House of Drumming.com

I personally really like his material with Punk Bop: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/arihoenig

Cool clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMqqOyXMUs4

Steve Holmes wrote:Guys like Ari and Ballard, even Stewart...the nature of their novelty is their UNtrained-ness, their own unique awkwardness to their playing (mostly visually). As a result it tends to either rub you the right way because their unconventional thing results in cool results..or they just look weird when they play. So it can kinda backfire. They sound great either way (I don't really dig the Ballard stuff...and I'll take Tain over all of them frankly).

Steve, not sure what you mean. Could you further clarify? Seems you're trying to say they are novel because of mostly the visual aspect of their playing. But subtract that and there is still a world of uniqueness in Ari, Stewart, Blade, etc. Not sure why Stewart's approach, for example, is more awkward and unconventional than Elvin's. Bill does his thing and Elvin plays loose and behind the beat. Everyone has their own signature. What "standard" convention do you have in mind?

Untrained-ness? Not sure what you mean either. Ari is probably the most trained drummer that's ever lived when it comes to understanding of rhythm, melody, harmony, and music composition. Not to say he's the best ever, but I just don't understand the label. All these guys went to school; visual technique aside, there's more training than most will ever achieve.

whitehousec wrote:Brad Mehldau Trio - Day Is Done. Jeff Ballard
Aaron Goldberg - Worlds. Eric Harland
Aaron Parks - Invisible Cinema. Eric Harland
Phronesis - Alive. Mark Guliana
Robert Glasper Trio - In My Element. Damion Reid
Terence Blanchard - Flow. Kendrick Scott
Gilad Hekselman - Split Life. Ari

These are just a handful of amazing records with amazing drummers. Kenny Werner trio with Ari is also outrageous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIGJJnQYHO4

Love the list here... Also, check out Robert Glasper's double booked with Chris Dave killing it, and Aaron Parks has a new thing called James farm with Harland, and Joshua Redman in it that's pretty nasty.

Andrew - good points.
I suppose what I mean is sometimes guys that don't work on getting their hands to do what they want with ease end up struggling in some regard, but the struggle becomes part of their "thing". Also some of those cats like Ari and Ballard just look awkward when they play. I'm a fan of Ari straight up.

I'm not saying any of this is a bad thing. Just observations.

PS Just watched that whole Kenny/Ari clip. Good gawd that was beautiful.

The guy surely goes beyond unconventional sometimes, but I can assure you he's far from untrained. At the seminar I attended in 2002 he was pretty conceptual but always had the technique and theory background when someone asked something that required it. Also, when he went for straight ahead, old school swing, he was absolutely amazing.
This stuff isn't to be liked by everyone, that's for sure. They went way out at some points with the CC new trio.

I think it depends on what you want to get from the music. It took me a while to be able to 'get' these guys - some of their playing still eludes me. Ari...I'm not sure of yet. A lot of the time I think it can polyrhythmic for the sake of it, but then I hear him play straight ahead and it's like DAMN! He swings his ass off.

With that being said, I found a Hal Galper album called 'Now Hear This' with Tony from 1977 and it's sounds so hip and current as anything I've heard. You can hear Tony somewhere in so many of these players.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uh_flMt ... re=related - from said album. It's on Spotify...well worth a listen. Tony's playing is just amazing.

The thing is, to go where these guys go and still sound jazzy, you gotta have spent a good number of years working your ass off on more conventional jazz and be as swingin' as it can get. So when you see them do the real swing thing they just blow you away.

Speaking of Ballard, I frequently get back to this clip. I love Jeff's sound, he gets so many tones out of a small drumset. That rim click stuff is especially really cool.

Ari's playing is BRILLIANT here...