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.
Mike Dillon Band of Outsiders
With this disc, multi-instrumentalist Mike Dillon (Garage A Trois, Les Claypool, Critters Buggin) may have given birth to a new musical genre: Afro-Brazilian-punk-jazz-art-rock. The eclectic mash-up of diverse styles and social satire à la Frank Zappa features Dillon’s inventive and…
Don Grolnick The Complete London Concert
Released digitally via Peter Erskine’s Fuzzy Memory Music Archives, this 1995 live acoustic jazz set features pianist/composer Don Grolnick in peak form, accompanied by the unsurpassable lineup of Erskine, Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, Marty Ehrlich, Robin Eubanks, Peter Washington, and…
Jimmy CobbThe Original Mob Louis Hayes Return of the Jazz Communicators
Jimmy Cobb and Louis Hayes are undeniable architects of modern straight-ahead swing whose extensive discographies read like a jazz history lesson. Cobb cooks at a spry eighty-five, and youngster Hayes is hot at seventy-seven. Plain and simple, these gentlemen are…
A Beat a Week: A Total Percussion Approach to Playing the Drumset by Glenn Kotche
In this book, Wilco’s drummer provides fifty-two examples of varied drum patterns from across his recorded catalog. In his development as a player, Glenn Kotche was exposed to rock, jazz, classical, electronica, and many other styles. As he suggests in…
Billy Joel A Matter of Trust: The Bridge to Russia
Essentially an expanded rerelease of Billy Joel’s 1987 live album, Концерт, the double-CD/Blu-ray/DVD package A Matter of Trust: The Bridge to Russia delivers unreleased audio and a more complete performance of the album’s companion concert film, Live in Leningrad. It…
Nels Cline Singers Macroscope
Genre-hopping has been Wilco guitarist Nels Cline’s method of operation across his solo efforts, and that sense of adventure surely permeates the proceedings on the fifth album by this trio, which also features bassist Trevor Dunn and drummer Scott Amendola.…
KXM KXM
With the flood of so-called super-groups and pet projects out there, KXM is one of the few that holds water. The masterful musicianship is the undercurrent to the mature lyrical content and superbly crafted compositions. Fans of King’s X will,…
Brand X {Missing Period}
Not that anybody perusing a drumming website should need convincing at this point, but Phil Collins is one badass drummer. Those who first heard Collins during his mid-’80s reign over pop radio could be forgiven for being unaware of the…
The Peter Ulrich Collaboration The Painted Caravan
Peter Ulrich is concerned with the song first on The Painted Caravan (City Canyons/AIS), a grand mix of folk and world music, though each track boasts an interesting array of percussion, including djembe, Turkish cymbals, and temple blocks, which sets…
Mastodon Live at Brixton
On February 11, 2012, Mastodon played a sold-out show at London’s O2 Academy Brixton. It was the band’s largest headlining concert to date, with the nearly 5,000 in attendance privy to a metal event for the ages. Luckily, the group…
Billy Cobham Compass Point
With a backstory including a dangerous makeshift stage and a lottery-winning piano tuner who had quit a day earlier, this 1997 concert almost didn’t happen. And that would have been a great loss, since Billy Cobham and his superb band…
Marc Cary Focus Trio Four Directions
One of today’s most original and innovative pianists, Marc Cary embraces the whole of jazz history as well as diverse “world” elements. Playing predominantly acoustic piano along with Rhodes and subtle synth touches, Cary shapes intriguing harmonies and captivating melodies…
Dumpstaphunk Dirty Word
Dumpstaphunk pays tribute to funk groundbreakers such as Parliament/Funkadelic and Sly and the Family Stone, but with an updated sound that’s peppered with rock and second line. The nuclear driver is drummer Nikki Glaspie. Laying down hard-slamming yet finessed time,…
Robert Wyatt ’68
The tracks on this collection were recorded shortly after Wyatt’s band Soft Machine had broken up—temporarily, it would turn out—following a tour of the States with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In fact, Wyatt worked on the tunes while staying at…
