Medium swing — roughly ♩=130 to ♩=180 — is the default jazz feel. More small-group recordings live at this tempo than at any other. It's fast enough to swing convincingly but slow enough that there's room for snare comping, kick variations, and the listener to hear what the soloist is doing. If you only ever played one feel for the rest of your life, this would be the one.
The texture is four layers: the ride pattern in your right hand, the hi-hat foot on 2 and 4, a feathered kick on every quarter (or just on 1), and an occasional snare comping figure. This lesson installs all four, one at a time, and ends with a single Chapin-style snare hit on the & of 2 — the most common comping position in the genre.
The Feathered Kick
"Feathered" means played so quietly that you can feel it but not really hear it. In the bebop tradition, the kick plays a soft pulse on every quarter note (sometimes called "four on the floor jazz") while the bass walks above it. The drummer's kick blends into the bass note so completely that they sound like one instrument. For now, we'll just feather beat 1; the every-quarter version is a refinement for later.
Exercises
Just the ride. Faster tempo than your earlier ride-pattern work — ♩=140 is the slow end of medium swing, and your right hand needs to be relaxed enough to keep the swing 8ths swinging at this speed. If the skip-note flattens into a straight 8th, drop the tempo; if you can play it cleanly here, you'll have no trouble at slower tempos.
Two limbs. The hat-foot lands with the ride's quarter on beats 2 and 4 — three sounds at the same instant on those beats (ride quarter, hat clamp, hat-foot kick). You drilled this in Hi-Hat Foot on 2 and 4; now it's at medium-swing tempo. If the foot drifts toward landing on the swung skip-note instead of the beat, slow down.
Soft kick on beat 1. Feathered — barely audible. If you can hear it as a distinct note, it's too loud; if you can't feel it at all, it's too soft. The right amount sits underneath the bass like a shadow. Three limbs in motion: ride hand, hat-foot, kick. The snare hand is still doing nothing.
The first comping figure — a single snare hit on the & of 2, the swung skip-note after beat 2. The snare lands with the ride's swung 8th, so they sound at the same instant. This is Chapin's first single-position comping pattern (Advanced Techniques p.10) and one of the most common figures in jazz drumming. Four limbs now: ride, snare, hat-foot, kick. Loop until it's automatic; this is the foundation pattern of medium swing comping.