Espresso Jazz Brooms - Review
While ordering a pair of Dem Sticks SpectrumsTM I had mentioned to Dave Demming that I was a jazz drummer looking for something that could replace the now discontinued RegalTip Blasticks I’ve been using for decades. After playing with my first pair of spectrums for a few gigs, I sent some feedback about my experiences with these bamboo multi-rods to Dave and we struck up a digital conversation. At some point, he mentioned he was working on a new design of a new brush/broom for Jazz. I recall thinking, “Wouldn’t those be cool to try out?”
In June I found a surprise in my mailbox wrapped in familiar brown painter’s paper (how Dem Sticks are packaged for shipping). It included both a custom-modified pair of Dem Sticks SpectrumsTM and a prototype pair of Dave’s new Jazz Brooms. I was both suspicious and curious as all get out about these things.
The handles are nice and thick, but not too thick, and the smooth rubber finish on the outside is somewhat reminiscent of the wire brushes that are so ubiquitous in jazz music. The ends are capped with something that looks suspiciously like a sewing thimble and is intended to substitute for the round wire that’s used for cymbal scrapes (zings) and bell-like taps (dings) that are a mainstay in the musical vocabulary of Jeff Hamilton and many other accomplished jazz drummers.
”...the perfect middle ground between a traditional multi-rod and a brush.”
The brushes are a combination of bamboo rods and some type of grass (or at least I think it’s grass). The grass is about an inch longer than the multi-rods and this is the brilliant design concept that softens the attack of the tips of the rods, giving these a brush-like attack on drums and cymbals. I imagine that, over time, the tips of the bamboo rods will begin to split and create an even warmer, softer attack. The rods are stiff and don’t bend as much as the thicker wire of Jeff Hamilton’s signature brushes, but they do bend a little bit. Before actually playing with them, I thought the grass would slow these down by catching too much air, but that’s not the case; they actually move quite well in my hands. The brush has a rubber adjustment band that lets you control the width/spread of the rods a bit too.
Custom Pumpkin SpiceThe sound of these, to my ear, is a bit organic (as to be expected) and yet very retro. I recently played two gigs that featured music from the ‘50s and early ‘60s (Country and Top 10 Hits), and these created that retro brush sound flawlessly in a live setting. (sound example from a 1952 release). Also, and to my surprise, they have a clearly defined, yet still brush-like, attack on my cymbals. They tend to be slightly louder than my thin wire brushes, and that makes them my new go-to in settings where the arrangement calls for brushes and where wire brushes would just get lost in background noise.
The balance of these lightweight and somewhat longer brushes is perfect, with the fulcrum right where you would expect it to be on the handle. There’s just enough weight to them that I can get ruffs and double strokes out with slightly more effort than with a standard-weight wire brush.
What I’m finding is that these aren’t so much a replacement for my wire brushes as they are an enhanced brush for my Bossa Novas, Sambas, and other lighter, non-swing grooves, as well as a somewhat fuller-sounding way to play a swing groove when needed. They also make for a pretty convincing train groove for the occasional Country song or boogaloo-march kind of thing. They are very much the perfect middle ground between a traditional multi-rod and a brush.
I was so enamored with these prototypes that I knew I would want a separate pair for my other stick bag. For the second pair, I requested two customizations: one for medical reasons (I have a rare skin allergy to nickel, so I wanted a pair without the standard metal handle ends); and one for purely aesthetic reasons (I wanted to see if he could make them look as if they belonged with my Whitney Drums that have a nutmeg stain on the drums and natural wood rims). My new “Pumpkin Spice” pair arrived a couple of weeks later and they are everything I had hoped for.
At this writing, they are not listed on the Dem Sticks website, but you can .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) a request for a pair to Dave and he’ll get your Jazz Brooms created for you.
Here are a couple of short videos so you can hear what they sound like on my gear. Low production quality, but the audio should give you some idea of how they sound.
Swing
Samba