all-levels

Hey Everyone!

New series on comping. In the first few of these lessons, I'm just going to be talking about rhythm while comping and techniques to get a good feel. Obviously, metronome work, recording yourself and listening back, playing along to records, etc. will all help you get a good feel in the minutia of things, so make sure to practice all that, but here are some interesting, tangible techniques to add into your comping to give it some more swing on the macro-level.

Let me know if anyone has any thoughts!

Hey everyone,

Here's another Bud Powell lick from his tune, "Bouncin' with Bud." I like this one because it's simple! I think it's super important when playing bebop to still construct melodies to ground the music, and Bud does that great.

This is a trio version of my dampening etude#7. I recorded it in 1969 with the band I had then, with Steve Khan, guitar, John Miller, bass and Marty Morel, drums. Steve just discovered the reel to reel tapes and got the name of an engineer from Randy Brecker, who digitalised it. I thought you all here would get a kick out of it because most of you have played etude #7 in my Dampening and Pedaling book.

Thank you for having coffee with me today at the Vibes Workshop Coffee Vibe Hang! I enjoyed telling some of my stories and appreciate you all for hanging out. I look forward to learning more about you and getting to know all of you better.

Here's a Wynton Kelly lick off of Hank Mobely's tune "Dig Dis." I explain how it works and how you can practice it, but the main idea is that Wynton Kelly is able to mix blues with upper structure triads and it still just sounds like blues!

The last Friedman etude!

Learning the vocabulary of jazz is one of my favorite -- and, I would argue, most rewarding -- things to do in the practice room. Just like human language, jazz vocabulary allows us to musically understand one another, know how to react to one another, and keep ourselves from saying something stupid. From Monk-ish quirks to the pentatonic idiosyncrasies of Coltrane, jazz history is, in many ways, synonymous with jazz language -- you can see the evolution of the music, the cultural influences, the “family tree” of players, etc.

Hi everybody. Here All Of Me played in old style, but with a lot of fun, which we need in those covid times...

Second to last one! This one is beautiful (and hard!).

Hi all! I'm fairly new to the vibraphone, and most recently picked up burton grip a couple of months ago; however, I have been playing percussion and four mallet marimba for a couple of years now (playing with Stevens Grip). My jury is one week away and I thought I would share a practice run through I recorded of a transcription of Gary Burton playing "O Grande Amor" by Antonio Carlos Jobim. I recommend listening to Mr. Burton's performance to get a sense of what it should actually sound like. I plan on revisiting this piece down the line to refine it.