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"Solo Reflection"

“Solo Reflection” – A new song for solo vibraphone that I just finished composing (with a nod to the great Italian composer Ennio Morricone). One of my favorite melodies from Maestro Morricone is his theme from the movie “Cinema Paradiso”. The clip features some solo vibraphone techniques that will be covered in the book that I’ve been working on. It’s going to take some time since it will be a very big project. Meanwhile, my book “Voicing Concepts for the Jazz Vibist” (available from Amazon) does have some related topics in the way of voicings, chord melody and reharmonization techniques.

"But Beautiful"

Solo version of "But Beautiful" with voicings from my book Voicing Concepts for the Jazz Vibist available on Amazon. The book contains a written out chorus of the melody along with voicings, notated mallet dampening and reharm.

Chord connecting exercise over the changes of "Bluesette"

This is one of my favorite exercises. It's about playing lines that connect the chord changes so that you can hear them, no matter how fast you play. As with every exercise that you create yourself there should be a basic goal you're aiming for, such as connecting the chords and making the harmonic movement hearable throughout.Then you can add “mini" challenges, such as note value, tempo, phrasing, accents if desired, etc. I chose as my "mini" challenge a constant stream of eighth notes without rests.

"On the Sunnyside of the Street" - with a nod to Art Tatum

“On the Sunnyside of the Street” - one of my favorite standards played here with a nod to the great pianist Art Tatum. There was a period when I was heavily into pianists like Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Fats Waller, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Dave McKenna and Dick Hyman. All masters of the piano and where I got a lot of inspiration.