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.
Jeff Coffin and Jeff Sipe Duet
CD Presented as a “single, stream-of-consciousness listening experience,” Duet finds Flecktones/Dave Matthews Band saxophonist Jeff Coffin and Aquarium Rescue Unit drummer Jeff Sipe engaging in a beautifully textured, free-form session using horns, drums, mallets, bells, gongs—anything and everything. Sipe’s…
Dream Theater A Dramatic Turn of Events
CD This highly anticipated Dream Theater recording with new drummer MIKE MANGINI finds the prog-metal veterans in a sonically refined and musically focused state of mind. Lyrically and compositionally, the band maintains its long-running status as innovative explorers, though…
The Forgotten Foot by Kofi Baker and Jordan Hill
BOOK/CD LEVEL: INTERMEDIATE $19.99 Written collectively by Kofi Baker (Cream legend Ginger Baker’s son) and Jordan Hill, The Forgotten Foot shines a light on the hi-hat hoof and its overlooked role in timekeeping and four-way coordination. Various examples of rock,…
Ringo Starr Ringo 2012
There’s something timeless about Ringo’s drumming. Though he’s not one to get with “the click-track way” of making records, you simply can’t ignore his flawless time and backbeat, and he always makes the simplest drum parts feel so good. Ringo…
Jimi Hendrix: New CDs and DVDs
The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Winterland (4 CDs) Jimi Hendrix: Hendrix in the West (CD) Jimi Hendrix: The Dick Cavett Show (DVD) Jimi Hendrix: Blue Wild Angel: Live at the Isle of Wight (DVD) It was Jimi Hendrix’s overriding artistic…
Dave Douglas & So Percussion Bad Mango
CD As part of the broader Greenleaf Portable Series featuring trumpeter Dave Douglas leading groups with drummers Marcus Gilmore and Nasheet Waits, Vol. 3 highlights So Percussion, bringing Douglas’s horn together with various percussion instruments for a wild concoction…
66 Drum Solos forthe Modern Drummer by Tom Hapke
BOOK/CD LEVEL: INTERMEDIATE $19.99 German drummer Tom Hapke’s newest book is a worthy learning/teaching tool set up to challenge and improve players’ technical facility, independence, and reading ability. Each of the solos or beat examples is spread across just…
The Jelly Jam Shall We Descend
CD There are lots of reasons that Rod Morgenstein has survived the winds of rock ’n’ roll change for nearly three and half decades. One of the biggest is that he inherently knows when to hold back and when…
Miles Davis QuintetLIVE in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series VOL.1
CD/DVDs For Tony lovers (and who isn’t one?) here’s nonstop bliss. This superb set of three CDs plus one DVD captures five concerts from a 1967 European tour. The lineup of Miles Davis (trumpet), Herbie Hancock (piano), Wayne Shorter…
Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream and Gish 2011 Deluxe Editions
CD/DVDs Smashing Pumpkins’ first two records have been reissued with a remastered album proper, a bonus disc of outtakes and rarities, and an era-specific live concert DVD. From the opening tom pattern of “I Am One” (from 1991’s Gish),…
Drum Aerobicsby Andy Ziker
BOOK/CD LEVEL: ALL $19.99 With Drum Aerobics, author Andy Ziker looks at drumming from a physical perspective—a concept that all heavy players can understand and benefit from. The package doesn’t focus on metal, thrash, and punk at the exclusion of…
Rifftide: The Lifeand Opinions ofPaoa Jo JonesAs Told To Albert Murray
BOOK LEVEL: ALL $18.95 Jonathan David Samuel Jones, aka “Papa” Jo Jones, was the father of modern jazz drumming. By way of his groundbreaking work with Count Basie’s big band, first in 1934, then between 1936 and 1944, and again…
Levon HelmRamble at the Ryman
DVD LEVEL: ALL $19.98 The things that make Levon Helm a great drummer and performer are hugely evident at this 2008 concert. Sixty-eight at the time of this show, Helm doesn’t let anything slide, doesn’t take one measure of rhythm…
Dan Weiss Jhaptal Dumset Solo
CD Named by the New York Times in 2009 as one of the “Five Drummers Whose Time Is Now,” Dan Weiss has kept that promise as a busy jazz sideman. His intriguing concepts, deeply influenced by Indian music, culminated in…
