Hey guys,

I have a great idea. Or at least I think it's great!

On October 6th we're doing a Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn vibe hang at my house. It will be online for all to see! It will feature a few of my students at University of the arts.

But here's the great idea. Why don't a bunch of you post your versions of Ellington or Strayhorn. But don't post until the 6th. You could announce you're going to post something. Then we could have a whole Duke/Strayhorn weekend. I think that would be so great.

Hi!
As you some of you already know I moved in to Philadelphia to do my Master's degree with Tony at University of The Arts. I wanted to say to all of you that Tony is a monster both playing and teaching and already learned a tons from him. That is the reason I am not so active to the site but I make sure that me and Tony work hard and all the vibe hangs will be great!

Tony you are the man....thanks a lot for everything!!!!!!

Dimitris

Hello
Since we are practising Duke Ellington's tune I am going to play try to play the tune called melancholia which is a greek word and it means I am very sad (it's actual a medical term).
I could play it with a bass player or by myself....

See you all soon!

A great Duke Ellington tune played by me (Kristina O'Dea) on vibes and Evan Kilgore on sax. There's a couple mistakes, but overall I think it sounds pretty good. Let me know what you think! Thanks!

This is from an old Double Image CD of the same name, with myself on Vibes, Samuels on marimba.
I think it's our first duo CD. I wrote the tune, which later became a part of a percussion ensemble piece called, "20 Minutes off the Pavement". In those days the priority was time and precision. We didn't do too much free playing or tremendously adventurous improvisation.