Groovin Rudments

Once beginning drum set students have learned some basic beats, the question becomes “How do I get to the next level?” Developing the use of drum rudiments opens a new universe; by focusing on rudiments, you will learn new sticking patterns and build technique, speed, and dexterity. Applying these patterns to the drum set with the online grooves and beats included with this book creates yet another enjoyable dimension. An important part of this process is to apply it while playing with other musicians. The music tracks that accompany this book enhance the learning process and make it fun to play the examples and use them in a musical setting. Each recorded musical example appears in two separate versions: One version includes drums as a reference; the other leaves the drum tracks out, so students can provide the drumming. All examples are written in standard drum set notation. Includes access to online audio.

Dizzy Gillespie was one of the most important and best-loved musicians in jazz history. With his horn-rimmed glasses, goatee, jive talk, and upraised trumpet bell, he was the hipster who most personified bebop. The musical heir to Louis Armstrong, he created the modern jazz trumpet-playing style and dazzled aficionados and popular audiences alike for over 50 years. In this first full biography, Alyn Shipton covers all aspects of Dizzy's remarkable life and career, taking us through his days as a flashy trumpet player in the swing bands of the 1930s, his innovative bebop work in the 1940s, the worldwide fame and adoration he earned through his big band tours in the 1950s, and the many recordings and performances which defined a career that extended into the early 1990s. Along the way, Shipton convincingly argues that Gillespie--rather than Charlie Parker as is widely believed--had the greatest role in creating bebop, playing in key jazz groups, teaching the music to others, and helping to develop the first original bebop repertory. Shipton also explores the dark side of Dizzy's mostly sunny personal life, his womanizing, the illegitimate daughter he fathered and supported--now a respected jazz singer in her own right--and his sometimes needless cruelty to others. For anyone interested in jazz and one of its most innovative and appealing figures, Groovin' High is essential reading.

This work is based entirely on personal observations.

THE BUS FOR AMERICA George Pereny's great new book is a mixture of memory, history and poetry, telling the story of a remarkable life that started under the repression of Soviet rule in his native Hungary. His family made a brave and dangerous escape from Hungary when Pereny was a boy, crossing the ocean and coming to the United States after a momentous decision to take the bus for America rather than the bus for Canada. Pereny had an adventurous education in America, coming to love rock music and words, eventually deciding on a teaching career that took him to inner-city neighborhoods and kids in desperate need of his poetry and vision. Along the way he discovered an aptitude and passion for the martial arts and had a spiritual rebirth in Christ. George's story is also a quest for love that brings him to many women until he finds the right one. Like many great books, THE BUS FOR AMERICA ends with a wedding and a new chance for a happy life in Pereny's adopted America.