in as best as I can.
Then I met my current bass player who told me that, "pocket players make the band sound like they're lagging. They need to be ahead of the beat & drive it, not just support it".

After I heard that, I looked into his comment & found out that many drummers are in fact a millisecond ahead of the rest of the band. Just enough that the audience will feel the drive, but not so much that it sounds like it's rushing.
JR Robinson demonstrates this really well in a video for when he played Jeff's part for Michael Jackson's Beat It. He showed how his hi-hat & snare groove was "slightly ahead" to give the song a drive.

That threw me for a good loop as I always thought being spot on with a click was the right thing to do. Seems I've been wrong for the last 39 years.
Goes to show sometimes you think you know it all, until you find you never knew a thing.
Click to expand...
I don't know that you've been wrong, really.

Ahead, behind, on the click - the tempo is the tempo. Record a part, take away the click, and nobody knows if you were ahead of it or behind it. What's important is a) how the band interacts with your playing and b) how your playing feels, regardless of where it sits in relation to the click. I believe that has way more to do with the agressiveness of your playing and with microtiming between the parts of the kit.

Take a dead-steady 8th note hi-hat pattern. Play 1 & 3 on the bass drum, 2 & 4 on the snare. Where you place those notes in relation the hi-hat pattern, and how you strike the drums - those are the things that make the beat feel different, not the relationship of the whole package to the click.
 
I watched that video yesterday. Enjoyed.

Made me want to run that old video, (where Jeff teaches his Rosanna shuffle), through an AI video clean up program to upscale and add clarity. 🤔
 
Near the top of one of Son of Vistalite Black's most popular rankings.

Top Drummers Who Smoked While Performing in the Rock Era

10. Stewart Copeland

9. Travis Baker

8. Ginger Barker

7. Jim Gordon

6. Phil Rudd

5. Roger Taylor

4. Jeff Porcaro

3, Bun E. Carlos

2, John Bonham

1. Ringo StarrIMG_9952.jpeg
 
Became a BIG fan when I heard him on Burton Cummings My own way to rock LP. Then with Toto of course. His self proclaimed imitation of Jim Gordon on Claptons Forever man. THEN when I heard him on Tommy Bolins Teaser album it was over...infatuation to the nth degree.
 
Jeff was the quintessential pop drummer. Not sure his is the career I’d pick, if I could be any drummer of the last 120 years, but I don’t know that anyone will ever embody that sound concept and vibe like he did
 
Cmdr. Ross said:
I was very inspired by him to be this kind of player. To serve the songs & lock in as best as I can.
Then I met my current bass player who told me that, "pocket players make the band sound like they're lagging. They need to be ahead of the beat & drive it, not just support it".

After I heard that, I looked into his comment & found out that many drummers are in fact a millisecond ahead of the rest of the band. Just enough that the audience will feel the drive, but not so much that it sounds like it's rushing.
JR Robinson demonstrates this really well in a video for when he played Jeff's part for Michael Jackson's Beat It. He showed how his hi-hat & snare groove was "slightly ahead" to give the song a drive.

That threw me for a good loop as I always thought being spot on with a click was the right thing to do. Seems I've been wrong for the last 39 years.
Goes to show sometimes you think you know it all, until you find you never knew a thing.
Click to expand...
When learning some of the classic MJ tunes on bass I noticed a few of them are sharp, I think Beat It was one of them. I asked around for an explanation and was told they recorded them then sped them up a bit to give them a bit more energy. Interested to see the JR video you mentioned if you wouldn't mind linking to it please?
 
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It's between him and Bernard Purdie who's my favourite drummer. I've blagged gigs learning their pocket and feel.

He's in the heavyweight division for pocket guys. Jim Gordon gets overlooked, Carlos Vega, Gadd, Rick Marotta, Keltner, JR are other big hitters I can think of.

Phil Gould goes under the radar for those not familiar with Level 42
 
Caz said:
When learning some of the classic MJ tunes on bass I noticed a few of them are sharp, I think Beat It was one of them. I asked around for an explanation and was told they recorded them then sped them up a bit to give them a bit more energy. Interested to see the JR video you mentioned if you wouldn't mind linking to it please?
Click to expand...
Of course now that I'm looking for it, I can't find the exact video I saw.
But I did find this one where he talks the same talk about Rock With You. Same deal...stay ahead of it to "drive it" rather than be spot on.
 
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