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Hi All,

"Samba e Amor" - a beautiful song by Brazilian composer Chico Buarque. Here's a simple version of the song played with an AAB form. Here's the lead sheet:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1okuOrqEVQlzHTDoxafJjD9V_K71rP8ag/view?…

I was inspired by Tony's rendition of "Joy Spring" so I decided to try a a couple of choruses, concentrating on keeping the time, experimenting with different voicings, rhythmic comping and ultimately trying to swing! VERY Challenging with any solo bebop version. The reason I faded the track out is simply because I didn't like what I played towards the end. :-) Not terribly mysterious (Ha ha!)

That's not for jazz purists, but it's just fun.

I always wanted to test the material of plastic bottles (PETG) as resonance tubes. I have long searched for suitable material in the appropriate diameter grading.
Unfortunately, it is always the case that you have to buy a certain minimum quantitie per diameter. Since I finance all my handicrafts with my private money, I limited the test to only two diameters, but there are also suitable gradings for the tube-in-tube-concept with better fitting to the bar sizes.
The V5 frame with aluminum tubes weighs 20.3 kg, with PVC pipes 19.5 kg and with the PETG pipes only 15.7 kg.

I was working on this song with my student this past week. We were talking about various techniques that can be applied in order to fill things out with the melody and improv. A few things we covered were counterpoint, comping underneath the melody and two hand lines with left hand jabs. All of these techniques will be covered in depth in the upcoming solo vibraphone playing book. Writing this stuff out is hard though. Ha!Ha!

A simple, elegant, and somewhat underappreciated tune by Cole Porter.

"I'll Remember April" from last Saturday's gig. Always a fun night of playing by the fish tank. (The camera was on top of the tank).

Jobim's "How Insensitive" with Mark and I from our steady gig (over 8 years) at Li's last Saturday. Nice to play in a relaxed atmosphere and hang with friends.

"When Sunny Gets Blue" - Working on this classic for the sabbatical project which combines solo vibraphone playing techniques along with various improv concepts. It's been really nice having the sabbatical to write and shed. But, I'm looking forward to getting back to school in the Spring semester to get back in the groove and see the students. It's energizing to be there and interact with the students. Keeps me on my toes. :) The two books (solo vibraphone playing and dampening and pedaling) are basically finished. I now have to go through and edit.