Poll
Question:
Your favorite jazz vibraphone player?
Option 1: Lionel Hampton
votes: 2
Option 2: Milt Jackson
votes: 3
Option 3: Bobby Hutcherson
votes: 0
Option 4: someone else (do tell)
votes: 5
Fiendishly hard, probably! I am not sure I can choose between Bags and the Vibes President.
Milt Jackson - Bags & Trane radicalized me and I haven't looked back since!
Gary Burton
Bags for me, all things considered.
But I love Hutcherson, and for individual vibes album I'd be hard pressed between some of his Blue Notes ...
Then, there is Walt Dickerson ... also Red Norvo ... Teddy Charles, Eddie Costa, Khan Jamal, Terry Gibbs, Cal Tjader ...
Current day: Jason Adasiewicz
btw, what about them vibories?
(https://img.discogs.com/fVxR31Z4HuQJ_WAC7Su5a11x8oc=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-5273663-1389291873-3330.jpeg.jpg)
QuoteThe Viborie is a vibraphone with an attachment consisting of a three-octave keyboard with regular black and white piano keys, connected with a box that is placed on top of the vibes. The box contains small cylindrical solenoids, one to each note, to which are attached small bakelite mallets with cork tips. The unit was invented by Jack Harris and named by Leonard Feather.
From here:
https://www.discogs.com/Leonard-Feathers-West-Coast-Jazzmen-Swingin-On-The-Vibories/release/5273663
Ruth Underwood
I like Milt Jackson a lot but voted "someone else" - Gary McFarland. His writing and arranging outstrip his vibe skills but he does qualify for the poll.
Has Stefon Harris been mentioned?
Great thread. I don't know much jazz-vibes outside of Lionel Hampton, but am now sampling tracks from Milt Jackson and they are fantastic.
Quote from: TheGSMoeller on October 23, 2018, 05:39:16 PM
Great thread. I don't know much jazz-vibes outside of Lionel Hampton, but am now sampling tracks from Milt Jackson and they are fantastic.
I love Lionel too (that Telarc date with the "Golden Men of Jazz" is so darn good), but you gotta go hear Things Are Getting Better and Bean Bags! Just listened for the first time to Plenty, Plenty Soul - with a superstar big band - and that's good too. Milt set his vibraphone to fewer rpms which translates to shorter/less vibrato and a slightly more percussive sound. But when he really sings, as on "Heartstrings," it gets you thinking, wow, how does a percussion instrument
sing like that?!
Quote from: San Antone on October 23, 2018, 05:29:13 PM
Has Stefon Harris been mentioned?
No, but kudos for mentioning him. His album
African Tarantella: Dances with Duke is one of my favorite vibes albums of all-time. As for voting for who my favorite vibraphonist is, that is extremely difficult as there's so many great ones and ones who aren't even mentioned in this poll like Joe Locke, Gary Burton, Steve Nelson, Teddy Charles, Walt Dickerson, Kenny Wollesen, etc.
I ticked 'someone else' because I believe Gary Burton should be included in the poll. However if pushed I'd have to go for Lionel Hampton.
I saw the MJQ live with Milt Jackson and that was a pretty special evening.
A long-forgotten British vibeist is Bill Le Sage - may not have recorded much but did a lot of BBC radio work in the '60s. I once saw him looking down on his luck comping away for pennies in some hotel foyer. Another slighly more recent British name is Frank Ricotti who, bizarrely, doubled up on oboe. Even Stan Tracey is heard on vibraphone on his earliest recordings (doubling up being a way for a musician to get paid extra - hence tenor sax players digging out the old soprano at least once per session).
Vibraphones are mis-named really because the 'vibrato' effect that lends its name to the instrument is actually more correctly described as a 'tremolo'. It's a variation in loudness (tremolo) not pitch (vibrato).