Tony Allen

I'm just catching up to Tony Allen. I don't get how I have lived all these years without knowing who he was.

His playing is knocking my socks off. So rhythmic, so musical. While writing the bible on light touch.

Awesome.
 
I can't believe how little material analyzing Tony Allen's work is out there.
There's actually not a single commercially published book on his work.

What we do have is:

1. This person's breakdown:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyFCT_NkBx4

2. This person's privately published book:
http://afrobeatdrumming.com/

3. This Drum Drops capture of Tony Allen's beats:
https://www.drumdrops.com/recording/afro-drops?page=1

tony-allen-title.jpg
 
Thanks so much for posting those links. Two things I've noticed about Tony that add to his awesomeness:
1) Was watching some of his videos and realized he does those beautiful snare rolls with one hand. It's not an unknown method, but I had never heard of it before seeing him work.
2) Although he looks like he's not really trying, the amazing sound coming from his kit reveals that the laid-back appearance is because he's not wasting any energy. Highly efficient.
 
Part of me is embarrassed to have never of heard of him. Another part is stoked to have something 'fresh' to listen to.
 
Man I'd never heard of him either but man I love that light touch, low key ergonomic style. When he does a crash it's almost as if at the last second he stalls and barely hits it. Each hit seems the same volume and low stick height. I like how he combines traditional with those afrobeats on his snare and toms-you can really see the influence it had on the evolution of jazz.
 
Similar to what Cuban drummers did decades ago, Tony was 'transposing' various different 'native' percussion instrument parts on the drum kit. Lower pitched instrument parts he played on the bass drum and higher pitched parts on the snare and high hat. To an extent, he approximated traditional Yoruban (a major ethnic group in Nigeria) rhythms on the drum kit which is why his vocabulary is very different to what we in the West are used to.

Like I mentioned before, this kind of parallels what Cuban and Brazilian drummers did in say the 50s/60s when they replicated patterns traditionally played by more than one instrument..... but using a drum kit. Also, Yoruban culture is and integral part of Afro Cuban, and to a lesser extent, Afro Brazilian culture.

Also, growing up in an age where information was not as easily sourced as today, meant that (possibly?) drummers were more original prior to the VHS, music book, and now internet age of today. Perhaps a Tony Allen is less likely to emerge today as the average Nigerian drummer will be just as tapped into the modern drumming world as anyone else!

Finally, to a degree I believe that you are only as good as the music you play. Tony played on songs that resonated throughout Africa and beyond. Furthermore, as humans don't seem to learn from past mistakes, Fela's message is still as relevant today as it was in the 70 and 80s. You can have all the technique in the world but it's the music that really counts!
 
Don't know if anyone would be interested, but I'm writing out the main patterns of the songs from Secret Agent. For each song I'll have a PDF and short audio file.

There's nothing complicated about these patterns. The art comes in how they are played. Still, if anyone would be interested, chime in here, and I'll contact you when I'm done.
 
I finished all the charts and MP3 demos. I was about to upload a zip, when I realized - maybe I don't have the right to.

Anybody know if it is legally ok for me to post my simple transcriptions? They are short 2 measure transcriptions, and the corresponding MP3s are 4 to 5 seconds.

I'll only post it if it is ok to do.
 
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