Broken time is not "playing less." It is playing different things in places where you would normally play the ride pattern. The pulse is still there; the band still hears 2 and 4; the form still moves. But the drummer is no longer the metronome — they are a voice in conversation with the bass, the soloist, and the form itself.
The Arthur Taylor interview at the back of The Art of Bop Drumming is the closest thing to a written rulebook for this. The summary: the pulse must be implied, the bass is your closest partner (you and the bassist together hold the form), and the snare can take over the ride's role for a bar or two before handing it back. The space between events does the work — what you don't play matters as much as what you do.
Three Behaviors
- Fragmented ride — the skip pattern interrupted by silences, with the ride voice landing only on selected beats.
- Snare as ride voice — the cross-stick or soft snare takes over the timekeeping role for a bar.
- Solo phrase interruption — a one-bar burst of activity that breaks the texture, then resolves on the next downbeat.
Brian Blade with the Joshua Redman trio is the modern reference. Listen to how the ride disappears for whole bars and the form is still there.