all-levels

Big fun to do this duets.

Before Tony and Leigh developed the awesome Late Night Mallet, there was the Deschler 114. There was a lesson in the studio downstairs, so I was playing with soft mallets up in the living room. Nothing fancy here, just a Zoom recorder and me.

the other day, Chien Chien and I were talking about Crystal Silence. I think it is one of the nicest tunes ever written specifically for the vibes. I like to explore this side of the instrument.

Tony often talks about the use of vibes outside the context of jazz. Well, here is our newest release. It is probably best categorized as "New-Age Ambient", although I don't really like labels. I prefer to just ignore the box. Typically our music is considered too "new-agey" to appeal to jazz listeners and too "Jazzy" (whatever that means... sometimes they call it smooth jazz if they really want to fling what they feel is an insult) by folks in the new-age healing and yoga community.

Nasty Virus Blues - a tribute to all of my musician friends out there. Please keep on playing and sharing your music. I’ve been really enjoying all of the beautiful posts and clips.

“Spring Is Here” - finally, some nice weather in New England. Sorry for the sound, I did a down and dirty clip on the IPad.

"Alice In Wonderland" - The classic song that I listened to so many times from the great Bill Evans recording Live at the Village Vanguard. I remember Gary talking to me in the lessons way back about Bill and his various recordings. He was a big fan and so was I. Great music is timeless. :)

Of course what's happening now with the virus is terrible, however I am having so much fun at home working and practicing. Feels weird to say, as I know many people are suffering. I think my rough times are coming but they are not here yet. Meanwhile I prepare 3 tunes each week to play on Saturday on our Vibesworkshop FB page. And I love.

I made a run through of my mini concert for today.

A short interactive program you can use to rearrange voices in a chord so they follow Tony's Open/Closed Voicings exercise.

Tony has been asking me to do something with vibes and gongs. So, I have been working on it, but to be perfectly honest, most of it just isn't ready for prime time yet. Playing solo, as many of us are finding out in quarantine, is very tough. 35+ years of quartet playing with pianists and guitarists didn't really prepare me for this moment.

So, I'm not ready to do a whole hour of this stuff live yet, but here is a few minutes of what I am up to. I'm learning every day, especially now that I am getting to hear so many accomplished solo players do their thing.