Wizard Of The Vibes

I really like the sound of the vibraphone. It triggers something in my head, like flashbacks to buried feelings and sensations. I conclude that it's haunting power is entirely due to the 'Gallery music' aka "Leftbank 2" by the Lance Gambit Trio, as used on the children's TV art programme Take Hart, back in the day. The talents of artist-extroadinaire Tony Hart were first brought to my attention via another programme called 'Vision On'. As a young child, I often wondered why the presenters kept making these weird hand movements (no doubt, years later, during some spontaneous internal flashback sequence, the realisation must've suddenly struck: "Holy shit! That programme must've been for deaf kids!"). Seriously, I never figured Vision On was for the deaf. I doubt I even knew it was possible to be deaf at that time. Still, that might explain why it was so imminently watchable.

To digress slightly: sign language is fascinating to watch, isn't it? I remember being in the Bulldog Bar in Amsterdam on my mate John's stag-weekend, high as the proverbial kite on Purple Haze, totally transfixed by a young couple busily signing a couple of tables away. Man, that was deep...

But to recap - Tony Hart, 'The Gallery' (and related sensations pertaining to the wonderful and frightening experience of daytime TV in the 1970s through the eyes of a child) and vibraphones, somehow mixing up to possibly explain my appreciation of...

Milt Jackson - What's New

This was recorded in New York in 1952, and has nothing much to do with anything I wrote above, except of course that Milt Jackson is a fantastic vibraphone player and I could (and have) wallowed in his music for hours at a time, absorbing that lush yet strangely creepy timbre of the vibes as they float around the room in delicate ripples of glacial wonder. Check the ending of this tune where the notes start to really sustain, glide and fluctuate...yeah, that takes me somewhere beyond the boundaries rational explanation. You can pick up this tune on the "Wizard Of the Vibes" CD.