A great solo is not a collection of fast licks. It is music: it follows the melody, tells a story and never loses the form. Learn it from the masters.
Elvin explains and demonstrates the idea at the heart of a great solo: know the tune, and let its melody and phrases shape what you play. A solo is a song, not a string of licks.
◉ Get the record: John Coltrane, A Love Supreme (Elvin on drums) → Watch on YouTube →The man who moved time from the bass drum to the hi-hat and ride. Watch the touch, the space, the humor, and how much music he gets from a small kit.
◉ Get the record: Jo Jones, The Drums → Watch on YouTube →Two decades later, with close-ups of his hands and sticks. Same tune, still building the solo like a story.
◉ Get the record: Count Basie, The Complete Decca Recordings (Jo Jones on drums) → Watch on YouTube →A solo in 5/4. Morello starts quietly and builds to a climax his hands are almost too fast to film, with flawless left-hand technique and the form never lost.
◉ Get the record: The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Time Out → Watch on YouTube →Filmed in Montreal for Exit…Stage Left. The rock solo as composition: themes that return, orchestral percussion woven in, and every section planned and built like a piece of music.
◉ Get the record: Rush, Exit…Stage Left and Moving Pictures → Watch on YouTube →The rock drum solo everyone pictures: huge sound, deep groove, and the famous section played with his bare hands. Bonham never loses the feel, even at his most explosive.
◉ Get the record: Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II and the Led Zeppelin DVD → Watch on YouTube →From the Cobo Arena shows that became Alive!. Pure arena rock: big fills, showmanship and swing from a drummer raised on Gene Krupa and big-band jazz.
◉ Get the record: KISS, Alive! → Watch on YouTube →ELP’s first year, with Palmer barely 20. Blinding single strokes and rudimental control applied to rock, plus the drama and dynamics of a classically minded player.
◉ Get the record: Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1970) → Watch on YouTube →Modern precision at the extreme: a former world-record holder for speed whose ideas are mapped out in odd groupings and polyrhythms, then played with total control across a huge kit.
Watch on YouTube →