Here is the best take of the night (out of 15) of my work on arranging Danny Boy. I start out with closed voicings, then repeat with open voicings using Drop 2 of the previously played closed voiced chords. The melody uses mallet dampening. I decided to not exclusively use chord melody because it would sound too choppy. Instead, I mixed between chord melody and chord accompaniment under the melody.

I exchanged a couple nice emails with Gary Burton. He was suprised to see his video of Chega. I would imagine that that would be pretty heavy if you didn't know it existed and saw it after all this years. That's the 60's?

I'm a Gary fan from way back. When I first heard Chega, I almost cried and died. I had never thought it was possible to do that on the instrument. I'm not alone am I?

Joe's off in Idaho or somewhere playing a tribute to Lionel Hampton. I told him he better smile and grunt alot. Any other advice for Joe. I hope he plays Stardust. I know one of his solos is a transcribed Lionel solo!! I would LOVE to hear Joe copping a Lionel solo.

This is a free trio improvisation recorded at a Loft concert here in Berlin with two of my more avanced students, Martin Krümling, drums and Tim Schaefer, bass. I play with them off and on and they really inspire me! This is our 2nd try at a totally free piece. It's a little long, but.....

after tonys version with strings this is difficult to post but here you go!

enjoy.....!

Here's my 2nd version of Sword of Whispers. But this is without the strings.

I just wanted to pass along a message to everyone. The site is growing, and there are a lot of high profile vibe players starting to check out the site. I'm getting email from many of these guys, some are already here. I grant them all full access to the site and ask and hope they'll get involved a little. I'm asking them to use their real names for OUR benefit, not theirs. I think when you guys see Joe Locke on the site that it's probably pretty inspiring. How about when you see Joe, Ed, Friedman,Piper and Mainieri all on the site at the same time. That's an amazing roundtable, huh?

Here's a little talk about dominant and scales that go along with them.

I've been really working on this tune. It's really hitting me hard. It's so beautiful. I listen to it and think it should be in a movie.

Anyway, here's my take on it.

My plan is to finish it up with a video version. I can't tell you how much I learned off of this tune.

Here is a great analysis of the Steely Dan "Mu Major" chord.

http://jmdl.com/howard/steelydan/mu-major.html

I just tried it on the vibes and it sounds cool.

Barry