Grooving with a feathered bass drum

A couple of weeks ago I made some comments about hearing some younger drummers, and someone asked me to elaborate on this part of it: 

[I was hearing people] feathering the bass drum in a way that doesn't add anything. It seems like more of an obligation than a purposeful thing— they're playing it because they were told it's supposed to be there. It sounds affected if there's not a real deep groove happening otherwise. Do it on purpose, to take the groove where you want it. The goal is to sound like someone who has done a ton of R&B gigs, even if you haven't.

We used to learn to play with very little information, now we're given a ton of very specific information that, we are told, is very important to follow. People are having to process a lot of competing directives they got from the internet and from books. Play the bass drum, but don't play it too loud, I want it lurking in the background like original sin, which is what you'll be committing if you don't do it, also play a lot of hip stuff on the snare drum, and be thinking about your technique, don't play with suboptimal technique now, etc etc. 

Project groove
However you want to read that, “Project: Groove” or project groove.

That's your main job: create groove with the other musicians, and impress it upon the audience. Whatever else happens, it's the main unifying thing for the band, and for everyone in the room. Everything else is secondary.

There was a good line from Billy Hart, about the first time he played with Jimmy Smith, who told him to “play the dance.” When you think in those terms, the role of the bass drum becomes obvious, because you're following a natural musical imperative, rather than just following an instruction on correct jazz musical behavior. 

A total thing
It's not supposed to be an isolated, add-on thing. You have to have a total integrated foundation where you use the bass drum that way all the time. With the original guys, they didn't start out playing the bass drum inaudibly— they played it for effect, and then dropped it out as the style changed. But playing time on the bass drum along with their hands was still their primary orientation. 

The feathering thing is a continuation of a ~125 year old tradition of “double drumming”, where you essentially play rudimental snare drum stuff, with an accompanying beat on the bass drum. That's the  foundation, and it was the major drumming orientation from the 1890s-1930s. So if this were something I were serious about, I would be doing all my snare drum practice that way— Wilcoxon and everything— so that kind of double drumming thing was my main orientation. 

I do something else   
I don't do that. As for most drummers alive today, the permanent four on the floor with the bass drum was never my primary orientation. Most of us have played a lot of rock and funk, and latin music, post bop, free jazz, and a whole lot of other stuff— which generally use the bass drum differently. For me the foot time keeper element was hihat, played Tony Williams style on all four beats, or on 8th notes. And if we're talking about being felt rather than heard, at times stomping a wood floor with the heel of your hihat foot generates some sound and feeling, too.     

If I'm using the bass drum on a swing beat, I'm doing it deliberately to take the groove where I want it. But I also may be playing more feathered bass drum than I'm aware of. Increasingly I've been practicing the bass drum in ways that sketch out a feathered part, rather than thumps it endlessly. 

Undire consequences
People like to present these drumming issues like they're going to make or break your career, but I've never had anyone take issue with this in a real life musical situation. My drum teacher at USC told me about playing with the actual Count Basie band and having the actual Freddie Green ask him why he wasn't playing the bass drum on a fast tune. There's a second hand case. Significantly, he was not fired from the job, and it didn't prevent him from getting hired in the first place. He had that gig for several years.  

This is a topic to take seriously, but ultimately you can't satisfy everyone broadcasting drumming advice. You make your own decisions about your drumming— hopefully through playing real music with people— and you live with them. There's room in this world for a lot of different ways of playing the drums.