RHYTMIC PATTERNS
Rhythmic patterns are much more common than melodic patterns. They are usually accents made by some of the instruments and mark a predictable rate of progression. Let's see some examples.
In Diggin' for Dex, Count Basie uses a rhythmic pattern where the drums play an important role. Your have surely heard it before:
In fact, this sequence we hear at Diggin' for Dex could be considered a double pattern; two patterns chained. Listen, in the following video, how we can find the second part in many songs.
In the song A Smo-O-Oth One Charlie Christian plays a melody on the guitar that also follows a rhythmic pattern where the initial cadence of notes leads us, in a very predictable way, to the final accent:
Movin' Out Today-The Cats & The Fiddle is a song with blues chorus structure. This means that its phrases have six eights. In this piece we find a very characteristic rhythmic pattern, which we often hear. Note that, in the first eight, there is one accent, two in the second, three in the third, four in the fourth, in the fifth the accent is on each beat and, finally, there is only one in the sixth.
At minute 2:14 of Black Coffee-The Careless Lovers, you can hear the same kind of rhythmic pattern based on increasing the number of accents in each eight. In this case they do it in a piece that has four eights per section and where they combine this rhythmic pattern with the call&response game.
You can see this example and other variations of this pattern (that we name summative) in the next video.
Below you can see another example, in The Schwings Band version of Flying Home, in which they also play with the call&response game. In this case it is combined with the pattern we have seen at the beginning and, in fact, is one of the most characteristic rhythmic-melodic patterns and most commonly used by swing musicians:
Rhythmic patterns based on sequences of accents are very characteristic and they introduce variations that make the pattern much more interesting and attractive.
Let's start with one of the simplest: the one that emphasizes the last beat of every eight except in the fourth where, to give the necessary sensation of conclusion of the section, there are two instead of one. We can hear this from Gotta Be This or That-Benny Goodman and see it in this video:
To further emphasise the end of the section, in the song A Minor Breakdown (Rustle Of Swing) Cab Calloway uses another pattern where the third eight has no accent and the fourth has three very characteristic ones:
In this version of Flying Home by Charlie Barnet, much more energetic than the one by Lionel Hampton, there is a characteristic pattern of response with resolute accents in the fourth eight:
If you listen to the whole song you should be able to detect the variations in this pattern, also quite characteristic.
There are more complex patterns, some even spanning two phrases. Take a look at the video of At the Jazz Band Ball by Tuba Skinny:
Duke Ellington, in Stompy Jones, is still making more complex patterns, each one taking two phrases, together with variations of the same pattern. However, in spite of these variations the main characteristic is still that the last eight of each two phrases is different, accentuating the second beat and not the first, as they did in the previous eight. Listen to the two phrases at minute 2:06 and then the two at minute 2:25, and try to recognise the pattern.
To finish this section, listen to If Ever I Cease to Love-The Best of British Jazz Band, at minute 0.54 and Man From Mars-Artie Shaw at minute 1.12 to find other rhythmic patterns that also appear in other songs.
Maybe now, to finish analyzing the patterns, you will be interested to see the "unpredictable" patterns.