Playing 'All God's Chillin' Got Rhythm'. Practicing my up tempos. As I'm playing I'm thinking wow, this is a drum. I was getting into this whole drum thing on the vibes and it was so cool. To play with just 2 mallets and think of this as a melodic drum was a great experience for me today. Really exciting. I know many of us say it's a piano (which it's not). I think of it as a guitar (which it's not), but today it felt like a drum (which it's not).... Well today it was!

Does know of anyone using their left foot for pedaling ?

Here The N°8. It was nice to have to listen to Gregorian singing - made me re-discover this wonderful music. At 0'32 and 2'21 I had to cut bad scratches, don't know where they are coming from...

Here's a lesson on modal comping.

Come to the vibe hang!

The link will be on the front page of the site, Saturday!

Come check out the vibe hang at the University of Delaware, Saturday Nov. 5, 2011 from 2pm to 4pm!

Again beautiful melody... and tough nuances to make... My rit is a bit early.

The first thing I notice in this video is the left hand playing right in the range of the bass player. Teddy Wilson came from the Benny Goodman Quartet where for a time there was no bass player. So it was Teddy Wilson's left hand.

Also I think it's still really based and linked to the stride feel. Of course it's going to break away from that, because bass players are entering the scene and there's no need to 2 players to hang out in that bass range. But you still get that feel don't you?

Why don't we all answer these. Here are my answers

Where's the dividing line between playing a melodically interesting accompaniment and overpowering the soloist?