Dennis Chambers videos

Hey folks!

Check out the two videos of Dennis! Amazing stuff. tight and funky!

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Thanks for the link Mathias! Haha, what he only does with that shuffle. Beautiful!

Whoah! Thanks for the link on this! Dennis is simply amazing. And as Rudy said, that shuffle is absolutely beautiful stuff. Cheers! [img]graemlins/beer.gif[/img]

I saw these a while ago, here's my feelings. Firstly, in the first example of Rosanna, Dennis plays the groove wrong. His ghost notes are really loud and he doesn't groove anything like Jeff. It sounds wooden and stilted and doensn't have that famous lope.
Secondly his 'variation' was just horrible and didn't sit at all. It didn't feel good or groove for me and was intended to be flash rather than musical.


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He also speeds a little bit as the groove progresses.

His bassdrum pattern is also incorrect, he's missing a hit to complete the solomon mines figure, which i think is a very significant signature of the Jeff Porcaro Roxanna shuffle.

However the variation of the groove is very interesting, pretty much visual, but he also succesfully implements his signature Ride/Hi-hat patterns, which also can be heard on Mike Stern, Voices etc.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 26, 2004 02:00 PM: Message edited by: Klemme ]</font>

i know what people mean, but if you read the words on the pearl thing before the clips...doing the fancy version of the shuffle was kind of a joke on jeff, because jeff joked with dennis first.....

i personally like that kind of groove...totally depends on what music your playing at the time of course....but i like that "ON" feeling. that is what im working on in my playing, especially since being able to record myslef and listen back.....i always feel that im behind, not out of time, but a slightly sluggish feeling and i HATE that. buddy, dennis, thomas for example play it ON and HARD.....precision!!!

i don't like his choked snare sound. it has no breath.

I've not seen anyone who matches Dennis for natural ability.

Count Basie once eulogised about Art Tatum, saying how he 'wasted' the piano. You could say the same thing about Dennis and the drum set. Others have worked hard, practised, analysed, studied etc. but for sheer genius/natural talent, Dennis is peerless - and no-one is more exciting to watch in a live situation.

There are many I would rather watch than Dennis. It is pretty hard(impossible) to judge what percentage of a artists ability is natural and what came through hard work.

Dig

In the December 1997 issue, the 20th aniversary one, they have famous quotes from past issues from various drummers. I remember Dennis saying how everyone said he had some "natural talent". He responded by saying 'but I was always practicing... from the moment I woke up 'til the sun went down I was playing'. I heard the same thing about Buddy from someone who knew him. They may start at a higher level but you still have to polish it off, still climb the ladder.