My music is tonally based. There is plenty of dissonance, but it's used as a contrast. There is polytonality at times and a lot of rhythmic interplay.
My drum parts are a song within the song; that's the way I look at writing my drum parts. They follow patterns, and they're written to interact with the rest of the band. There's quite a bit of thought that goes into it.
I love the percussion. It's a right brain, left brain thing. There are different beats, but cooperating together. It's your whole body doing it, you're doing the snare drum and the high top with your hands and the bass drum with your foot. You're this whole motion machine.
I like rhythmic things that butt up against each other in a cool kind of way.
Yes, the audience is so important to Negro music, especially the element of call and response.
I was able to interpret the difference between the sharp, quick sound and the slow, deep sound of percussion and manipulate it, get a third sound out of things, if the beats were rapid enough.
So it's really hard for a horn player to comp. But I'm totally into trying to switch those paradigms around and find a little magic space where that works, and try to mine that.
There's quite a few people who said they couldn't play with two drummers, and I don't understand it. It's no different than playing with two guitar players, two trumpets, or two anythings.
Jazz is such a living art form. It happens right in the moment. You weave a story by changing certain elements and components.
It's really important for the bass and the drums to somehow blend.
My solo playing utilizes the deployment of suggestive psychic rhythms. I'll state these throughout a given piece and play thematic improvisations on top of that. I like to suggest that rhythmic movement without always playing it. I like to create openings that I can step into.
