#234 Jordan Perlson- Drummer, Educator, Author and More!
The career of drummer, percussionist, producer and educator Jordan Perlson has spanned about as wide a stylistic reach as one can imagine. Be it with jazz legends Seamus Blake, Gary Burton, David Liebman, or folk heroes Alison Brown and Missy Raines, or reggae giants Matisyahu and Trevor Hall, cutting edge music innovators like Becca Stevens, Snarky Puppy, Banda Magda and Jeff Coffin, progressive music with Adrian Belew, Echolyn or Kaki King, or fusion megastar Hiromi, Jordan has become a known force in these many circles. Credits on 100+ recordings, including national and international ad campaigns for Powerade, Netflix, The NY Rangers, Buick and more, Jordan is at home in the studio as he is on stage. Visit his Remote Drum Recording page to learn more about hiring him for your next project. Having taught at prestigious institutions such as Berklee College of Music, New York University and masterclasses all over the world, Jordan is a passionate educator. Visit his Distance Drum Coaching page to learn more about studying with him. An author of 2 books for Mel Bay publishing, Jordan’s books have been translated into several languages and are used the world round by teachers and students of many levels.
R.I.P.
Rest in peace to Mamady Keita. Mamady was a drummer from the West African nation of Guinea. He specialized in the goblet-shaped hand drum called djembe. He was also the founder of the Tam Tam Mandingue school of drumming. He was a member of the Manding ethnic group.
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday to friend of the show Kahlil Cummings. Kahlil is a Los Angeles native, an acclaimed drummer, exceptional performer, composer, and educator. Kahlil was recognized as a child prodigy very early; since childhood, he has played with numerous reputable groups including Ballet Folclórico Do Brasil, Sona Sané, Abalayé, Mila Samba School, Inu Olorun, Debbie Allen Dance Company, Les Amazones, and Viver Brasil. Kahlil honed his rhythmic gifts with noted teachers including Mestre Amen Santo, Jose Ricardo Sousa, Kobla Ladzekpo, Esteban “Cha Cha” Bacallao (Ibae), and Sandy Perez. His studies in Guinea, Brazil and Cuba have helped to widely broaden his knowledge and musical strength. However, he is most profoundly influenced by West African master drummer Mamady Keita, with whom he has studied since the age of 13. Kahlil helped start the group Balandugu Kan, which was sanctioned by Keita as representing “the voice of Balandugu”--- the village where Keita was born. His compositions can be heard on his debut album Iniké Baba, recorded live in Guinea, West Africa.
Kahlil was the musical director for opening numbers for both the NAACP Image Awards and the Choreographers Awards in 2004. Since then, he has performed with several renowned artists such as Janelle Monae (American Idol), Shakira (music video “Waka Waka), and R. Kelly. He recently recorded percussion for Aloe Blacc in a song titled “Let the Games Begin,” which was featured in the movie “Race.” In addition, Kahlil performed with Pharrell Williams and Kendrick Lamar in the 2015 and 2016 Grammy Awards, respectively. His prolific abilities have even taken him as far as Japan, where he produced and recorded music for Takarazuka, an elite Japanese theater ensemble, and for Pomba, a well-known fitness company.
Happy Birthday to friend of the show James Gadson. James is an American drummer and session musician. Beginning his career in the late 1960s, Gadson has since become one of the most-recorded drummers in the history of R&B. He is also a singer and songwriter.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Gadson played with the first line-up of Charles Wright's Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, and recorded three albums with them between 1968 and 1970. Along with other members of Wright's band he went on to appear on many hit records, including with Dyke & the Blazers. Gadson started to become well known as a drummer following the release of the album Still Bill by Bill Withers, released by Sussex Records in 1972. He played on The Temptations album 1990, released on the Motown label in 1973. In 1975 he played with Freddie King on Larger Than Life and went on to record with Martha Reeves, Randy Crawford, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, B.B. King, Albert King, Rose Royce, Elkie Brooks and many more artists. In 1975 he anchored the Motown classic double platinum album City Of Angels, recorded by Billy Griffin & The Miracles.
Gadson was also the drummer on Marvin Gaye's "I Want You" in 1976 and Diana Ross's hit 1976 single Love Hangover and appeared on two tracks, "At The Mercy" and "Riding To Vanity Fair", on the 2005 Paul McCartney album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard.
He has a brief appearance in the Adam Sandler 2009 movie Funny People as a member of the jam band that Sandler's character hires to play with him.
In April 2009, Gadson joined Alex Dixon, grandson of Willie Dixon, on his 2009 release titled Rising From The Bushes, in which he appeared on two tracks, "Fantasy" and Willie Dixon's famous song "Spoonful".
In June 2009, Gadson joined Beck, Wilco, Feist and Jamie Lidell covering Skip Spence's Oar as part of Beck's Record Club series, with videos appearing on Beck's website beginning November 2009. He has drummed on Beck's albums Sea Change, The Information and Morning Phase, as well as Jamie Lidell's 2010 album Compass. Gadson played drums, as well as hambone (slapping his legs), on the D'Angelo song "Sugah Daddy", on the Black Messiah album (2014). He appeared in the 2016 video for “Mama Can’t Help You No More,” by Doyle Bramhall II. You can see a list of some of the credits for James’ work by CLICKING HERE.
Gig Alerts
Zildjian Cymbals is looking for a Social Media Manager to grow, engage, and retain our Zildjian follower base across existing Global channels, develop international distributor channels and handles, and paid social media channels. This Manager will effectively become the voice of the Zildjian brand. This role will be located in Norwell, MA, and report to the Global Director of Digital Marketing. S/he will have direct responsibility for the development and execution of our social media marketing plan for the Zildjian brand. This includes strategic, planning and execution of content, community management, and working with distributor partners on scaling and regionalizing content.
S/he will be a digital athlete with a passion for being up-to-date on the latest digital technologies and social media trends. S/he will also be one part passionate brand builder and one part consumer champion – someone who thrives on spreading their passion and excitement for our brands with consumers in multiple segments around the world while continuously driving performance improvement by leveraging analytics to better understand our consumers and optimize our engagement with them. The successful candidate will have a high-level of creativity, attention to detail, and project management skills, with a talent for writing custom and engaging content.
If you are looking for festivals to attend this summer, look no further than the Jambase Website. You can search by date, festival name, location or other criteria.
Educational Spotlight
Here’s (friend of the show) Marcos Lopez, with a cover of Tito Nieves’ “Aquel Amor de Fuego,” from one of the last lessons from Conga Chops’ Timbal Fundamentals course on analyzing some of the percussive nuances of an arrangement in the early modern salsa era! There are also conga and bongo lessons on the site too!
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Grab your FREE 7-Day Trial for over 200+ Full Lessons: CongaChops.com/memberships
Social Soundbyte
The social soundbyte is from friend of the show Weedie Braimah. He released a new single called “Ships Come In (a Lullaby)” and it also features Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Elena Pinderhughes, and last week’s guest, Magatte Sow.
Product Review
The product review for this week is the Tokyo Dawn Records, VOS SlickEQ is a mixing/mastering equalizer designed for ease of use, musical flexibility and impeccable sound.
Three (and a half) filter-bands arranged in a classic Low/Mid/High semi-parametric layout offer fast and intuitive access to four distinct EQ modes, each representing a set of distinct EQ curves and behaviors. An elaborate auto gain option automatically compensates for changes of perceived loudness during EQ operation. Optionally, SlickEQ allows to exclusively process either the stereo sum or stereo difference (i.e. “stereo width”) without additional sum/difference encoding.
In order to warm up the material with additional harmonic content, SlickEQ offers a switchable EQ non-linearity and an output stage with 4 different saturation models. These options are meant to offer subtle and interesting textures, rather than obvious distortion. The effect is made to add the typical “mojo” often associated with classy audio gear.
An advanced 64bit multirate processing structure practically eliminates typical problems of digital EQ implementations such as frequency warping, quantization distortion and aliasing.
Beside the primary controls, the plug-in comes with an array of additional helpers: Advanced preset management, undo/redo, quick A/B comparison, copy & paste, an online help, editable labels, mouse-wheel support and much more.
Iconic Recording
The iconic recording this week is “Bom Bom Bom Bom” by the group Deep Rumba. The album is ‘A Calm in the Fire of Dances”. Performing on this track are: Orlando "Puntilla" Rios - vocals, Abraham Rodriguez - coro & clave, Robby Ameen - drums, Roman Diaz - cajon, Richie Flores and Paoli Mejias - congas
Music News
If you are looking to celebrate the 4th of July this year, you can check your local listings for events happening near you. A few of the bigger celebrations will take place in NYC, Boston and Washington D.C. You can read more in THIS ARTICLE HERE. The Boston/Tanglewood events will feature the Boston Pops Orchestra in which friend of the show, Neil Grover is a member of.
Damon also mentions the Bristol, R.I. events as part of the oldest 4th of July celebration in the country.
This episode is sponsored by Eucatape. USE CODE EUCATAPE15 FOR 15% OFF AT CHECKOUT!
Jordan Perlson Interview
The interview starts with Damon and Jordan talking about a few NYC music clubs in The 55 Bar, The Zinc Bar, and Rockwood Music Hall.
Jordan grew up in Glenside, PA just outside of Philly. He spent a good amount of time going to jam sessions at Chris’ Jazz Cafe and Ortleib’s.
One of the influential albums for Jordan in his youth was "Vivid” by Living Colour. The album Jordan couldn’t remember was ‘Time’s Up’, which has the song “Elvis is Dead” on it.
After his brother’s influence, he joined the concert band and then started taking private lessons with Dennis Barth. Dennis has played drums professionally for over 30 years in many different bands and venues. Currently Dennis plays in River of Dreams, an Allman Brothers Tribute band, teaches drum set instruction in Doylestown, PA and is the drummer for two churches.
Jordan attended a Quaker School for part of high school. If you are interested in what a Quaker School is, you can CLICK HERE.
Jordan attended Berklee College of Music, but started going to their summer program in high school.
In high school, Jordan started studying with Don McCormick. Don has played in the Philadelphia area for 30 years. The many local bands that he has played with include Steve Mackey, the New Deal, John Austin, the Nameless Faces, and blues man Frank Bey and his Swing City Band. He also plays and records children’s music with Steve Pullara and the Cool Beans Band. During his career he has played in the pit bands for various local musical productions and has recorded with various artists at Mad Ferret Studios. He has appeared at the Ambler Cabaret, the Cape May Jazz Festival, Red Bank Jazz and Blues Festival, Bethlehem Music Festival, Warmdaddy’s, the Wilmington Opera House, and the Kimmel Center among other venues. He has toured with the Nashville casino act Jesse and Judy. Don studied drums with Buddy Depenschmidt – drummer with jazz guitarist Charlie Byrd and Lenny Vinci – Atlantic City casino jazz drummer. He also studied for 11 years with Joe Morello of the Dave Brubeck Quartet.
Because of Don, Jordan got to study with Joe Morello before he left for Boston for college.
Not only did Jordan study music performance, but he also majored in Music Business.
The book Damon mentions is called “How to Make it in the New Music Business” by friend of the show, Ari Herstand.
Two reasons why Jordan decided to move to NYC were Alain Mallet and a friend who had an apartment with room to practice.
Jordan talks about the balance of being a specialized drummer versus being well rounded.
Jordan has a drum coaching service he offers as well as the ability to record from home for people.
Jordan also works for the company SoundBetter. Both Jordan and Damon have pages up there.
Jordan currently lives in Nashville, TN. One of the people that helped Jordan get situated when he moved to NYC from Boston was Gian Tornatore. The musicians Jeff Coffin, Viktor Krauss and Adrian Belew helped Jordan get situated in Nashville.
Jordan also wrote a couple of instructional books for Mel Bay. One on Cajon and the other on “Burning”.
Cleopatra’s Needle is temporarily closed and will be relocating soon.
Five Months After ‘Save Our Stages’ Became Law, Indie Venues Have Received $0 in Federal Relief. $0: That’s how much money the Small Business Administration has paid independent venues since Save Our Stages Act — which guarantees independent venues and theaters $16 billion in federal pandemic relief — was passed into law five months ago. -Article
Jordan was a drummer for the Blue Man Group in NYC.
Jordan uses Meinl Cymbals, Vic Firth Sticks and Mallets. Shout-out to John Ramsey and his rudimental ritual book.
Latin music legend, Grammy Award-winning percussionist and friend of the show, Ralph Irizarry has traveled the world three times over, with some of the biggest names in the music business, and as a renown and beloved music and cultural ambassador. But for over 40 years, he’s always called Brooklyn his home. Now, in a frail and critical state of health, the home and well-being of this giant musical icon are being threatened with eviction.
There is a GoFundMe page set up to help him out. If you are able, please donate to this living legend and gem of a human being. Check out the videos below (in English and Spanish) for a bit more details.
