Stanton Moore - All Funked Up

Jeff Lee, Thanks for hosting a great drum clinic and bringing Stanton Moore to South Florida!!

Stanton Moore, born and raised in New Orleans. He is one of today's most influential New Orleans Style drummer Or as Modern Drummer Magazine called Stanton's trademark sound "infectious, jazz-meets- Bonham, nouveau second- line."

At the clinic he came out and started playing "Pie Eyed Manc." Stanton mentioned he "borrows" a lot of ideas from Joseph "Zigaboo" Modelste such as the groove to "Cissy Strut" off the "Groovy Lady" album. He went on demonstrating that you use two hands on the hi -hat. He explained the beat is 88 beats per minute using a metronome. The left hand is doing 8th notes, while the right hand is morphing. Zig was into Stanley Ratcliff from New Orleans. The "Ratcliff Groove" is the foundation of "Cissy Strut" along with a few other songs such as "Hey-Pocky A way," and "Fire on the Bayou" from the band "The Meters." Moore plays with his band "Galactic" and also the "Stanton Moore Trio."

This past April, Stanton released "Groove Alchemy." It includes an instructional book and a DVD of the same name. It's designed to explore the roots of funk drumming by exploring the work of pioneers like Jabo Starks, Clyde Stubblefield. and Zigaboo Modelsite -each of whom made their mark at different times throughout the 60's as the engines driving James Brown's and the Meters' legendary rhythm sections-and in turn tracing their influences back to the rhythms coming out of New Orleans in the early part of the 20th century.

Stanton started taking questions from the audience. One question was who taught him to play traditional grip? That would be his band director Marvin Hearly. Use match grip for power and use match grip for the finesse stuff. It's all about sound and feel. Another question was what kind of warm ups do you do? 5 things he warms up with everyday- triple stroke roll, triples, doubles, and singles and end with double paradiddles. Stanton mentioned he also developed playing traditional by loosening up his grip and playing Eastern European Jewish Folk music. He'd play a Polka then throw in a New Orleans pattern and then throw in a mambo bass drum pattern.

Stanton uses Gretsch Drums-Round Badge (60's): 5x10 Maple Snare, 12" LP Pandeiro, 4x14 Gretsch Custom Snare or 4x14 Dunnett Titanium, 8x12 tom, 16x16 floor tom, 14x20 Bass drum and 12x26 Bass drum. For Cymbals Moore uses Bosphorus: 14" Traditional Hi-Hats, a custom designed (by Stanton) Ride cymbal it is 22" with a lower bow with skip lathing which gives it a lower sound. Stanton calls it "the wide rider" beacuse it can be used for a wide range of music. He also uses a 20" trash crash and a 20" Pang and a LP Cowbell.

Thanks Stan for Funking around on the Bayou with us!!!

Check out Stanton Moore on You tube!

YouTube - Stanton Moore Trio Drum Solo

I also want to say Thanks to my long time friends Dennis Ricci, Jerry Ricci, and Phil, from the Long Island Drum Center. Thank you for going out of your way and finding me Cases for the Yamaha DTXtreme III kit. And Jerry Thanks for all the Years of lessons. I miss all of you..