John Blackwell Technique, Grooving and Showmanship

Excelent

This is a DVD showing you how John plays...... His grooves are good and the showmanship he developed is great but techniques and teaching them is not his forte. For teachings and techniques go to guys like Chuck Silverman, Steve Smith, G.L. Stone and Jim Chapin. For his show and grooves it's ok.

I get the sense that Drummers tend not to be very good teachers on camera. Blackwell seems to be distracted, constantly searching for words. However, you do get some pretty cool tricks from the video like the one-handed roll and some stick tricks. Have fun with it.

Solid DVD for picking up some interesting pointers from a great drummer. His unique style will give you some new ideas to try

LIKE HIS TECHNIQUE IN THE DVD GOOD TIPS I CAN LEARN FROM.BEING AN DRUMMER CAN ALWAYS LEARN SOMETHING NEW TO MY DRUMMING.

Incredible funk!

John is the man and this dvd shows you why. Goes through all his influences so you can explore them for yourself. Breaks down his techniques. Just plain great!

John blackwell is one of the best drummers of our era. He is a fantastic drummer and a fantastic teacher. By this fantastic funky DVD.

Sections include: Heroes and Influences, Practicing, Teachers, Building a Solo, Single-Hand Rolls, Single-Pedal Technique, Building a Groove, Shuffles, Stick Twirling and his whole performance at Modern Drummer Festival 2002.First of all, John is an outstanding funk and R&B drummer. His performance at MD shows this. Even the music his band play is brilliant. Sometimes I just put it on to listen to the music, and of course wathcing it live is always a bonus ;~).The actual DVD sections are pretty good, he teaches you a few excersises and licks that are really nice. Its definatly given me something to work on for a while. He also tells you about his heroes and influences (one of the main ones being his Dad) and John also plays some great grooves covering a selection of genres with bassist Baron Browne - as well as all the stuff mentioned at the top..With 3 hours of footage plus an extra hour for the bonus disk and special features, that comes to 4 great hours of DVD! I recommend this to any drummer looking for inspiration or just some new stuff to work on. Buy Buy Buy!

For a beginner to drumming and still a library for drummers from all back ground to help with your own technique. There is always something to gain from this dvd.

Excellent DVD with some great technique and practice tips from John. Leaves you feeling awful about his untimely death from a brain tumour at just 43. He was one of the finest behind the drums.