Monday, November 04, 2019

Groove o' the day: Airto - Street Vendors D'Jmbo

A baiao-type drum set groove from Airto— actually I don't know what to call this. I'm not hearing obvious markers of a particular style. Maybe Airto's just playing. Someone who really knows their berimbau rhythms could probably tell us. It's from the track Street Vendors D'Jmbo, on Airto's album Homeless. It's a sort of impressionistic percussion and vocal piece, backed with some synth.

From the intro:



This is the groove for most of the track, with subtle variations— there's a lot of overdubbed percussion and I can't tell what's happening with the left foot, if anything.




It's actually not difficult to hear that second groove backwards, starting on the fourth beat, so the bass drum rhythm is on 2, and the snare drum accent with the buzz is on 3. 

You can hear that he's swinging the 16th notes in an interesting way, that is different from the “tripteenth” interpretation we've discussed before. Some of the effect is due to the interaction of the percussion parts, but it sounds like occasional 16ths on the a are played late. Or perhaps the a is in the normal place and the 1e& is slightly compressed. Something to explore in another post.


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