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.

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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…

Modern Drummer
Sep 15, 2014

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…

Modern Drummer
Aug 22, 2014

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…

Modern Drummer
Aug 6, 2014

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…

Modern Drummer
Jul 18, 2014

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…

Modern Drummer
Jun 20, 2014
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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.…

Modern Drummer
May 30, 2014

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,…

Modern Drummer
May 16, 2014

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…

Modern Drummer
Apr 17, 2014

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…

Modern Drummer
Apr 4, 2014

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…

Modern Drummer
Mar 14, 2014

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…

Modern Drummer
Feb 24, 2014

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…

Modern Drummer
Feb 4, 2014
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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,…

Modern Drummer
Jan 16, 2014

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…

Modern Drummer
Dec 31, 2013
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