Good Vibes

Let me introduce you to my eleven-year-old. “Good Vibes,” my radio show, features the vibraphone, an instrument I became enchanted with the first time I heard it. And all these years later it still captivates me. Briefly, though, Lionel Hampton and Red Norvo introduced it to jazz in the 1930s. Hampton had been a drummer and Norvo (real name Kenneth Norville) had been experimenting with mallet instruments of all kinds, the xylophone and the marimba, for example. In the two hour program I also include a half hour of “Where Jazz Goes,” playing tunes that were not born as jazz but ones you may recognize from rock, R&B, Motown, country, and even classical genres

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Let me introduce you to my eleven-year-old. “Good Vibes,” my radio show, features the vibraphone, an instrument I became enchanted with the first time I heard it. And all these years later it still captivates me. Briefly, though, Lionel Hampton and Red Norvo introduced it to jazz in the 1930s. Hampton had been a drummer and Norvo (real name Kenneth Norville) had been experimenting with mallet instruments of all kinds, the xylophone and the marimba, for example. In the two hour program I also include a half hour of “Where Jazz Goes,” playing tunes that were not born as jazz but ones you may recognize from rock, R&B, Motown, country, and even classical genres. Listen to talented jazz artists adapting non-jazz to the jazz style.

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