On Sep 23, 11:13 am, Harpman <harp...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Question, Are there any conga players who professionally played with
> blues bands or any blues musicians? Thanks. Allen
Congas with blues aren't a traditional thing. I've played congas with
blues bands but I'm not exactly a professional conga player or famous.
But I was personally quite surprised at how well it worked out. And
the rest of the bond loved it far more than I thought they would too.
Basically, percussion with blues seems to be a relatively modern
outgrowth of the popularity of percussion with rock thing that has
developed in recent years. Basically the added percussion (shakers,
tambourine, bongos, congas, I've even seen a tamborim played with
blues...hell I've played one with blues myself!) usually is used to
fatten and fill out drumset percussion. And it does that very well
even with blues.
Traditional conga rhythms don't work well with blues so one has to
rather adapt them to a kind of shuffle feel to get them to work. But
they do work. I don't know if this kind of movement is going to go
further or if it has run it's course, but the fatter groove that
drumset plus percussion gives even in blues does work and as I said
the guys I played with loved the added feel. So I'm thinking you'll
see more of this in the future.
Of course, percussion added to jazz drumset has been going on for
quite some time now even to the point of influencing the jazz grooves
to Hispanic influenced beats. I don't think blues has gone that far
yet, but it may in the future. Who knows?
|
