Is this the first time the New York Times has published an entire piece focused on a single signature drum groove? David Segal's survey of the Purdie Shuffle is full of fantastic details. The "news" hook for on the article is ostensibly Bernard Purdie joining the pit for the current revival of Hair, although it also touches on his inclusion at the heart of Kutiman's brilliant and massively popular YouTube collage, "The Mother Of All Funk Chords," which you all have surely seen by now.
There are lots of Bernard Purdie instructional videos on YouTube and they are all really entertaining (Purdie is ridiculously charismatic), and well worth investigating for any musician. If anything, non-drummers have more to learn from these clips, especially when it comes to checking out how the various elements of the Purdie Shuffle sit against each other. Remember in Ethan's Wynton interview, where he talks about the "academy of rhythm in jazz and American music." If there is an Academy of Rhythm, then Bernard Purdie must be the Dean:
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