Drum Track of the Week

"Biaozinho Carioca" on Brazilian Soul by Azymuth, featuring Ivan "Mamao" Conti on drums. Conti is one of the best samba trap drummers, here cooking up a storm with his bandmates from the outstanding Brazilian fusion group Azymuth. Conti plays creative yet in-the-pocket samba grooves with excellent electric bassist Alex Malheiros that go down as smooth as a caipirinha, the national cocktail of Brazil. The top-notch recorded quality of the drums is another pleasure this record offers.

Percussion Discussion

Jazz bassist Ron Carter: "There's nothing worse than hearing a band slow down." In Downbeat, May 2007.

But can it play the blues?

Ever wonder what the musical instruments of the future will look and sound like? The Tenori-On, an invention of techno artist Toshio Iwai, might provide a glimpse of things to come. Yamaha is reportedly poised to ship a version soon that features MIDI out and sampling.

Drum Track of the Week

"Prince of the Sea" on the 1976 release Venusian Summer (recently reissued on CD), a release back from the days when fusion made a difference. This album-closing cut in 7/4 opens with a pastoral seascape scene, and then slowly builds to fever pitch intensity with incendiary exchanges between 2 burning guitarists, Al Di Meola and Larry Coryell. Lenny White's drumming is muscular, tasty, and elegant throughout, filled with virtuosic flourishes and even humorous touches. The album also features the great bassist Doug Rauch (Santana), whose tragically short career revealed him as a major talent.

Giovanni Hidalgo solo. At home in Kissimmee

Check out one the greatest conga players on the planet, Giovanni Hidalgo, playing a beautiful set of LP congas in his home studio. LP's website congahead has stellar selection of multimedia clips featuring today's premier percussionists, all for your free listening pleasure.

Beyonce's Dynamic Duo: the Latest Wave of Female drummers is Kicking it

Beyonce launched another international tour last month, backed by the same all-female 10-piece band that she assembled for her 2006 tour. Unable to whittle her drum chair down to a single individual, Beyonce settled on a dynamic duo of drummers, plus a percussionist: Kim Thompson and Nikki Glaspie anchor the rhythm section on drums, and Marcella Chapa plays percussion. Kim Thompson has gained acclaim for her yeoman work with musicians including Mike Stern and Kenny Barron. For a glimpse of her drum artistry in action, listen to an MP3 of Kim playing with Mike Stern. Nikki Glaspie, or as she is more often called professionally, Nickki G, is lately out of the Boston/Berklee School of Music scene, and hooked up with Beyonce's band last year.
Is it just me, are there more and better female drummers around than ever before? It seemed like when I was coming up, the only woman drummer I was aware of was Karen Carpenter. Now check it out, they're everywhere, dude, and they're taking no prisoners. You've got Sheila E, Hilary Jones, Gina Schock, Susie Ibarra, Cora Coleman, Cindy Blackman, Terri Lyne Carrington, Debra Dobkin, Kate Schellenbach, Samantha Maloney, Meg White, Georgia Hubley, Vera Figueiredo, Torrance Castellano, and more. Add in percussionists of the female gender and the view gets much larger, with talented players like Sue Hadjopoulos, Evelyn Glennie, Marilyn Mazur, and Valerie Naranjo, to name a few. Interestingly, two of the players I've listed here, Sheila E. and Marilyn Mazur, are putting together tours this year featuring all-female musicians. Is there a trend here? Pretty soon male drummers are going to be the rarity at this rate!
Even in the local Southern Oregon scene, there are a number of excellent female drummers playing professionally, more than I can ever remember. One hopes the day will come when gender is no longer even considered, that we are all just musicians—until then though, lend an ear to what these women are doing on the skins, because they're here now and they're tearing the roof off of the sucker!

Drum Track of the Week: "Good Question" from Who Let the Cats Out by Mike Stern, featuring Kim Thompson on drums. Thompson is a rollicking fun-house of energy on this electric post-bop romp featuring a joyful turn on scat vocals from bassist Richard Bona. Near the tunes close she trades four bars with Stern a couple of times, turning up the heat with effortless double- and quadruple time bombs and displaced hi-hat riffs. Swingin'!