Here's a good bio on Bobby Hutcherson

The bio is here

100 Marimbas

Here's an intersting article. Gordon Stout has set up a concert with 100 marimbists and 60 marimbas! Here's the article.

Solo playing.

so myself, ed saindon and john piper have been sort of practicing together via the internet. we pick a tune and each do a solo version of it. and we talk about it via a podcast. the idea as i've mentioned before is to get others involved and maybe get some sort of collective thing going.

we did dolphin dance and now we're working on it 'might as well be spring'. i'm kind of obsessive so i do about 40 or 50 versions of the tunes. weed out about 20 and then listen and pick the best one.

this process drives my wife nuts. hearing the same tune for days. different keys different ways, but to her it's the same tune over and over.

listening back and trying to understand vibes as a solo instrument is a little strange. i've talked about the word we use sometimes 'pianistic'. the piano stands totally on it's own as a solo instrument. the vibes in my opinion are a little harder to deal with. i think as a solo instrument it's below the guitar. the order being piano, guitar then vibes. by this i mean it's difficulty in making a stand alone piece (jazz). anybody disagree?

talking to piper and saindon about things that i thought i thought all vibe players thought seemed not to be the case with them. for instance i always had this idea that ballads are the easiest to pull off and then something in 3/4 time is second. the hardest thing would be 4/4 medium swing. those guys never thought about that. any of you guys think about that?

the next thing for me is to forget about bass notes. no such thing (really) as left hand bass on the vibes. all the movement will come by moving guide tones and upper partials. i always thought the vibes were about the top parts of the harmony. anybody agree??

the other thing i thought was to make the line 'self suficcient' then whatever harmony you add is icing on the cake. which is why i always thought our answers were in studying bebop and bach.

i actually thought the bach thing was a little original on my part. but duh, no way, ed saindon said he drills his students through bach, violin partitas and sonatas.

so by us practicing together we're all sort of looking for similar answers to similar problems. hopefully some of you guys will get involved. could be fun.

what's your take on solo playing?

What's the deal with the motor?

i just started turning my motor on. i have not used a motor in 20 years and i can't tell if i like it or not. so give me your 2 cents on the motor. if you love it tell me, if you hate the vibes without a motor tell me why. if you hate the motor tell me why. do you use it sometimes?

i was thinking that it's especially good with single lines and not so good with chords.

just thinking out loud.

A Vibe Player I Don't Know a Lot About

Found an article about Warren Chiasson. A vibist from Canada. Here's an recent interview on him.

Can anyone fill me in on him? What cd's should I get.

I went to his website and checked out him playing 'All the Things You Are'. He sounds great.

One of the best Christmas CD's I've Ever Heard

http://cdbaby.com/cd/bowtiebarstow

man, I hate most Christmas CD's. This is the real deal though. You'll Love It.

recent interview with gary burton.

here's a fairly recent interview with gary burton.
http://www.berklee.edu/bt/163/coverstory.html

Check out 3 versions of Dolphin Dance

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, myself (tony miceli), John Piper and Ed Saindon decided to take a tune and play it solo to see what we came up with. We took the tune Dolphin Dance. We came up with 3 really different versions. This is sort of a heads up for our Online Vibe Summit coming up in January. Also it's a way to get us all talking about playing solo vibes.

So check it out! Go to the Vibe Talk Page