all-levels

Probably should have called this "Getting Bluesy", but I think of it as "Getting Church". African American Church musicians are some of the funkiest, bluesiest best players I have ever seen. It's incredible what some people get out of church. I would never have gotten that kind of musicality out of my church. The music was lame as I remember.

I'm not even religious, but I have gone by some churches and wanted to go in and listen and watch really bad!

So.... Get Church.

So it's pretty funny to me. I was messing around with this Cannonball Adderley tune, "Things Are Getting Better". I was recording it to listen back and check my stuff out. I got done and thought, 'that wasn't so bad, I should post it'. I listened back a little bit later and forgot my dryer was on. I'm so used to it, I don't think about it.

I practice in my basement, which is also my studio for making audio and video for Vibesworkshop. It's great. Not a big deal, but I wish the washer and dryer was somewhere else!

“In Your Quiet Place” by Keith Jarrett. One of my favorite songs from Keith. I remember working on it quite a bit during lessons way back with Gary. Of course, the recording of this song by Keith and Gary is a favorite as well as Gary’s solo renditions. Lately I’ve been listening to Keith’s version from a live concert recorded in 1975 in Munich. It is brilliant. I posted the audio clip on my page last week. I noticed some of the changes are a little different than the changes in the Real Book. I’m using here what Keith used from that Munich concert.

"The Folks Who Live on the Hill" - a superb ballad with beautiful lyrics and a great melody. Written in 1937 with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and music by Jerome Kern. Keeping it pretty simple here with two choruses close to the melody. Enjoying playing the melody more in the upper register with this vibraphone.

Here's a chord melody of Up Jumped Spring.

Your job:

1. write the changes in
2. Know the melody by heart
3. Know the chords by heart
4. Add your pedaling
5. Maybe do a bit of Dampening
6. Make this sound good. Listen to the recording. The recording was done with an "Orange Tree" vibe sample on my Malletkat.

"'Round Midnight" by Thelonious Monk - After 43 straight years of teaching at Berklee, I'm officially on a sabbatical for the upcoming Fall semester. My sabbatical project is the recording of videos that feature solo vibraphone techniques along with the application of improvisational concepts from my 4 volume series The Complete Guide To Improvisation. Some of the concepts in this clip include the application of Upper Structure Triads, the Symmetrical Diminished scale and the Pentatonic b2 scale.