Meet Mike Blake. He's a subscriber on the site, and great percussionist, drummer and vibe player who teaches out at University of North Dakota.

He's really well respected and loved in the vibe world. I know that from just mentioning his name to Ed and Joe.

Here he talks about himself and the vibraphone a little.

Here is tune with chords also attaching a lead sheet

John

You hear the 'Latin-Ensemble', it's an ensemble from the 'Berlin Jazz Institut'.
In this ensemble we've worked on different latin styles and I wanted to try to play my own tune 'Après' in a slow bossa style. And it's my first arrangement I did for the horns!

The recording was last week, so enjoy some very new stuff! :-)

Hey all,

I saw that Caramoor Music Festival is doing a VIBE SUMMIT with Bobby and Stefon Harris this summer (SAT AUG 7th- www.caramoor.org). The following day will be Elio Villafranca with Pat Martino (Tony, you on this gig with the Philly crew?).

Hi All,

In the near future I'll probably be working on developing a commercial channel for Roku Players -- as a learning experience, I figured I could get started by developing a vibes channel.

So what's a Roku Player? It's a box that connects on one side to your TV, on the other to your home network, and allows you to play streaming videos from the Internet on your TV. It's main claim-to-fame is that it allows you to play Netflix instant movies on your TV. If you have a Netflix account and don't have a Roku or something similar (like Xbox), you should really get one.

Here's a long lesson discussing the harmony to the tune "My Romance".

Remember small chunks. I think if you do this lesson as I say, you will learn a ton. It will take a long time for some, but this tune is a masterpiece to study for jazz harmony.

Give it a shot, but there is one requirement: You HAVE TO have the melody and the tune memorized otherwise I don't see how you could do this lesson.

This is another tune by John McLaughlin from Improv class where we do a collective solo its in thre but real loose, hope to record the performance so I'll post the tune with everyone playing, its on Mar 9th.

This is an arrangement we are working on in our improv class with a singer, there are two other instruments flute and alto sax as well as voice so you are only hearing vibes with a midi track here, its real dark so all comments welcome

Tony asked me to post the lead sheet of my composition "Jazz Waltz Nr.1".
So I thought I post it for the subscribers. I'd like to hear some other versions of it. Maybe someone who wants to check it out could post his or her own version?

Let's face it, not every gig allows us to play the difficult and hip jazz tunes we all spend hours shedding. Even many of the best known standards are completely foreign (and possibly boring) to a large section of general audiences today.

So what to play for all those restaurant and casual gigs that might hire a solo vibes player as an alternative to a pianist or guitarist? It's surprising how well many tunes from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and even the 90s will translate to solo vibes. Tunes people will generally recognize and appreciate are great choices to sprinkle into your sets.