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Who is playing Vibes on the West Coast

tmackay 4 November 2013

Ive been thinking about this alot in the last months of who are the guys or gals on the west coast that active vibraphonist both as performers and teachers. AFter making calls to the Bay area, reguarding gigs for 2014 i came away from many of the conversations that there are not many vibe players that are playing, recording or teaching actively in those areas. The northwest has quite a few cats .. Ben Thomas, Susan Pascal, Mike Horsfall. but wat about california,the LA scene .. who is out there. Bobby Hutcherson is the only cat that i know of that is in the bay area.

Also i dont see many east coast vibist coming out to the west coast. Joe Locke makes it to seattle and portland, but i dont see many others coming out here ....

Very curious why....

Comments

Tylerblanton Wed, 11/06/2013 - 10:57

there's Gerry Grosz, Tommy Kesecker, Ted Wolf, and Jim Zimmerman in the bay area. Nick Mancini, David Johnson, Ruben Estrada, Charlie Shoemake and a whole host of other guys that come to mind around LA. See who played at the vibes summit in LA in years past, ton of players.

tmackay Wed, 11/06/2013 - 13:57

very very nice .. ive been curious who are the cats around those area ... thank you tyler

rkm531 Thu, 12/05/2013 - 15:18

My name is rick mcnutt and live in portland . Used to be Tjader clone now working on trio with bass and congas.

bob leatherbarrow Thu, 11/07/2013 - 17:36

hi tmackay-
I have to put my name in the ring here, although i'll admit i've mainly been playing vibes in the studios a lot lately. I do play out often though, currently most often with a group called polychrome. There are quite a few of us here in the LA area - Billy Hulting, Nick Mancini, Onaje Murray, Lolly Allen, Craig Fundyga, John Magnussen, and of course Emil Richards to mention a few. I agree, most of the east coast players like Joe Locke (or Tony) don't get out here often enough for my taste - I'd like to see more of that-

vibeman27 Fri, 11/15/2013 - 11:20

Bob I know you played the Summit and played drums for the Summit and may not have been there when this kid played. But, at XX Summit there was a young kid named Jake Chapman who simply blew away all the cats there except for maybe Chuck Redd. This kid can really swing some jazz. But most of all was the way he builds his solo in a logical and musical manner, capping off the last chorus of his tune choice (It Could Happen To You) with a flurry of well constructed statements to a logical conclusion. And this was an unrehearsed jam session.
Look for this kid to make it big.

BruceW
Here is the tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4UKKbJtWd0&feature=c4-overview&list=UUY…

bob leatherbarrow Tue, 12/03/2013 - 18:45

Hey guys, thanks for posting the link to this - I finally just saw it. I couldn't make the summit this year, so I didn't catch it. He sounds really nice, really musical. Very cool-

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