Monday, April 10, 2023

Groove o' the day: Billy Higgins Latin

Addendum to yesterday's Billy Higgins transcription— here's the Latin groove he plays on the A sections of the head on Moose the Mooche, from Joshua Redman's album Wish. 

More or less— it takes a couple of measures to settle on it, and he moves his hands around a little bit. This appears to be the core groove:
 


You can see it's a kind of simplified MozambiqueIdris Muhammad used the same bell rhythm on a Melvin Sparks record. Billy Higgins does the same hip move between the high and low toms that I picked up from Portland drummer Ron Steen years ago, that has been a basic feature of this rhythm the way I play it ever since. 

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