Here is a recording of Ellington’s “Caravan”. It was recorded in our living room at the request of my wife Joanna. She wanted a sort of blurred version of the tune to accompany a video dealing with her father’s experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi invasion of Poland. Mark, Joanna’s father, associated the song very closely with his father who was murdered by the SS. You’ll hear that I’ve taken quite a few liberties with the tune.
My vibraphone is a nice old Deagan that Joanna gave me. It’s got its problems, but those are some beautiful bars.
This is an improvised drum set solo. It was record in a terrible sounding room (an analog electronics studio actually) with a meager mic setup. I ended up really liking the sound, especially with some nasty reverb and compression - crunchy!
Several years back I spent a lot of time writing and improvising solo drum set pieces. At the time, I was inspired mainly by Max Roach, but also by Baby Dodds, Jerome Cooper, Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, among other drum set soloists in the Jazz tradition. While those inspirations are still with me, this recent music reflects what I’ve learned from other music such as the Western “Avant-Garde” (Feldman’s King of Denmark is a landmark for me - especially the Max Neuhaus version), electronic, Hip Hop, and music from non-Western traditions.
The kit I’ve been playing lately is 16” kick (70’s Ludwig floor tom, converted), 14” floor tom (a junky Taiwanese marching snare that I converted), and a 14” WFL snare. I tune them low these days to get more pitch bending action. Cymbals are too numerous to list, but the main ones are: 13” Zildjian (it’s pretty old) top hat with Wuhan china bottom, 20” Istanbul Turk crash/ride, 22” Krut (60’s English junk) with rivets, 18” Jack DeJohnette crash (the first series), a cut down (15”) and cracked heavy Zildjian ride, a 20” Rancan china and some others. I only use two cymbal stands (plus hats) so I leave the wing nuts off for easy changes while playing. Also, I use a lot of other found objects and small instruments. I use every part of the kit and like to play the junk laying around me too – whatever I’ve dumped out of my bag that day. I like old junk that sounds weird.
SOLO PERCUSSION
