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Category: Vibes

Jason Marsalis – Vibes the Marsalis Way!!

Jason Marsalis :Vibraphone Born: March 4, 1977

So a while back I came across the album In a World of Mallets by Jason Marsalis. I listened to the album because the lead instrument was a vibraphone and not because of the name Marsalis. In fact I didn’t even make the connection until today, when I was reading about Jason, who is celebrating his thirty-ninth (39) birthday today. I read that Jason was in fact the youngest of the famous Marsalis family ,led by father Ellis and includes brothers Wynton, Bradford and Delfeayo!. I felt a little better about not knowing who he was after I read at All About Jazz that….. Read More

Cal Tjader – Latin Vibes from California!

Cal Tjader – Vibraphone – (July 16, 1925 – May 5, 1982)

Cal Tjader was born on July 16th in 1925 in Saint Louis, Missouri and that fact surprises me! See I thought that Tjader was Latin! I discovered Tjader’s music, because he plays vibraphone and Gary Burton’s album For Hamp. Bags, Red and Cal, led me to it! As “I listened to his Latin influenced music I just assumed that he was Latin. But in fact he is the son of touring Swedish American vaudevillians! His father tap danced and his mother played piano, a husband-wife team going from city to city with their troupe to earn a living.His father taught him to tap dance. He performed around the Bay Area as “Tjader Junior,” a tap-dancing wunderkind. He performed a brief non-speaking role dancing alongside Bill “Bojangles” Robinson in the film The White of the Dark Cloud of Joy! Read More

Cannonball Adderley – Things Are Getting Better

Things Are Getting Better is the 11th album by jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, and his second release on the Riverside label. The album was released in 1959, when I was 8, so that explains how I missed it on the first go around… Anyway, I had Things Are Getting Better on in the background this morning as I was working on this blog, so I haven’t really listen that closely to the album. But from what I heard and am listening to now, this one’s a keeper. I first chose Things Are Getting Better because of Milt Jackson‘s presence on the album, but then I saw the other players, i.e Wynton Kelly and Art Blakey and then I knew this was the first album to listen to from Cannonball…… Read More

Today in Music – August 6, 1957 – Harmonica and Vibes Virtuoso Hendrick Meurkens was born!!

Live at Bird's EyeOn this day, August  6, 1957  vibraphonist and chromatic harmonica virtuoso Hedrick Meurkens was born to Dutch parents in Hamburg, Germany. Meurkens was listed on today’s birthday list at All About Jazz as a harmonica player . When I went to Spotify to listen to his music, I started with his new release Junity, which opens with a nice rendition of The Beatles “Blackbird”. I listened to a few more tracks and then went to the next album his 2011 release Live at Bird’s Eye. As I listened to the album, I thought. boy, he sure is nice to give that vibes player so much time! Well, I thought he is pretty damn good! After I listened a little more and really liked the album, I went to Hendrick’s website, where I read that……. Read More

Yesterday in Music – May 10, 1935 – Julius Wechter leader of the Baja Marimba Band was born!!

How about a little musical analogy ——

The Rolling Stones are to The Beatles as

______________ are to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass!

If you said The Baja Marimba Band!! You would be correct and probably old!! On this date in 1935 the leader of the Band Julius Wechter Julius Wechter was born!! To explain the analogy The Beatles we re the clean-cut good  guys and the Stones the bad boys. And Jules says this about the Baja Marimba Band’s relationship to Herb and the Brass! They were…. Read More

Dave Pike – Vibraphonist – Born March 23, 1938!! –

Let’s Listen to “Mather” to Celebrate Dave Pike’s Birthday!!

On this date in 1938 jazz vibraphonist Dave Pike was born in Detroit, Michigan. He is best known for his association with Herbie Mann in the early 1960s. I discovered his music within the last few years and several of his albums are included in my music library.  I always wondered why I never really heard of this guy. The reason is that most of his American recordings were made in the 1960s and 70s and he went to Europe in the late 1960′ Here’s what I read at All About Jazz…… Read More

Today in Music – Feb 9, 1982 – Vibraphonist Behn Gillece is born in New Jersey! (with video)

Solarstalgia - Aton Five

One of the reasons that I explore the daily birthdays at All About Jazz is that it gives me names of musicians that I don’t know, like yesterday, when I discovered  Pawel Kaczmarczyk the great young Polish jazz pianist. The odds of coming across his name elsewhere are pretty low. Anyway, the first name on the birthday list is actually someone I already knew, but only because when I was checking the birthdays at All About Jazz, I  saw his latest album on the same page! That artist is  Behn Gillece and the album is Top Shelf. Read More

Buddy Montgomery Wes’ baby brother -born January 30, 1930

Buddy Montgomery – Primary Instrument – Vibraphone

On January 30. 1930, Charles “Buddy” Montgomery, the youngest of the Montgomery Brothers was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. Buddy was nine years younger than Monk, the oldest of the three musical brothers and seven years younger than Wes, the most famous of th brothers. Buddy played both piano and vibes, but is primarily known for playing vibes. His career started in 1948 and in 1949 he played with Big Joe Turner followed by a stint with Slide Hampton. In 1957, after serving several  years in the Army, he joined older brother Monk, Richie Crabtree (piano) and Benny Barth (drums) in the Mastersounds over the next several years they produced ten recordings. Read More