Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Southern California Fires Hit the Jazz Community
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
PlayJazzNow.com, a web site featuring downloadable play-along tracks for instrumentalists and vocalists, has announced the addition of play-along tracks for jazz drummers and percussionists.
Sets of tracks geared to beginning, intermediate and advanced percussionists have been created, allowing drummers to now play along with the rhythm team of piano and bass without the clutter of a pre-existing drum track.
Students can practice a wide range of rhythmic styles, including swing, jazz waltz, bossa, samba, 6/8, 5/4 and ballad. Each style is available in a variety of tempos, which employ standard forms such as 12-bar blues, 32-bar AABA form, plus the less common 16- and 24-bar forms.
“These tracks are just what aspiring jazz drummers need to help them get to the next level,” said Bill Harrison of PlayJazzNow.com. “I haven’t seen or heard tracks of this kind offered anywhere else.”
The new addition aims to reach out specifically to drummers and percussionists who want to master the rhythmic, stylistic and formal elements of jazz, whereas the web site previously only offered play-along tracks for jazz musicians who want to hone their improvisation skills by working out with a live trio.
For more information, visit: www.playjazznow.com
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
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