The Vibes

When we think of a typical jazz band, we generally think of trumpets, trombones, saxophones, and a rhythm section containing bass and drums, maybe even piano and guitar. However, jazz bands have always been extremely versatile in their instrumentation. The bass player displaced the tuba, while the guitarist displaced the banjo. Clarinetists and violinists are frequently heard in jazz. Occasionally the brass section is extended with the flugelhorn or French horn. One of my favorite additions to a jazz band, in particular a small jam session setting, is the vibraphone.

The vibraphone, known more commonly as the vibes, was invented in the 1920s in the United States. It is classified with the xylophone, marimba, and glockenspiel as a percussion instrument. It was primarily played in wind ensembles within the percussion section until the 1930s. The following piece is a percussion arrangement that includes vibraphone. The creator of this video posted the sheet music in the video so if you follow the top line it makes the vibraphone part easier to pick out.

The vibraphone was first used in jazz shortly after its creation. Lionel Hampton was a drummer who after discovering and becoming interested in the vibraphone, convinced Louis Armstrong to add vibes to one of the songs they were recording: "Memories of You". The following video is that recording.

Though the vibes are technically a percussion instrument, their ability to play multiple notes at one time (using multiple mallets) makes them similar to the piano as well. Notice the introduction to this piece played entirely by vibraphone. If the vibes were left out of the recording, that introduction could have been played by the piano easily.

Lionel Hampton was aptly named the King of the Vibes. He brought the instrument into the spotlight and made the vibraphone a home in the jazz world. He would join the Benny Goodman band and later create his own groups, all along nurturing and perfecting the art of the vibes as a jazz instrument. The following clip from the movie A Song is Born shows a fantastic jam session of the song "Stealin' Apples" featuring Benny Goodman on clarinet and Lionel Hampton on vibes as well as the pianist (I believe it's Mel Powell, but I'm not positive). If you pay attention you'll also notice some other jazz greats, such as Louis Armstrong, Benny Carter and Tommy Dorsey.

Though Lionel Hampton will always be King of the Vibes, my first experience with the vibraphone as a jazz instrument came from the tune "Bag's Groove" by the Miles Davis Quintet. Bags was the nickname of Milt Jackson, another jazz vibraphonist. "Bag's Groove" was first recorded in 1954 and has since become a jazz standard.

Milt Jackson has a very different style than Lionel Hampton. He loved to play in 12 bar blues form and was a bebop player rather than a member of a swing band like Hampton. If you listen to his solo in "Bag's Groove", you will notice that Jackson tends to avoid chords for individual notes and interesting rhythms while Hampton's solo in "Stealin' Apples" is riff with chords and swings much harder than Jackson's solo. They both show a fondness for tremolos though Hampton's are about three times as fast as Jackson's.

There are many other great vibe players out in the jazz world and the vibes have never stopped being a jazz instrument. Though they're not something that we first think of when we look at the instrumentation of a jazz band, the vibraphone is definitely worth listening to and everyone should have a few vibe players in their jazz repertoire.