Roulette TV

Wow… an HOUR of solo Joey Baron footage. This kind of thing makes me so pumped about the current age of technology/media and its effect on music availability.

And wow… what is the deal with that female host at the beginning? Could her vibe be any more strange?

HT: Reese Kling

Top Five Jazz Drummers

The video of Joey Baron that I posted the other day reminded me of how much I like that guy… which got me thinking about other jazz players I like.  In typical geek fashion, I was soon formulating a “Top Five” list of my fav jazz players.  Here’s what said list currently looks like:

1. Tony Williams
2. Elvin Jones
3. Jeff Watts
4. Joey Baron
5. Brian Blade

This is in order.  Tony will always be my number one – BUT, this list leaves out David King (my former teacher), who is automatically tied for the number one spot, just by nature of his immense influence on my playing.

Honorable mentions:

– Paul Motian
– Jack DeJohnette
– Jorge Rossy
– Roy Haynes
– Max Roach
– Ralph Peterson Jr.
– Billy Higgins

Joey Baron

Here’s a good reason why Joey Baron is one of my favorite jazz players…

In case you were wondering, he’s blowing over an ostinato in seven, which exponentially increases the difficulty of landing the sick ideas that he’s dropping.  Like… the stuff starting at 1:43… those lines are not only great compositionally, but he’s weaving them into an odd time signature!  Nice.

Joey is a guy that Dave King pointed me toward, and one of the better examples of his playing is the live Bill Frisell record that I featured in the AEDSK list.  I also really love the stuff he plays in Masada (John Zorn’s band from the above youtube clip), and an older John Scofield record called Grace Under Pressure.

HT: Schiebe