Jeff "Tain" Watts Fill

This idea, fig. 1, comes from a fill/lick I hear Jeff "Tain" Watts plays on the "The Song is You" from the album "Standard Time, Volume 1". It is a nice lead-in fill that he uses it at the end of a short in-time solo section to lead back into the head.

It is important when taking down an idea or transcription of a particular lick to use your imagination to make it your own, so the following exercises show you a few ways to vary it. The next step would be to move it round the kit in different ways.

It works well at medium to medium-up tempos, but start slow and work it up.

This was originally posted on "Jazz Drumming Blog" and in the "Ideas for Jazz Drumming" e-book (no longer available). This post has been revised and expanded from the original.