How to play a funk drum solo

by Gabe

The most important thing to remember when playing a funk drum solo, or any drum solo for a dancing audience, is to keep the groove. You can play around with beat displacement and fills but don't brake anybody's ankle. They want to keep dancing and your band will be mad if you clear the dance floor.

There are a some famous drum solos that I use as a foundation anytime I have to play a non jazz solo.

I really dig Steve Jordan's drum solo on Going Back To Miami with the Blues Brothers,
Uriel Jones's beat displacement on Edwin Stars's 25 Miles, and Kenwood Dennard's solo
on Maceo Parker's Shake Everything You Got.

I have the Steve Jordan transcription available on his page of this site. Just look under drummers in the navigation column to the left.
The 25 miles chart is available on the Drum Charts List page.

Now check out these videos of Shake Everything You Got.

This is the audio of the song from the album Life on Planet Groove



This is Kevin Borque doing a good job of playing the Kenwood Dennard transcription.



And this is Maceo Live with drummer Simone Thomas