Reposted from MikeDolbear.com:Â http://www.mikedolbear.com/story.asp?StoryID=3725
Over the years Hudson have brought us many DVD’s featuring some of the most popular and highly regarded drummers. Most of these DVD’s have also featured PDF files, or eBooks.
In the front of this book the editor (Joe Bergamini) explains the thinking behind this re-release of material. He claims that Hudson feel a lot of the information available in PDF format alongside their DVD series gets forgotten, as even people who own the DVD’s don’t really make use of them.
I have a bunch of Hudson DVD’s; have I worked through all the eBooks? Not a chance.
As he points out, Hudson’s back catalogue is jam packed with some of the biggest names in drumming including Benny Greb, Stanton Moore, Thomas Lang, Steve Smith, JoJo Mayer and Carter Beauford; the list is extensive and rather impressive!
When you put that into context there are a LOT of exercises and this compilation features a modest selection from some of the most popular Hudson DVD’s from years gone by.
Jason Bittner opens the DVD with exercises from ”What Drives The Beat”. He works through some simple double bass ideas and presents a few hand and feet fill options.
From the John Blackwell Master Series DVD we”re treated to some nice groove ideas including a great groove from Justin Timberlake”s song, ”My Love”.
Keith Carlock gets far more pages than Blackwell though and there are an extensive selection of ideas from his DVD ”The Big Picture”. We”re shown some great ideas for playing New Orleans influenced grooves and soloing over 8 bars. Overlapping grace notes, playing 4 over 3 and the grooves he played on a few iconic tracks are also easy to access with the book.
For the funky drummers David Garibaldi talks us through his two sound level concept, playing diddles over odd number groupings and the odd Tower of Power groove and explains his ideas in a very clean and clear way.
The ”Modern Drummer Festival” series completes the DVD and features a selection of shorter lessons from another 10 incredible players.
Again, a selection of genre”s are covered with Derek Roddy working through some exercises for double bass, Dafnis Prieto has some great Afro-Cuban ideas and Bill Stewart covers jazz. Gavin Harisson and Simon Philips fly the flag for British drummers and talk overriding and snare drum warm ups.
Thomas Pridgen, Ndugu Chancellor, Will Calhoun, Billy Ward and Todd Sucherman also feature in this last section with their own concepts and ideas.
Obviously different players appeal to different people and there are likely to be one or two that turn some people on and others off and vice versa, but it’s a small and unavoidable issue on frankly a pretty great release.
Of course, if you wanted to get more into a specific player you know where to go and I suspect this may be what Hudson are secretly hoping for, but at a very reasonable £12.99 in the UK, it”s a great release and well worth a look!
Rob Crisp
Available from Hudson Music  http://store.hudsonmusiceurope.co.uk/p/lessons-with-the-hudson-greats-vol-1