David Garibaldi's work with Tower of Power redefined what funk could sound like in the early 1970s. Where James Brown's drummers had built grooves on layered 16ths — hi-hat and snare and kick stacking on the same notes — Garibaldi went the other way. Every 16th has exactly one voice. Hi-hat or snare or kick or hand, but only one. That's the definition of a linear groove: one note at a time, never two simultaneous.
The result is a groove that sounds intricate but breathes. Nothing is buried under anything else. Each note has its own seat in the bar.
Two Innovations
The open hat on the &. Garibaldi opens the hi-hat momentarily on the offbeats and snaps it closed on the downbeats. Each open-hat note is a tiny "tssss"; each closed hat is a tight "tsk". The pattern itself sings — like a rhythm guitarist's picking hand applied to the cymbal.
The rim-shot snare. The backbeat on 2 and 4 is a rim shot — stick striking the head and the rim simultaneously — for maximum cut. On the studio recordings the rim shot is so loud it sounds amplified by itself. That hard backbeat is what punches through the horn section.
Why It Works
Linear funk forces the drummer to hear every note independently. There's no leaning on stacked-up density to disguise weak placement. If the kick is late, you hear it; if the hat drops in volume, you hear it. The tradeoff for that exposure is that when it lands, every note feels precisely placed — like a sequenced beat played by a human.
A Word on Speed
Tower of Power tempos sit around ♩=100. Below that the linear logic feels too sparse; above that the ghost-note 16ths blur. Practise at 80, perform at 100.