Cool music!

hey all!
I have been listening to a couple of great brazilian drummers, and I want to share their wonderful talent and music with you all.

One of them is Cuca Teixeira,a prolific drummer/percussionist who has performed with A LOT of great names, both in the pop, jazz, fusion and latin/brazilian scenes. His new project is a trio called Neural Code with Thiago do Espírito Santo and Kiko Loureiro. The CD is great, and showcases the trio very well, with their unique and interesting mixture of rock, jazz, fusion - creating a contemporary brazilian sound. Check it out!
Neural Code's myspace page

The next guy is another incredible musician and educator: Christiano Rocha, a highly creative and proficient drummer and percussionist. His new release "Ritmismo" is a super cool record, done with the help of some of the best musicians around. Christiano plays very fluently through many different styles, time signatures and intricate passages - all of that with tremendous musicality and some very tasteful drumming. Christiano also has a book out, "Bateria Brasileira" (Brazilian Drums), which is the most comprehensive (and perhaps the most complete!) drum book on Brazilian music I have seen. Check him out at:
Christiano's myspace page

Besides this two amazing guys, I have been checking out some other cool stuff - another killer record is Brian Blade Fellowship's "Perceptual". Beautiful music, and beautiful playing from everyone! Check it out ASAP!

happy listening!!
mz

Lesson on Modern Drummer Brazil - July 2009

Hello friends!

On the past month of July the Brazilian edition of Modern Drummer magazine published an article of mine, a warm up exercise for drumset involving hands and feet. This is something I have been using to some extent before gigs, recording sessions, and/or to get the body and limbs going before practice sessions.
The article is in portuguese, but here is the basic idea for all of you English speakers out there!

"D" means right hand - "E" means left hand.
Lines 1 through 5 go over the exercise, which covers 16th notes, quintuplets, 16th triplets, septuplets, and 32nd notes. Do use a metronome to make sure that all the groupings are being played correctly, specially the 5's and 7's. Be careful no to rush, and start slow and increase your speed gradually.

Lines 6 and 7 are examples of other ideas that can be used to practice the exercise. Using the left foot in the place of the right foot is certainly an option. Another idea is to use the left foot to play quarter notes, eight notes and or different ostinatos while playing the exercise as written. Lastly, you can alternate where the bass drum starts - play BD-RH-BD-RH, instead of RH-BD-RH-BD. (line 6)

Enjoy!

for any questions, please contact me through www.mzdrums.com