Jazz Drummer’s Workshop Elvin Jones–Style Triplet Fills Part 2: Orchestrating Accent Patterns by John Xepoleas Welcome to our second lesson covering triplet fills based on the playing of jazz great Elvin Jones, who made a huge impact on drumming as part of legendary saxophonist John Coltrane’s quartet in the 1960s. The goal with this series is to show you how to construct high-energy fills like those Elvin played, in an effort to take your drumming to a new level. I’ll teach you his sticking patterns and then show you how to apply them to the drumset. Here’s the sticking pattern for this lesson. Practice it until it becomes part of your muscle memory. Now let’s move the pattern around the drumset. To start, play the accented notes using the ride cymbal and bass drum. Play them with an aggressive feel, and make sure they’re the lead parts in the pattern. […]

June 2015 Issue