Omar Hakim Clinic at West LA Music

"The Pearl guys were there pimping the new Reference line of drums. They went a bit overboard with the details on how they make drums vs other companies."

steve - wasn't it funny that the 12" all maple tom sounded the best?

danny- what you said about that 20 ply snare. (paraphrased) "if ya want it to be that loud, then buy a steel snare drum." - that was pretty funny. [img]smile.gif[/img]

all in all, the drums sounded great. but then again, don't most high-end drums?

heck omar could play 5 gallon buckets and it will sound great.

Did you notice how Omar continued playing the song when he went into his first solo, then he'd work on little themes and expand them? Compare that to the Pearl guy's lame-ass double bass stuff. BORING.

I think the coolest part of Omar's solo was that slow groove in three on the high-hat with the rimshot. How hip was that. For those who weren't there, he was really mixing it up at one point and said to the crowd, "You know what I'm sayin'?" and everybody cheered. It just shows, you can play a slow, quiet groove in three and move the audience more than some guy doing double bass crap.

Great HOD hang as always! And Omar, geez, what feel. So deep with profound feeling. As Chuch states so accurately, Omar plays a beat with a hook. And his themes are simple yet tricky and catchy all at the same time. What a great event.

Just think, with all that product demo stuff we had to sit through, we MISSED the PowerPoint presentation!!! Outside venue was too bright for the projector. LOL! Thank God!

Danny

Some of the questions were very cool in concept.

Such as.... someone that asked him what was his most moving and technically hard gig he had to do. Overwhelmingly Omar said it was with Weather Report. He felt he had some big shoes to fill when stepping in behind Erskine and that he had to pull from all the experience he had in order to pull that gig off. He also told us a story how his freind (Im forgetting his name right now) ended up taking over the bass behind "Jaco" instead of Marcus Miller. Said that had Marcus taken the gig with Weather Report, he'd of never gotten to work with Miles.

And what did Omar say about his mom taking the phone call for his new gig?? His mom said something like, "Omarrrr!! Somebody called with a funny name that starts with a Z and something about a Weather Report!!??". Again... everyone laughed.

Regarding the guy that played before Omar.... he was cool. Had alot of chops and stuff. But I think some of the stuff may have subtly flown over the heads of a few. For a second there, he was playing some Mark Atkinson inspired stuff. Playing different time signatures with either his hands vs. feet etc while playing a groove. Stuff right out of the Mark Atkinson book. You could tell the guy had alot of experience, but I think his time, especially when blowing was sped up. But after a while, you saw his whole repetware, so I concurr with others comments here.

Some of the questions.... uggghhh... I see that someone posted the "Top Ten Stupid Clinic Questions" thread that we were threatening to post after chatting at dinner.

One of the questions somebody asked tied in with that whole "walking in after Jaco (or insert any other musician/legend) on a gig".

Say you have "so and so" taking over a gig that Jaco played on. For some reason, some people would say.... "oh, its not Jaco playing on that gig anymore". So Omar says..... "Look everyone!! It's Jesus Christ taking over the playing for Jaco" and then Omar imitates the peoples reaction walking away murmuring "it's still now jaco"

Everyone laughed.

All in all it was a cool hang. I was gonna play a trick on T-Bo (if he'd of come and had dinner with us). I was gonna say, "T-Bo... I hung out for a second at the raffle and they called your name for the drumset!!". "I tried to explain to them that I could get you, but they wouldn't allow it" [img]wink.gif[/img]

Thanks Danny, T-Bo, Steve, Chuch, Shedder, Latim, ohdrum for a fantastic hang. Looking forward to the nest one.

-j

Victor Bailey?

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"uhh...am I missing something?" [img]eek.gif[/img]

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Classic T-Bo!

John-omar must have been talking about his long time bassplayer friend Victor Bailey.
Victor was totally into Jaco and still is.He's a great bass player and a very nice composer.You should check out the'lowblow' album.Incredible playing serving great great songs all composed by Vic.Omar share the drum seat With Dennis on the album and they're both smoking on it. [img]wink.gif[/img]
Def in my top 5 when it comes to jazz-funk-fusion.
Buy it,you'll just love it.

It's cool he was playing a real kit- and that playing the V-Drums hasn't ruined his touch...

Anyone have a clue if he's coming to the East coast? Or was this a one-shot deal?

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Compare that to the Pearl guy's lame-ass double bass stuff. BORING.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">lol

tibault,

yeah, he was creating cool motifs and then working and then building on them.

cjb- i'm surprised that you don't get to see him more often. isn't he from NY?