Partido Alto is both a musical style (that doesn't employ a drum set), and a rhythm. A few things about the rhythm....
1. I'm going to respectfully take issue with the terms "normal" and "reversed". Both versions are "normal", in the same way that 3-2 clave is not "normal", while 2-3 is "reversed". It's just two different ways of playing it. And if there were a "normal" it would most certainly be the one labelled above as "reversed". This is the one played most often by Brazilian musicians. I'd say as much as eight or nine times out of ten. The version that starts on the downbeat is more often played by non-Brazilian jazz musicians (read: gringos). However, even the version that starts on the upbeat always starts with one bar of rhythm on the downbeat before launching into the upbeat part. This is called an "entrada", meaning entrance. I've got a
post all about it here.
2. While the tune "Partido Alto" is quite famous, it's not actually all that common to hear it played this way where the rhythm is played very literally and split between the bass drum and snare drum. More often this is a comping rhythm that one would play on the rim, snare, hi-hat, ride or any combination thereof, with a samba ostinato in the feet like Don Gozzard does in the Vic Firth video above. It would also be played by the guitarist and/or pianist. I've got some transcriptions over on the blog that you can check out.
3. Partido Alto, the rhythm, is more of a feel than a strict rhythm. Whereas in Cuban music the clave player would start playing and NEVER improvise under any circumstances, Partido Alto is much freer. Another term which means almost the same thing as Partido Alto is Telecoteco. It's another comping rhythm which essentially has Partido Alto built into it. It follows the same up and down pattern. You can
read more about that here. I've got another post coming up soon about how to improvise with Partido Alto/Telecoteco.
That Maria Martinez book is OK, but there are far better ones out there in my humble opinion:
Inside the Brazilian Rhythm Section by Nelson Faria and Cliff Korman
A Bateria Brasileira no Século XXI (Brazilian Drums in the 21st Century) by Nenê (English version available)
Novos Caminos da Bateria Brasil (New Ways of Brazilian Drumming) by Sergio Gomes (English version available)
Essence of Brazilian Percussion and Drum Set by Ed Uribe
Brazilian Rhythms for Drum Set by Bob Weiner and Duduka da Fonseca
O Batuque é Um Privilégio by Oscar Bolao (This book is about Brazilian percussion, not drum set, but it is very well done and full of information. Not sure there's an English version though).
There's an Airto book that I picked up used for a few bucks, the name of which escapes me. I'm pretty sure it's out of print, but I'll see if I can dig it out.
Todd Bishop, over
Cruise Ship Drummer! (and seen above), has a lot of great stuff over on his blog, and has a book on samba and Bossa Nova out as well.
I've got lots on
my blog (with more coming as we rot in lockdown), and am very happy to share PDFs and answer questions and such.