Great interview with Mike Mainieri. I'm probably the only person who hasn't seen it already but I thought it was excellent.
National Science Foundation contacted me at the fire house in McMurdo Station and asked if I would put something together for International Jazz Day from Antarctica. This was at the end of my shift on 4/25. They said they needed two-and-a-half minutes of recorded music by the afternoon of 4/26. I got off work the morning of 4/26, went straight to the Chapel Of The Snows (where I keep my vibraphone and practice), got four volunteers from the firehouse to hold camera phones while I played.
I remember going to Dave Liebman's house for an all day private lesson. What a GREAT player and great human being. That was my take. At one point, I sat in a chair and he preached to me about his thoughts on music. Next, I pulled out my vibe and we played together. You can only learn so much in any lesson because 99 percent of doing anything well is all about the kind of heart you have and desire to achieve.... practice, driving 1000 miles for a lesson, risking everything to "say something" in your art and craft. That's what it's all about.
Pattern 1, complete lesson on scrolling audio.
The venue (my home) will be acoustically treated for great live sound and concerts will be one hour each. It will be a BYO beer and wine arrangement. There will be bar tables set up with bar stools for guest's comfort. In addition to live solo vibraphone, I will share my stories of Music, Fire and Antarctica with a finale of big screen slides and video of Antarctica accompanied by my live music. It's going to be a great project.
Here's a little preview of a revised old piece I wrote for Percussion Ensemble many years ago. This is a scrolling score computer rendition of the main theme. I've changed a lot of this already but it took 7 hours to upload this little sample due to out limited internet on the ice. I like it and I hope someone else does too.
This 4-mallet balafon improvisation, from my CD “The Turning,” marks my first attempt to use 4 heavy balafon mallets to fire up groove and energy in 4/4. The 4-mallet approach on the more ancient instrument inspired the idea to incorporate other mallets on vibes, beginning my experimentation with leather-headed mallets custom made in India (my “3 ballads” post tells more of the leather mallet story). To build the Woodwork arrangement, I layered wood-related percussion including cajon, cascara (sticks), clave and seed pods.
16 bars of fun with Chromatics, Accents, Scales,
Arpeggios, Stickings, pedaling and Control!
4-octave pentatonic Balafon from Burkina Faso. Solo concert at a club in Cambridge, MA. Just jamming with energy and groove, and adhering to the 3-minute maximum youtube required in the early days. Cheers!
Links from past posts.