Videos
27
May 10
The Drummers Cometh
During this past New Orleans Jazzfest, legendary New Orleans drummer Zigaboo Modeliste hosted “The Drummers Cometh” -an evening of great drummers live at the Howlin Wolf. Here is a clip I took of the band playing the Meters song “Africa” with Stanton Moore, Herman Ernest and Zigaboo Modeliste on drums. The show also featured New Orleans greats Johnny Vidacovich and Terence Higgins.
“Africa” – The Drummers Cometh – New Orleans – 2010 from Brian Griffin on Vimeo.
27
May 10
Drum lesson with Terence Higgins
While on our last tour to New Orleans, Terence Higgins invited us over to his house for some tasty crawfish monica and taught me a few hybrid drum rudiments. Terence is a master New Orleans drummer who tours with many artists including the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and John Scofield, and is also the founder of the Louisiana Drumline Camp.
The first rudiment is called “Book Report” – and is a paradiddle (R L R R – L R L L) with some flams and doubles added as some spice: lRR L lR RR – rLL R rL LL
The second is called the “Cheeze” – and its a flam followed by a drag and played as triplets: lRR L R rLL R L. Terence also played this as “cheeze – diddles” – meaning that you cheese the first note of a regular paradiddle:
R L R R becomes lRR L R R etc.
I hope to post actual music notation for these in the near future. In the meantime…
6
May 10
a little drum improvisation this morning…
This was just a chance to check out a new point and shoot camera which happens to feature some decent sound and HD video. Not bad!
6
Mar 10
Rochester drum solo
Drum solo from “Garden of Thieves” at the Water Street Music Hall in Rochester, NY 3/5/2010.
18
Feb 10
Eddie Christmas at soundcheck…
I caught up with Eddie Christmas yesterday between our soundchecks at the Ram’s Head Inn. Eddie is one of the greatest drummers I’ve heard from New Orleans. Here is a video where he showed me the beat to Eric Lindells “Lullaby for Mercy Ann”, a funky Eddie Christmas original beat, and then a more traditional Treme Brass Band style New Orleans beat.