From now on, Fridays just got a lot more fun. We're announcing a brand new series: Front Row Friday!
We do these special ArtistWorks Live events once a month with one of our artists, and anyone with a 12 month membership can tune in and ask questions. This was a fun one we did recently with our jazz drum teacher Peter Erskine. Also joining us was the great symphonic drummer Bill Platt, who according to Peter has "the best hands in the business."
There were some great questions asked as always, some interesting topics discussed included jazz (of course), playing with Jaco & Weather Report, making a name for himself in the music industry, playing drums on movie scores (including the recent Oscar winning La La Land), and a whole lot more.
Enjoy it!
How did we get to where we are now? The birth and growth of jazz music is an intriguing element of United States history. And one of the most interesting aspects of this growth is the progression of jazz drumming.
The history of the drum set is deeply entwined with jazz history, as it evolved through the explorations of early jazz drumming going back to percussionists in New Orleans. These so called “drum set inventors” made drum sets that provided them with the ability of creating sounds that came to their mind, and that could match what the other musicians were playing.
“I’m going to save you a lot of time by sharing what I know.” - Peter Erskine
We’re excited to announce that Online Jazz Drums with Peter Erskine is now officially open! This is your chance to learn jazz drumming directly from someone who’s played on over 600 recordings with artists like Chick Corea, Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Weather Report, Jaco Pastorius, Stan Kenton and many more. He’s also been voted “Best Jazz Drummer of the Year" 10 times by the readers of Modern Drummer magazine.