Description
Ready to Discover Comping for Jazz Drums?
Comping is the art of improvising in response to the music going on around you in the moment – whether that’s accentuating the rhythmic hits of the band, or supporting the lines of a soloist.
In fact, you have to be prepared for anything! And that means a different approach to learning.
The Art of Comping for Jazz Drums breaks down the process into clear steps via a comprehensive series of exercises that improve your skills and confidence to explore your own musical expression.
You’ll not only discover a clear, practical practice method, you’ll also learn how to apply your skills musically, while developing the kind of fluency that will enable you to improvise your own ideas, as you would on a jazz gig.
The Art of Jazz Comping for Drums:
- Master the rhythmic ingredients of comping
- Learn to spontaneously create musical phrases
- Discover the structure of artistic comping
- Play polyrhythms and advanced phrasing
- Apply your skills musically with professional live backing tracks
A Masterful Study in Four Parts:
Part One focuses on developing your coordination skills with a logical, thorough series of musical exercises that work systematically through the fundamental rhythmic ingredients of comping.
Part Two uses your new skills to create melodic phrases with snare and bass drum combinations. This is where your language of jazz comping is developed, via exciting examples you can use as a template for your own ideas. In addition, other clear strategies such as question and answer phrasing, are demonstrated to help you turn the exercises into music on the drums.
Part Three teaches you polyrhythmic phrasing and shows how simple ingredients can be used to produce the complex ideas played by Elvin Jones and Tony Williams. You’ll also learn to interact with the soloist to bring the drums to the forefront and confidently become an equal partner in the music. You are not there just to keep time! As the great Duke Ellington said, “Jazz is democracy!”
Part Four puts you into a live musical situation with play-along tracks recorded by professional jazz musicians, so you can practice your own comping by listening and responding to the pianist in real time.
“It is a unique skill of the jazz drummer to accompany sensitively in such a way as to inspire and not impede the soloist. Buster has done a superb job in making it both attainable and attractive for anyone eager to learn.”
Spike Wells (Tubby Hayes, Bobby Wellins, Stan Getz, Roland Kirk, Art Farmer, Johnny Griffin, James Moody)
“Aspiring drummers often forget to master the most important thing: comping. This book includes fun and important exercises and gives advice in a clear, logical way. It should be on every drummer’s music stand.”
Sebastiaan de Krom (Leeds Conservatoire, jazz drums teacher at Purcell School for Young Musicians, Musical Director of NYJO/NABB)
“A clear, well thought-out and user-friendly resource for drummers with experience, but who are new to jazz. Buster demystifies the language used in jazz drumming accompaniment. Highly recommended for both private study and institutions of learning.”
Winston Clifford (Benny Golson, John Abercrombie, Biréli Lagrène, Joe Lovano, Eddie Henderson, Courtney Pine, Julian Joseph, Ronnie Scott)
“An excellent publication focusing on the development of coordination, independence and musical application/vocabulary. The audio/play-along tracks bring the whole project into musical focus. Highly recommended.”
Dave Hassell (Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, Visiting Fellow at Salford University)
Bonus: A chapter on “Checking Out the Masters” offers analysis of some classic recordings, which chart the evolution of jazz drumming from the hard-bop of 1954 to the post-bop of 1964. Comping phrases are identified and matched with exercises in the book, so you know what to work on to sound like the greats on the records!
Bonus: A curated Spotify playlist is included, so you can hear comping’s evolution. It includes recordings by Kenny Clarke, Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones, Art Blakey, Jimmy Cobb, Elvin Jones and Tony Williams.
See it and Hear It
Every example is clearly notated, and audio downloads are provided to demonstrate each example, which means you can still use this book even if you are not a great reader.
The Art of Comping for Jazz Drums also comes with an appendix of play-along bass tracks, ranging from 60bpm to 300bpm, for you to practice with and measure your progress, giving you a total of 128 free downloads!
