The two extremes of Chris Coleman

Playing a music minus 1 Weckl cover:



Worshop with guitar, bass and drums. Wonderful musicians.

And this was fun:

That first Gateway vid was sublime, just delicious stuff, man. The second WAS fun. Coleman reminds me of Ed Cassidy (RIP) in that he is always smiling. I loved the tone of that guitarist, and the bassist had some cool stuff happening, too.

Of all the drummers playing in that style Coleman is the most fun to watch the application of it, for me. I have said before that today's drummers tend to sound the same to me, especially is that the case with the style of kick notes interspersed in fills and the linear stuff. For a lot of players it all begins to sound like a drum set falling down a flight of stairs, but Coleman does some very magnificent things with it.

Just curious. Who is the player(s) who inspired this style? Rick Latham? Dennis Chambers?

Was that first 3 pc. clip nice or what?

You know, Asaph, I'm not reall sure where the gospel chops
style originated... Interesting when it's done a certain way
though

Check out Chris playing a piece called Hebrews 11:1

Nice drummer! the label gospel drumming? Sounds like a good drummer i don't know what's different. they obviously come out of church bands. that's cool but it just sounds like good drumming to me. is every good drummer gospel now? Gospel chops? it's kind of absurd. I guess they figure Jesus likes great drumming. That's cool. Then Koranic drumming also rocks because i know lots of Islamic master drummers! I've heard some interesting Shinto Buddhist and pagan drumming also. Buddy Rich was a Jew so he was one of god's chosen drummers! This guy is good that's all i can tell! if that's his inspiration than that's great.


THREADGILL: It’s always funny when you look and you see the classical orchestra and then you see these young jazz musicians have learned more and more of these classical methods and they all hold their instruments a certain way and they all look and sound the same. Go try to find a video of Cootie Williams playing the trumpet: [gesturing] the man has the trumpet up here, he’s got the trumpet down there, he’s got the trumpet over here, and what does it get down to? This is what it gets down to. Here’s the food. The food is good! Now here’s this other food and the person starts telling you what’s in the food and how they made it and all these other things and you say, well let me just taste the food, just let me see what it tastes like. So no one really cares how you do something, they only care about the end product. Nobody’s interested in whether you painted this painting with your toe, that you stepped on it, or how you wrote the book in a fit of delirium. Nobody really cares. All that matters is, “Is it happening?''

Yeah, I was just wondering where that type of approach originated amongst these guys, because it certainly isn't an approach used for black gospel church music, itself, at least in the sense of "gospel chops." I know the idea is to convey that church drummers can also be monsters on the kit. But, like you say, it really has nothing to do with the gospel or religion. It's just good drumming.

I think the approach just comes from simply listening and assimilating the styles of the great fusion playing guys from recent history. I hear bits of royster, laing, colaiuta, chambers, donati, minneman, weckl, bruner, and barot amongst playing of this type. Aren't we all trying to do the same thing ?

I think it's great and this guy is an excellent player.

Maybe he is very religious and goes to church a lot but there's no way this type of music is being played in any church I've ever heard of. So why is this being labeled as gospel chops ? Because he's black and goes to church ? that's simply wrong.

I agree that this is just excellent drumming, and the music is jazz rock fusion . Rock on ! Thanks for the clips Don !


Peace, TED

There are drummers under the "label" of gospel chops drummers who do do certain things I've never seen fusion players do from past or present in their soloing. That's why I mentioned Chambers because I can see some of his stuff in their playing. I know he had a major influence on many of them. Coleman's approach is not so intense and ferocious like many others, which is why I like his playing so much.

In some ways the gospel chops thing is all about speed, I guess. Chambers certainly had that effect on many.

I have seen Royster doing drum gigs with gospel chops drummers, along with Thomas Pridgen. But I know Royster did not come up with the chops these guys use. He plays them. Maybe it was Pridgen who laid that foundation for others. I don't know.

Gerald Heyward has been around for quite awhile but I know his playing is not considered of the gospel chops genre, per se.

Who's Barot?

There also is some specific things they call "chops" which seems to have a lot to do with flam taps employed around the set. You see a lot of kick/ fl tom stuff they do. That's one aspect of it.

I saw one guy mention Vinnie as an influence, so certainly the fusion guys have been in the mix.

Well, much of this style of drumming comes from the "new gospel".
If you've not heard it, then I guess I'll have to turn you fellas onto
a few tunes... Stay tuned.

What I can say is it's a certain style and assertion of chops that
have been adopted into the gospel community by various artists.
And unlike fusion, the vocabulary seem to be pretty much the same
from player to player.

It's not gospel exclusive. It's also used in the hip-hop and pop culture,
Aaron Spears with Usher and again with Beyonce's drummers.

Ranjit Barot asaph . He plays with Mclaughlin in the 4th Dimension.


Peace, TED

Another skilled player and can
be dynamic when he wants. I
was glad to see that in the
second of the videos.

Regards,

For those who may not know Ranjit Barot, a little something with Gary Husband to make it more fun:




I love Gary Husband. Ranjit ... refreshing to see a guy from our age bracket (looks it anyway) hammering out some cool stuff.

I actually did a transcription of a lick (09:52) on this video D. Slam posted for a Spanish student:



Best regards!