Reviews
Modern Drummer is the world’s most widely read drum magazine, is dedicated entirely to the art of drumming and caters to the needs of amateur, semi-pro, and professional drummers.
Jost Nickel’s Groove Book
BOOK/CD $21.99 Jost Nickel’s Groove Book explores the meaning of groove, both in terms of what is played and how it’s played. Each chapter presents a new concept, such as linear grooves or ghost notes, and with it a set…
Music Review: Steve Vai, Aquiles Priester and Gustavo Carmo, Adam Moore
Guitars, guitars, and yet more guitars, served up hot. The drums ain’t too shabby either. by Ilya Stemkovsky Steve Vai Stillness in Motion—Live in L.A. drummer: Jeremy Colson Recorded fifty shows into an extensive tour, Stillness in Motion finds…
A Six-Pack of Jazz and Fusion
This year has already seen its share of top-shelf jazz and fusion releases. Here are six that have been in high rotation at the Modern Drummer offices over the past few months. Chris Potter Underground Orchestra Imaginary Cities Drummer:…
Jacco Gardner on the Making of Hypnophobia
by Adam Budofsky Jacco Gardner is a Dutch multi-instrumentalist whose music will appeal to fans of early British pastoral prog-pop, like the Zombies and Soft Machine, as well as more recent acts like the Australian neo-psych group Tame Impala and…
Album Review: Dave Stryker’s Messin’ With Mister T
Marvelous guitarist Dave Stryker pays tribute to Stanley Turrentine, the late great tenor saxophonist who served up jazz with heaps of blues ’n’ soul. As a former decade-long “Mister T” sideman, Stryker’s an authority. Each of the ten tracks features…
The Aristocrats Culture Clash Live!
On their second live disc, guitarist Guthrie Govan, bassist Bryan Beller, and drummer Marco Minnemann up the virtuosic ante, taking material from a studio release to be chewed up and spit out on the live stage. It’s tough to decide…
Album Review: Ringo Starr Postcards From Paradise
The peace-and-love guru is back with his eighteenth studio release. Postcards From Paradise was produced by Ringo and recorded at his home studio in Los Angeles, and, as all his previous solo albums, features a little help from his friends…
Album Review: Nerve Live in Europe
Following a series of studio EPs that continued to expand and refine an electronic style executed by humans, Jojo Mayer and Nerve return with a much-anticipated album of performances captured during a 2014 European tour. The music is beautifully recorded,…
Album Review: Anton Times Two
A pair of recent recordings, Eric Johnson and Mike Stern’s Eclectic and Joe Bonamassa’s Different Shades of Blue, reveal what Late Show drummer Anton Fig is up to when he’s away from the TV cameras—namely, making some famous guitar slingers…
Drumset Supersets: A Combined Method for Quickly Developing Speed, Endurance, Control, Coordination, and Reading
by Blake Paulson Inspired by Gary Chester’s popular tutorial The New Breed, Blake Paulson’s method book Drumset Supersets quickly gets into the nitty-gritty by having students learn and memorize ostinatos for the hands and then tackle a series of…
Dewa Budjana Surya Namaskar
Indonesian guitarist Dewa Budjana has released multiple albums as both a soloist and co-leader of pop band Gigi. On his latest release as a leader, Surya Namaskar, which is graced by bassist Jimmy Johnson and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta (Johnson and…
Enrico Pieranunzi Stories
Within the large production ethos of the Pat Metheny Group/Unity Group, it can sometimes be hard to discern the subtleties and exact stickings within Antonio Sanchez’s ever-refined skill set. Pianist Enrico Pieranunzi is also a master of subtlety, and his…
Larry Goldings/Peter Bernstein/Bill Stewart Ramshackle Serenade
More often than not, it’s talent, vision, and plain old time spent playing together that yields the finest results in the jazz world, and the three musicians gathered here are certainly no strangers to making music collectively. Ramshackle Serenade may…
moe. No Guts, No Glory
On an album full of over-driven guitar, dreamy and sometimes ominous soundscapes, and strong melodic and lyrical content, Vinnie Amico’s drums refuse to be relegated to the background. Each beat is solid and soulful, serving the tunes with energy. Amico…
