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Blues March

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers · 1958

A staple for adapting a New Orleans march feel into a swinging jazz context.

Artist
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
Year
1958
Genre
jazz
Drummer
Art Blakey
Tempo
168 bpm
Time
4/4
Feel
march
Difficulty
advanced

Drummer's Quick-Start

Practice tempos

Woodshed
100bpm
Building
134bpm
Target
168bpm

The feel

A march in 4/4 around 168 BPM. It's fast — economy of motion is everything; speed comes from relaxation, not force.

What to watch

  • •Lock the shuffle triplet; the #1 mistake is letting it straighten out as you speed up.
  • •Advanced: isolate the single hardest bar and loop it slowly before ever playing along.

How to learn it

Well-known tutorials exist for this one — use the links below, and play along from your own copy.

Generated from this song's groove profile — analysis only, no notation. A human-reviewed AI brief with a full groove breakdown, key moments and song map replaces this as briefs roll out.

Learn it

Find drum tutorials on YouTube ↗

iDrum links to where lessons already live — we don't host recordings or publish transcriptions. Play along from your own music.

Discussion

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