Broken time is the jazz drummer's way of implying the pulse instead of stating it. Instead of the ride playing a continuous swing pattern, the ride breaks into fragments — three notes, then silence, then four notes, then silence. The pulse persists in the listener's ear because the band stays locked together; the drummer's job is to participate in the conversation, not to act as the metronome.
In fusion, broken time becomes electric. Tony Williams (with the Lifetime), Jack DeJohnette (with Keith Jarrett's Standards Trio in its open-form moments), and the modern players — Eric Harland, Marcus Gilmore, Justin Faulkner — all use this vocabulary. The ride still fragments, but now over a kick playing a steady ostinato (the kick becomes the time-keeper), or over a snare ostinato, or over no ostinato at all (pure implied pulse).
This is the most demanding lesson in the Level 2 fusion track. Don't approach it before the rest of the track is solid.
The Practice Trick
Set a metronome on quarter notes. Loop a click track or a bass loop. Then play the broken bar against the click — your ear stays locked to the click, your hands and feet do the broken stuff. If you can do that, you can do the same thing with a band, because the band is the click.
Exercises
The kick is now keeping time, not the ride. Kick on 1, foot-hat on 2, kick on the &-of-3, foot-hat on 4. The right hand plays a fragmented ride pattern that does not repeat — the listener doesn't expect to anchor to the cymbal because it isn't doing that job. Instead, ear locks to the kick + foot-hat skeleton. Snare on the &-of-4 is the comping pickup into bar 2.
Now the snare is the time-keeper — soft cross-stick or rim-click on every & creates a continuous offbeat pulse. Foot-hat keeps 2 and 4. Kick on 1 and 3. Ride drops in only on beats 1 and 3 to colour the downbeat. This is a Tony Williams move from the Lifetime period — when the ride goes, the snare can carry the time. Cross-stick recommended for the snare to keep the volume right. Don't let the snare get loud enough to feel like a backbeat — it's not a backbeat, it's a pulse.
No voice plays continuously. The ride hits beat 1 and the &-of-4 (with a snare). The snare hits the &-of-2 and the &-of-4. The kick hits the &-of-2 (alone). The foot-hat hits 3. The pulse only exists in the listener's head. Practise this with a metronome at first; once the bar is in your bones, run it without — and check that you still come out on the downbeat of bar 2 in time. This is the hardest exercise in the Level 2 fusion track.
Final integration. Ride fragments on beats 1, 2, &-of-2, and 4. Snare comments on the &-of-1, the &-of-3 (accented like a backbeat hint), and the &-of-4. Kick is doing time-keeping work — beat 1, &-of-2, &-of-3. Foot-hat colours the &-of-2 and the &-of-4. The result: a bar that moves without anyone obviously keeping the time. This is the territory of the modern small-group jazz/fusion drummer. Once you can loop this for 16 bars without drifting, you've graduated the lesson.