Elvin Jones

Charli Persip, one of the premier jazz drummers of the second half of the twentieth century, passed away on August 23 at the age of ninety-one. Persip was born in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1929, and began playing on the fertile Newark, New Jersey, jazz scene after graduating high school. …

On Sunday, July 19, at 5 p.m. Pacific Time, world-renowned drummer and educator Billy Hart will conduct a free Zoom presentation, “The Evolution of Contemporary Jazz Drummers.” Hart has recorded over six hundred albums, including seminal dates with Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Stan Getz, Joe Zawinul, Sam Rivers, Pharoah Sanders, …

Wetzel conjuring new vistas of time and space. Hello, Modern Drummers! My name is James Wetzel, and I play drums in the noise rock band Melkbelly, along with a few other projects (Ree-Yees, Mode Hexe). I’m honored to contribute here, and I want to share a bit about how and …

Tony Allen. Photo by Bernard Benant. Tony Allen, the longtime drummer with African music legend Fela Kuti, has died in France. As the drummer with Fela’s groundbreaking band Africa ’70, Allen was responsible for creating many of the beats that defined Afrobeat music, the mix of jazz, funk, and the …

Hey, hey MD readers! Let me introduce myself. My name is Gayelynn McKinney. I recorded with a ground breaking, all-female jazz group called Straight Ahead for Atlantic Records. While touring with that group, I had the opportunity to be featured in Modern Drummer’s Bonzo Twentieth Anniversary edition. (January, 1996).

This past February 10, multifaceted producer and pop, funk, and jazz blender Ahmed Gallab released his sixth album, Life & Livin’ It, with his solo project Sinkane. Drummer and longtime Gallab collaborator Jason Trammell lays down tasty, soulful, and world-influenced grooves beneath the contagious hooks and gorgeous harmonies that adorn …

In a week that was already rocked by the deaths of Can’s Jaki Liebezeit and Spooky Tooth’s Mike Kellie, the drum world was shaken for a third time by news this morning of the passing of founding Allman Brothers Band sticksman Butch Trucks.

In Part 1 of our new interview with the iconic drummer Bill Stevenson, we discussed the latest Descendents album, the major lifestyle changes he’s made, and solving the drummer/producer dichotomy. Here we trace the early developments of his long and illustrious playing career, and learn about the broad range of …

To borrow from the great Walt Whitman: Bill Stevenson is large. He contains multitudes. Over the last four decades, the hulking drummer has tirelessly propelled the likes of Descendents, All, and Black Flag—a trio of trailblazing bands as skilled at progressive, fusion-inspired jams as they are straight-up punk rock burners …

Recently a slew of products have been introduced that allow you to quickly modify your existing snare sound without having to break the bank on a new drum. Using these accessories, it’s possible to slash through a band, dry out your sound while adding beef, alter the drum’s pitch, finely …

See what’s in the November 2016 Issue of Modern Drummer magazine featuring Living Colour’s Will Calhoun!

Longtime New York City drummer Tony Leone is currently on the road with the Chris Robinson Brotherhood.

With Juniper, instrumental and percussion-heavy trio Square Peg Round Hole unleashes pondering melodies, brooding harmonic landscapes, and forward-thinking rhythms. Here, the group’s main drummer, Evan Chapman, discusses the concepts and influences behind the record’s broad sonic spectrum….

Modern Drummer Online caught up with Stephen Perkins while he was prepping for a clinic tour and some dates with Jane’s Addiction, commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the group’s watershed album Ritual De Lo Habitual.

Jazz-meets-house trio Moon Hooch’s third album, Red Sky, expands the group’s danceable sound while maintaining a spirit of spontaneity. Modern Drummer Online asked drummer James Muschler about making the record and bringing its electro-acoustic blend to a live audience.

Allen is a revered figure in the field of forward-reaching, swinging jazz rooted in the tradition. When he first made waves in the jazz world, joining Freddie Hubbard’s band in 1982 at the tender age of nineteen, elder giants took note.

Brooklyn-based indie-rock band We Are Scientists’ fifth album, Helter Seltzer, released digitally this past April 22 and physically on June 3, is an advanced-level course in hook-ology.

We recently sat down with Clutch’s powerhouse drummer, Jean-Paul Gaster, to dig a bit into the making of Psychic Warfare, including which song gave him the most trouble, and we got some insight on some of his favorite drummers and recordings….

Over the course of his forty-year career traveling the globe to teach, perform, and conduct clinics, Dom Famularo has interacted with some of the finest drummers and drum instructors in the world. The following list contains many of those names, organized by country/continent. If you’re looking for top-notch drum instruction, …

See what’s in the pages of the July 2015 issue of Modern Drummer magazine featuring Daru Jones!

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. Click here to check out the video for part 2!

See what’s in the pages of the June 2015 issue of Modern Drummer magazine and find out where to pick it up.

See what’s in the May 2015 issue of Modern Drummer magazine, available now…

Hey drummers! I’m Geoff Daking of the Blues Magoos. I started playing in the early ’60s in Delaware. When I was in high school I came to New York City on weekends to see Monk, Cannonball, and Coltrane with those great drummers like Elvin Jones. I moved to Greenwich Village …

We asked the members of the Modern Drummer Education Team if they felt that it’s important for all drummers to study Latin music and other musical genres, even if they don’t intend to ever perform those styles. Here’s what they had to say….

For my tenth birthday my mom gave me a Hollywood kit in the sizes 12″, 14″, 18″. Back then I listened to bands and artists such as Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix, and Led Zeppelin. The way the drums sounded on recordings from the ’60s and ’70s really attracted me. I …

What’s up MD readers? It’s great to be a part of this blog. My name is Eran Asias. I’m a New York City indie drummer and also have been playing drums for Patty Smyth of the ’80s band Scandal for the past eight years….

On December 12, at 7pm, a gathering of Chicago greats will come together to pay tribute to drummer Elvin Jones. The final performance in the 2014 JazzCity schedule is free and open to the public and will take place at Austin Town Hall Park on 5610 W. Lake Street….

Drummer Bill Stevenson is among the most influential musicians associated with West Coast punk rock, on any instrument. After making his name with seminal hard-core band Black Flag in the ’80s, Stevenson proceeded to set a standard for punk drumming with the Descendants and All, later spreading his reputation even …

These exercises are inspired by the master jazz drummer Elvin Jones. In Elvin’s world, everything was a triplet.

Here, as a companion to our August 2014 Influences piece on Mason, we speak with the drummer about his new album, his early days, the drummers who inspired him, and more….

To celebrate the release of Ginger Baker’s new CD, Why?, Motéma Records has put together a prize package that all Ginger Baker fans will want to get their hands on….

My name is Alex Mascarin, and I am a drummer in the band We Outspoken from Toronto, Canada. In this blog I would like share with you some of my drum setups and inspirations….

See what’s in the May 2014 issue of Modern Drummer Magazine featuring drummer Jim Riley…

anny Seraphine fueled a long list of classic tracks in his twenty-three years as a member of Chicago, inspiring generations of drummers in the process. Since returning in 2006 from a long performing hiatus, he has been grooving in peak form with his current band, CTA, as heard on its …

I’m living in Chicago, IL and playing in a few projects that range from a four-piece rock outfit, Carbon Tigers, to an improvisational jazz duo that goes by faug….

Click here to check out part 4 of our In the Studio series, “Seeing Sounds,” which covers classic jazz drum tones.

In this Web exclusive video, Cam Patterson of DrumHang sits with Bon Jovi drummer Tico Torres and his longtime drum-tech, JD Derosz. For part two, the guys share stores about repairing Joe Morello’s roof, watching Elvin Jones, recording in the studio, tuning and changing drumheads, and their reason for using …

Mark Guiliana may be best known for his work as a sideman with jazz musicians such as Avishai Cohen and Brad Mehldau, but the drummer has been increasingly involved with his own solo project, Beat Music….

Click here to check out what the MD Education Team members have to say about setting up your drumset for maximum results….

Look here to see the contents of the April 2013 issue of Modern Drummer magazine, featuring Tommy Igoe….

We asked the members of the MD Education Team if they think it’s important for their students to study jazz. Here’s what they had to say….

Modern Drummer contributor Drew Schultz and Motown musical legends recently collaborated on an album to raise funds for the Detroit Public Schools Foundation, via sales from Schultz’s debut album, Back to Class. Before the Four Tops’ performance at the Motor City Casino Soundboard Theater on Thursday, December 13, the musicians …

An exclusive web-interview with Dave King of the Bad Plus.

Is traditional grip a useful technique that drum students should learn? We asked the members of the MD Education Team if they think traditional grip is relevant in today’s teachings. Here’s what they had to say.

Hey, all, Russell Simins from the one and only Blues Explosion here. I play drums and write music with bandmates Jon Spencer and Judah Bauer, two of the greatest guitarists I know, and I know a lot of them.

We asked the members of the MD Education Team if they think that reading skills are crucial. Here’s what they had to say….

My name is Curtis Marrero, aka Tron—or as my bandmates in Milo Greene would say, Tronaldy! Our self-titled debut album comes out today, and I’m very excited for people to hear it.

My name is Andrew Nauss, and I play drums for the Brooklyn-based band Thieving Irons. Our album Behold, This Dreamer is due on June 5. (continue reading)

As Jane’s Addiction continues its successful Theatre of the Escapists tour, a new generation of fans is being hipped to the ecstatic tribal glam event that is a Jane’s show—and to the uniquely galloping drumming approach of Stephen Perkins. In the latest installment of Modern Drummer magazine’s Influences series, we …

Photo by Robert Lewis. He showed us new ways to think about jazz drumming. There will never be another like him. by Michael Parillo On a dark night at the Village Vanguard, the audience snakes slowly down the long staircase and settles in at tiny tables, squeezed together nice and …

I’m Tim Walsh of the Stepkids, and I’m excited to be on here and hope to add to the wealth of knowledge that is MD’s awesome thirty-five-year history…

Despite the prevalence of educational books, DVDs, and online lessons, most drumming information is still passed down the old-fashioned way: from one player to another, while shooting the breeze at the drum shop. A lot of what we hear, we take at face value, and we repeat these drumming “absolutes??? …

Two drummers working it out, face to face—trading licks, contributing to a massive groove, spurring each other on—it’s one of the great musical traditions, and surely it goes back to the very invention of the drumkit at the beginning of the last century. This group of tunes focuses on tracks …

I studied my heart out and began lessons with Peter Erskine when I was sixteen years old. He was as much a friend as a mentor. Peter not only taught me behind the kit but also took me to countless recording sessions to watch a true master working with all …

For big band great Mel Lewis, the drums were his easy chair and the band his hearth. He was the fire.

Mike Watt is a flesh-and-blood superhero to anyone who’s followed the do-it-yourself alternative music scene over the past twenty-five years. This interview originally ran in the December 2006 issue of Modern Drummer magazine.

Billy Higgins, who would come to play on more than five hundred albums, including three of the biggest jazz crossover hits of the 1960s (Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man,??? Lee Morgan’s “The Sidewinder,??? and Eddie Harris’s “Freedom Jazz Dance???), was born in 1936 and grew up in Los Angeles. He began …

After thirty years, R.E.M. has officially called it quits. In April of 2005, though, MD was grilling the most recent addition to their lineup.

Clutch has been somewhat of an under-the-radar band since its formation in 1990, but to those who are aware of the Maryland-based rockers, there are few who can match their eclectic sound and locked-in groove. Jean-Paul Gaster’s gritty playing and deep pocket have fueled the band’s music through an ongoing …

Chamberlin is focusing on a new band, Skysaw, with whom he gets to revisit drumming concepts he’s long been interested in—but in a distinctly new format. In the November 2011 issue of Modern Drummer magazine, we honor Jimmy’s career accomplishments in the second installment of our Influences feature series. Here …

My name is LaMel Randolph; I play drums in the band Lionize, based out of Silver Spring, Maryland. This year we released our latest album, Destruction Manuel, we played the Warped tour and Bonnaroo Festival, and we’re already writing and recording a new batch of songs.

Hello! Ahh…drums! How else can you smash heads with a stick and not go to jail? I started playing at about fourteen years old, when my dad got me my first drumkit. It was a Groove Percussion kit, and I really beat the thing to a pulp…

My name is Joao Lencastre and I was born in Lisbon, Portugal. I started to play the drums at the age of thirteen. Since I started playing I’ve been collaborating with many different groups in all styles of music, including metal, reggae, Afrobeat, electronic, big band, alternative rock, and all …

Welcome once again to the MD Readers Poll, where the greatest drummers on the planet are honored by the most educated drum fans around. Let’s get right to it: the envelope, please….

June 14 would have been the seventy-seventh birthday of Motown great Uriel Jones, who died on March 24, 2009. MD spoke with Uriel shortly before his passing. We’re reprinting his interview here. (read more)

Story by Billy AmendolaBetween his appearance on this year’s Grammys and his upcoming performance at the Oscars, JR continues his conversation with MD about what a typical day in the studio is like, his early influences, his upcoming DVD, drum solos, reading charts, and taking a break from the studio …

Greetings, fellow MD readers! My name is Sarab Singh, and this is my first-ever blog post for MD. I am truly honored and grateful to be doing this! A bit about myself: I live in Brooklyn, New York, got my music degree from the University of Miami, and am a …

Interview by Robyn FlansRead the Little Feat drummer’s cover feature from October 1995. MD: You have a unique playing style with Little Feat. Can you describe that style and where it came from? Richie: My style has grown with the band. It started out heavily influenced by blues, rock ’n’ …

by Billy Brennan In the January issue of MD, Clutch drummer Jean-Paul Gaster reflects on the band’s reissues of its three DRT Entertainment releases—From Beale Street To Oblivion (2007), Robot Hive/Exodus (2005), and Blast Tyrant (2004)—and the foursome’s current status with its own Weathermaker label. In this exclusive online interview, …

by Billy Amendola More—way more—with the fusion and pop maestro. In a continuation of our interview with Narada Michael Walden from the November 2010 issue of Modern Drummer, the fusion and pop drumming/producing maestro reflects on his early days, teaching, spirituality, playing in odd time signatures, and coming full circle …

My name is Giuseppe “Gypsy??? Capolupo, and I play for Indianapolis, Indiana–based metal-core band Haste The Day. What an honor it is to be featured on such a well-known website!

Rashied Ali was one of the progenitors of “free jazz” drumming, a stylization in which the typical guidelines and expectations of time and meter are ignored in favor of a looser approach that seeks to incorporate ideas of rhythm, melody, and harmony together on the drums. Initially scorned, free jazz …

Tortoise’s three drummers—John McEntire, John Herndon, and Dan Bitney—continue to push sonic boundaries and rhythmic inventiveness…

Charli Persip was born in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1929, and began playing on the fertile Newark, New Jersey, jazz scene after graduating high school.

I don’t care so much about difficulty or technicality. I like style, passion, creativity, and all that kind of stuff. Here are some videos that always challenge and inspire me no matter how many times I watch them….

Famed bassist/producer/remix engineer Bill Laswell on Ginger, Tony, Elvin, Zigaboo, and more…

Greetings, drummers and percussionists around the world! First I would like to send love and blessings to you all, wherever you may be. I am deeply honored to be writing this blog for Modern Drummer. My name is Ricc Sheridan, and I’m the drummer/percussionist for Earl Greyhound. We are about …

I grew up in Maryland, outside of Washington, D.C., took piano lessons from age five to eleven, switched to drums in the sixth grade…

Dennis Chambers was born on May 9, 1959, and started playing the drums at the young age of four. By his sixth birthday he was already playing in nightclubs. Strictly self-taught, at the age of eighteen Dennis went straight from high school to playing with George Clinton’s Parliament Funkadelic, where …

“To start, it is an honor to write for an outstanding magazine that caters to drummers and percussionists worldwide. MD is a great resource for the drumming community….”

It’s taken the jazz community nearly half a century to catch up with the inventive and super-hip stylings of Roy Haynes—the oft-proclaimed “father of modern drumming.???

His loping, circular sense of swing and abstract, barline-blurring breaks weren’t easy to listen to or easy to follow, which often left him searching for work…

Philly Joe Jones is one of the greatest of the hard boppers. His contributions to the art of jazz drumming are immeasurable. He was a virtuoso with a pair of brushes, and a genius at turning the rudiments into fluent musical ideas. More than any of his peers, it was …

The supercharged Avenged Sevenfold timekeeper keeps old-school metal alive with brute force, machine-like precision, and a flair for the dramatic…

On Tour And On Stage: 9 Lives (+9, +9 More). MD’s editors just can’t keep a list of their favorite albums short–even in service of a can’t-resist pun. Twenty-seven live albums you gotta have.

I’m a drummer and percussionist from Cleveland, Ohio, and I’ve been touring with my favorite group, the Four Tops…

I’m a drummer and percussionist from Cleveland, Ohio, and I’ve been touring with my favorite group, the Four Tops…

The Echo Falls is a modern indie-folk-rock trio from Oakland, California. Our first CD is coming out next month and reception has been great already…

As a Web-only bonus, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs drummer pontificates on listening, sounding how you want to sound, and working with a click….

Hudson Music has recently released Steve Smith’s DVD Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants, which Smith describes as “a detailed look at the drumming of some of the jazz giants who have helped create the vocabulary and concepts of drumming in general.???

I am currently the drummer and backup vocalist for The English Beat in America.

Mitch Mitchell was not alone in blending jazz and rock drumming styles, but he may have pushed the combo further than anyone who came before him. Here a number of noted drummers provide further insight into Mitch’s influence….

The March issue of MD (out now) features Billy Ward’s fascinating conversation with Simon Phillips, Doane Perry, Marco Minnemann, Thomas Lang, and Jerry Marotta about the grooves that inspired them to play drums early on, and that continue to today. It seemed to make perfect sense for MD’s editors to …

For the past five years, Michigan native Derico Watson has held one of the most coveted chairs a drummer could imagine, touring regularly with pioneering bassist Victor Wooten.

Hello, MD readers, this is Denny Seiwell letting you in on some info about me that is not too widely known….

Hi, MD readers, Vinnie Zummo here. Though I'm best known for my years as a guitarist with Joe Jackson, I've played the drums for as long as I've played guitar.

Twenty-four year old Thomas Pridgen unleashes the most rabid drumming in recent memory on The Mars Volta’s The Bedlam In Goliath. Of course, the band’s fans have come to expect madness and mastery from the innovative Long Beach, California group…

Okay! So it’s about time to start promoting The Flail: Live At Smalls, our second live recording and third record overall.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a huge MMA fan. (I skipped Maryland Death Festival to watch BJ Penn vs. Sean Sherk!) Now, I’m a drummer, not a competitive combatant in the UFC or another organization. (continue reading)

Brian Blade has performed and recorded with some of the greatest musicians of this or any era….

Hello, MD family! 2008 has been a blessed and busy year, with more great things to come! My name is Marcus Baylor, and I am the drummer with The Yellowjackets.

Last year, drumming dynamo Cindy Blackman left behind her big-ticket rock gig with Lenny Kravitz to unleash the jazz devil inside…

Known to solo with anything that will instantly augment his kit, from clogs to a fire alarm, Han Bennink is Holland’s most radical drumming export….

It can be a difficult task putting together a top-ten list, as most musicians have extraordinarily large record collections. But I feel that every musician has a top-ten list, and it can define who you are as a musician….

Soon after moving to the New York area in the early ’80s, Carl Allen landed a dream gig with post bop trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. That gig established the then nineteen-year-old drummer as a leading light among a select group of eager young musicians who were looking to breath new life …

As a self confessed “elder statesman of music,??? and one of the most influential drummers of the past fifteen years, Jimmy Chamberlin has a thing or two to say about the state of the instrument….

After Television emerged from New York’s punk underground in 1977 with their landmark Marquee Moon album–a sly balance of dissonance and melody, which became a template for The Strokes, Sonic Youth, Interpol, and countless others–they never really toured much….

“I compare drumming to various spices. If the groove has too much salt or too much pepper, then you’re going to be all savored out.???

The Dave Brubeck Quartet was the most popular jazz group of that time. “Take Five,” featuring a drum solo by Joe Morello, was a million-seller. This group toured the world playing concerts instead of location club gigs. I can’t think of one jazz group today that approaches the level of …

Not many people get to do exactly what they love and get paid for it – much less with two of the biggest artists in the world. Mickey Curry toured and recorded with Hall & Oates at the peak of their career, laying down a solid backbeat with perfect feel …

Billy Hart is one of the unsung giants of jazz. He’s recorded over six hundred albums, including seminal dates with Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Stan Getz, Joe Zawinul, Sam Rivers, Pharoah Sanders, John Scofield, Lee Konitz, Hank Jones, Pat Martino, Charles Lloyd, Dave Liebman, and most recently, heavy hitters like …

The drumming legend gives his most revealing interview.

In between those gigs he’ll squeeze in a performance with Ricky Martin, Stevie Nicks, or Jennifer Lopez, among other top acts. But Danny’s brain is always thinking: How do I make my playing better? Equally important to him these days: How do I make the instruments I play better? Enter …

When twenty-five-year-old Eric Harland was a teenager, he weighed an astonishing 380 pounds, making him a target of cruel children, mean-spirited teachers, and sometimes, his own family. “I would walk into a clothing store and the employees would just laugh,” recalls the Texas native. “Man,” they would say, “we don’t …

Billy Hart is one of the unsung giants of jazz. He’s recorded over six hundred albums, including seminal dates with Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Stan Getz, Joe Zawinul, Sam Rivers, Pharoah Sanders, John Scofield, Lee Konitz, Hank Jones, Pat Martino, Charles Lloyd, Dave Liebman, and most recently, heavy hitters like …

For Mastodon drummer Brann Dailor, playing in a band named after a huge prehistoric beast makes perfect sense. “When I’m performing or writing,” Dailor says, “I sometimes think, That definitely sounds like a Mastodon part.”

With all of the samplers, prerecorded loops, and programmers in the studio, how much of what we hear today from a drummer is actual acoustic drums or electronics? MD asked some of the best “hired guns” in the business to comment on their current role and gear requirements in the …

John Blackwell always listened to his dad’s advice, and it’s paid off, big time. “Growing up, my dad used to tell me, ‘If you want to make any money in this business, play in the pocket.'”…

“He’s a bad boy, that’s for sure,” says guitar star John Scofield of his talented young sideman Adam Deitch. On the Sco gig, Deitch comes across like a composite of two great drummers that the guitarist has worked with before’the original funky drummer himself, Clyde Stubblefield, and highly regarded jazz …

This last June, Ignition was released by Brian Setzer’s new unit, which he calls The Brian Setzer ’68 Comeback Special. And where Brian goes, so does Bernie….

A rhythmic force of nature since its inception in San Francisco’s Mission District in 1966, the Santana band has always set the bar high. And now, with superstar drummer Dennis Chambers joining percussionists Raul Rekow and Karl Perazzo, the bar (and the expectation) is even higher.

A rhythmic force of nature since its inception in San Francisco’s Mission District in 1966, the Santana band has always set the bar high. And now, with superstar drummer Dennis Chambers joining percussionists Raul Rekow and Karl Perazzo, the bar (and the expectation) is even higher.

A rhythmic force of nature since its inception in San Francisco’s Mission District in 1966, the Santana band has always set the bar high. And now, with superstar drummer Dennis Chambers joining percussionists Raul Rekow and Karl Perazzo, the bar (and the expectation) is even higher….

On the eve of his seventy-fifth birthday, Elvin Ray Jones exhibits the relaxed demeanor and lean physique of a weathered–but still dangerous–championship athlete. When he smiles, which is often, he still looks like he’s twenty-five. His sense of humor is sharp, his intellect acute. And as anyone who has seen …

You have to be careful who you show off in front of, as Joe La Barbera learned early in his career. “I was working with a singer named Frankie Randall,” Joe recalls. “He had an offer to open for Buddy Rich in Las Vegas for a month. So I was …

Four years ago, when John Otto was first featured in Modern Drummer, the then twenty-three-year-old spoke with a wisdom and knowledge that belied his age….

Jack DeJohnette has remained one of the world’s premier drummers by always looking forward, and never losing the passion. Oh, and by playing some of the most uniquely beautiful drums ever.

The scene: a cold night in Williamsburg, Brooklyn at North On Sixth, a multi-level hole in the wall jook joint where the bathroom graffiti is more political than obscene. Attracting a crowd of Manhattan intellectuals and Brooklyn deadheads, North On Sixth is tonight showcasing Ben Perowsky’s Moodswing Orchestra. A collection …