What EXACTLY is a "Jazz Samba"

[dmhdrums]

I will be trying out for a jazz band in a few weeks and one of the audition requirements is to play what they call "Jazz Samba" What are they going to be looking for?

I am not great at all the different Latin styles. [Definitely my weakest area.] I pretty much use Bossa Nova, or more of a Songo.

Could anybody just give a basic description of the key parts of any of the Latin styles?

[NY Frank]

You should definitely get your hands on a book or video that goes through the various latin jazz forms. 

Some materials that probably go over that:

- Tommy Igoe's DVD
- Fairly new  Total Jazz Drummer book/CD

[chilledbongo]

it calls for a steady 1-2 on the kick, kind of a da-dunk, uh, da-dunk, uh, da-dunk.....then when you get that going, your hands are a different story. but once it kicks in, it's like riding a bicycle...sort of....

im sure you tube has a million examples. samba is one of those deceptively hard things to master. you'll think youre ok until you hear someone really doing it right...then its back to the drawing board kiddo... :)

[Matt Self (Gaddabout)]

I will be trying out for a jazz band in a few weeks and one of the audition requirements is to play what they call "Jazz Samba" What are they going to be looking for?

I am not great at all the different Latin styles. [Definitely my weakest area.] I pretty much use Bossa Nova, or more of a Songo.

Could anybody just give a basic description of the key parts of any of the Latin styles?

It's different than a real samba. ;)

Jazz Samba is sort of the American interpretation. The first video below is a nice introduction to samba for the drum set. The second is the master, Peter Erskine, playing a nice feeling samba.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eidBIjtTZvI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXINcKuDfXE&feature=related

[Riddim]

More importantly,listen to such music.  A good introduction would be Chick Corea's Light As A Feather album.

[Bart Elliott]

Jazz Samba is built around the Ride Cymbal, along with the Kick, Snare and HiHat. This is what makes it different than a standard approach to playing samba on the drumkit ... like the examples Gaddabout gave.

A basic "jazz samba" would be to play an uptempo jazz ride pattern, which is rounded out to have more of a duple feel and less swing ... because it's quick. Add the samba Kick drum pattern (Bass drum & HiHat). Lastly, add syncopated figures on the Snare drum which flow with the Ride cymbal pattern. These figures on the Snare drum could be an syncopated ostinato pattern that blends with the jazz Ride pattern, or it could be the syncopated pattern heard in partido alto.  The Snare drum part doesn't have to be rigid, in fact it's typically improvised, but keeping the samba sound using the things I've already mentioned.

[Rbdwarf]

More importantly,listen to such music.  A good introduction would be Chick Corea's Light As A Feather album.

Yup, in one word "Spain".

--
Rob

[Erk]

Check out the song Samba song by Chick Corea. Steve Gadd on drums so great. He solos over a vamp, and it is literally one of the best solo's i've ever heard.


Wondering if someone could give me some help. I'm practicing this too from Groove Eessentials. Tommy gives the basic beat. The thing thats messing me up is his left hand pattern. Whenever I play just the hi hat, ride, and bass drum patterns I can play it perfectly. However, when I play the the left hand pattern everything gets messed up. How do I correct this? I've tried going very slow with a metranome, playing each rhythm by itself..etc.

[Bart Elliott]

Check out the song Samba song by Chick Corea. Steve Gadd on drums so great. He solos over a vamp, and it is literally one of the best solo's i've ever heard.

I'm not familiar with a tune called "Samba" ... perhaps you meant one of these?

"Spain" - mutiple albums
"Samba Yantra" - Now He Sings, Now He Sobs
"Samba Song" - Friends
"Samba L.A." - Tap Step

[Bob Pettit]

Check out the song Samba song by Chick Corea. Steve Gadd on drums so great. He solos over a vamp, and it is literally one of the best solo's i've ever heard.


Wondering if someone could give me some help. I'm practicing this too from Groove Eessentials. Tommy gives the basic beat. The thing thats messing me up is his left hand pattern. Whenever I play just the hi hat, ride, and bass drum patterns I can play it perfectly. However, when I play the the left hand pattern everything gets messed up. How do I correct this? I've tried going very slow with a metranome, playing each rhythm by itself..etc.

I am no expert on Brazilian rhythm, but I have been working a lot on bossa nova and samba recently and know a few things on independence.

Since you got the other parts down, try adding the hand part one beat at a time. Play just a single note of the pattern (I like to start with the hardest first) and absorb how it fits into rhythm. Then add another and another, etc.

Another way is to work the concept. The samba left hand part is a combination of 'on beat' and 'off beat' (off beat = syncopating between beat on the 'ands'). Try playing straight 'on beats' .... shouldn't be too hard. Then try playing straight 'off beats' ... this gets tricker, so make sure your bass drum surdo part stays clean. Once you can play the 'on beat' and the 'off beat' straight, you've got the components/skill to play the samba left hand part.

,

[KevinD]

I don't have access to either "Samba Song" or Tommy Igoe's DVD right now but I'm familiar with the song in general though.

It sounds like you are on the right track, unfortunately there is no magic bullet to getting these things right, you just have to work through them, some tips may help a little bit though. Using a metronome is essential so you are good there.

Are you playing a boom-ba-boom-ba-boom ostinato on the bass drum?

First, practice that, the hi hat, and the ride pattern together to the point it becomes 2nd nature to you and you can kind of forget about it while you add your left hand or later, do other stuff on top of it. That pattern is the basis of a lot of things so the work there won't go to waste.

As Bongo says, work through the measure one quarter note at a time. My guess is that you are stumbling over only 1 or two of these sections. You need to slow it down and find the troublespots,  then very slowly work through them.

For something like involving indepence and some tricky stuff I usually set the metronome at about 58-60 bpm or slower if needed.

1st get the time working at your starting tempo then add each quarter note section beat. If that tempo is too fast, just slow it down until you can play the pattern, even if you are at 42bpm, you have to start somewhere, the speed will come later. Your mind has to get used to making those movements.

Once you get it working, keep it at the slow tempo and just groove on it for a long period of time until you are very comfortable with it. With me I usually do this for 15 to 20 minutes, your mileage may vary. The goal is to execute the pattern correctly and cleanly. You will smooth out the rough spots here. It may not sound like the pattern you want to play but if you are doing it correctly your mind will learn it.

Once you have it all clean at the slow tempo, gradually increase the tempo. You may only be able go up a few bpm, again that is not important, playing it cleanly is. Just groove on that for another 15 minutes or so. By this time (and it may take more than one practice session) it should be starting to burn into your memory banks.

You can then try increase the tempo up to playing speed, if you encounter a problem and things start to break down at say 100bpm, back off to where you can comfortably play it and groove on that cleanly for a long time. The speed will come I guarantee.

One thing I've found by doing this (long practice at slow speeds) is that I'll do that for an hour or so making sure I'm on the right track. Then I end my practice and do something totally different. When I come back to it later in the day or the next day, I'm able to play it more solidly than when I left it. I guess it bakes in. 

It can be a tedious process, I wish I had a short cut but I've never been able to find one. The good thing is that it a  "gateway beat" which will open you up and prepare you for playing other similar tricky things.

Hope that helps.

[Todd Knapp]

My understanding is that one key to playing samba is to articulate the rhythms correctly. Assuming were speaking about interpreting samba in 4/4 there are a few rules to articulating the patterns which help give them an authentic samba feel.

In general, all 1/8th note downbeats are accented unless followed by a 16th-note upbeat. 16th note upbeats are unnaccented unless NOT followed by a downbeat.

For instance, let's take a common pattern that could be used as ride cymbal pattern, as a unison pattern for both hands on snare/ride or HH/snare AND/OR a left hand comping pattern under a steady ride cymbal pattern. This last option requires a lot of independence with the hands, and the most common ride cymbal patterns are (subdivision is 16ths): R.RRR.RRR.RRR.RR - RRR.RRR.RRR.RRR. - and the slightly tougher RR.RRR.RRR.RRR.R.

Okay, here's the pattern:

R..RR..R.R.RR..R

If we play that pattern with each note at the same volume it sounds stale and overbearing. Following the above rules, the pattern could be played with a series of weak and strong pulses to give it the proper lilt. This can also be conceived of as staccato and tenuto (weak pulses are staccato and strong pulses are tenuto.)

I'll use capitals for stressed pulses and lower case for unnaccented notes. Accordingly, we get:

R..rR..R.R.rR..r

With the left hand (on snare head or as a cross-stick sound)

L..lL..L.L.lL..l

Another example:

R..RR.RR.R.R.RR.

-becomes-

R..rR.rR.R.R.rR. - or - L..lL.lL.L.L.lL.

A simple way to fill these RH patterns out is to simply play the dots as ghosted LH notes on the snare drum (hope you've practiced your paradiddles and inversions..) If you keep the RH on the ride, it has a lighter, jazzier feel, but you can easily move the RH to the snare as well for a more traditional batucada-like feel.

Oh, and something I saw Dafnis Prieto do -- which was so very cool -- was to play the lead samba voice/patterns using one stick straddling the snare drum and the hihats. You need to hold the stick in the middle to do this, but the effect is really interesting, giving more of an ensemble/batucada flavour.

[Matt Self (Gaddabout)]

I've seen drummers credibly fake their way through sambas by playing four on the floor. In America, the rules aren't real rigid. You just have to understand the basic origins of samba and then you can go and make up your own based on those principles.

If you've got the bossa nova down, the ostinato is exactly the same. It should come quickly for you.

[Erk]

yeah, i do have the bossa nova down, just not coming to me for some reason.