Martin, Billy: Riddim: Claves of African Origin (Book + CD)

Product no.: 022-455
out of print!
27.00
Price incl. VAT, plus Shipping
Billy Martin, aka illy B, is a remarkable drummer, visual artist, and label owner, who has successfully carved out his own musical path. As the organic beat-maker for Medeski, Martin & Wood, Martin has successfully blended world-music cultures into his own style.

Influenced by musicians who move people, Martin's playing does just that. His roots-based approach digs deep into the African-fed cultures of Brazil and the Caribbean and serves them up with New York culture and attitude. Fueled by these traditions, Martin plays on these rhythms with the heart of an improviser with influences ranging from avant-guard to hip-hop. As you might expect, the result is infectious.

Under all of Martin's riddims, or rhythms, are traditions that owe as much to bebop innovator Max Roach as reggae pioneer Sly Dunbar. And, as you will hear, Martin has not taken any short-cuts in mastering these rhythms. The result of his commitment to discovering the richness of rhythmic cultures, while developing his own personal sound on the instrument, is a very captivating sound on the drums.

This unique book/CD traces the roots of African rhythmic systems to the Americas. Learning these African-based claves is similar to jazz musicians learning chord changes, voicings, and scale patterns which enable them to improvise on songs. Claves are our ancient and modern scales. These claves open up rhythmic subdivisions, substitutions and a much wider vocabulary to draw upon than playing static beats.

Call them systems, bell patterns, or claves, be assured that there is much freedom to be gained from owning these rhythms. The coordination required to play these rhythms will challenge and benefit every aspect of your playing.

96 pages. Language: English
CD features 87 tracks of drumming
Edited and produced by Dan Thress

Feedback:

This unconventional method book, by Medeski Martin & Wood drummer Billy Martin, is a serious four-way coordination workout based on a series of four-, six-, and eight-beat Afro-clave patterns and a few odd-note rhythms. Each clave is presented in the author's unique notational system, which uses X/s for played strokes and periods for rests. The book gets progressively more difficult as various bass drum figures and left-foot/left-hand accompanying patterns are added to the mix. On the included CD, billy demonstrates many of the examples to help you get an understanding for how hard these things can groove. --Michael Dawson, Modern Drummer Magazine

Anybody who has ever taken an interest in drumming will drool over the endless rhythmic possibilities presented in this book. I wish that I had a resource like this when I started playing almost 20 years ago. This book will increase the rhythmic vocabulary of ANY drummer many times over. Thank you, Mr. Martin for cracking your own code and divulging to the world some of the funkiest grooves that I've ever heard." -- N. Zickefoose

Riddim is an extremely inventive resource and a must-have for anyone serious about understanding and applying these roots rhythms to any style of music. -- David Stanoch, McNally Smith College of Music

For more information visit Billy Martin's Riddim Website
Browse this category: Drumset methods M