Mostly clean version of what I played in at the UDel Workshop last month

Hey everyone!

I've landed quite a few gigs this year, and the fact that they keep coming made me realize there's a lesson here for newish vibes players. When I joined VWS I wasn't brave enough to do what I am now, so I'm writing this for anyone who is like I was. Here's my timeline:

-Two years ago, I didn't play out much. The Albany jazz scene is small but it exists, I just didn't think I was "good enough" to hang. It seemed like an impenetrable wall I could only break through if I memorized 50 tunes, learned modes, altered chords, tritone subs, etc.

I was fooling around with a major montuno and put a melody to it while keeping the pattern going. I went to the piano to work some things out and my daughter rushes in saying, "What's that"? All proud of myself I said it was a song I wrote. Then she realized what it was and said, that's "Bring Him Home" from "Les Mis". Doh! :-( Well, I thought I wrote it. I played an octave, then a couple of notes after that, then answered with a few other notes, etc. Simple stuff. Anyway, I think I wrote the bridge myself...let me know otherwise.

Check out the audio. It's the solo from Sibelius with a click. You should put in the chords and analyze the notes a little bit. You'll notice in the first chorus, no flat nines or altered anything. I saved it for the second chorus.

Also use a metronome but put it on 2 and four!

Here's a great video about a vibe player I knew nothing about. However he plays great and is a great guy.

But I'll let John Keene tell the story, it's a bit tragic. John turned me onto the video.

Dedicated to the great Charlie Haden

This jpg is a manuscript of an exercise I have been doing daily for a while now. I think its kinda cool they way the shape of the scale wraps around which in turn really twist the scale into other ideas ...