Wooh, Chas, I almost missed this.
You know I love the jazz organ stuff. Really good stuff my (old) man.

Fabulous listen, thanks Chas!

Yeah, late to this party… Fantastic!

What’s doing the drum loop?

Just a little technique tip, but the three note glisses up to the note that work so well on the organ sound are a pretty tough trick to pull off with a pair of mallets. A lot of the vibe and marimba grace notes would be single note glisses, or the interval would be a bit wider to give room for the mallets to cross over. Not that it CAN’T be done, just that it wasn’t as common a decoration as you have made it.

But this is sure my cup of tea! Keep it ‘going on’ as long as you can! 🎹😎

Thanks Kerry and Diki. Oldies, by definition, have stood the test of time. Drums for me is just a rhythmic reference, something to keep everybody on the same page, so to speak (musicians, singers, and dancers). Nothing I do is drum-heavy and I use very few 'breaks', etc. So this makes creating a drum track very easy. I use the same loops or a variation 90% of the time on swing tunes with a 'walking bass'. The variation is pretty much the same sample/loop with a bongo on top. Occasionally, I will use a drum track from the BK7m (convenience) and even (in the past) my old PA1x Pro. Doing everything in a DAW (REAPER) makes life so much easier. Best tracks come from a live drummer who occasionally comes over when we have a rehearsal.

I hear you with the Vibes thing but I have recently started to just incorporate a sound that I like into MY playing style instead of trying to faithfully reproduce how the instrument is normally played. I guess at this stage of my life, I care more about expressing myself musically than trying to sound authentic on an instrument, the playing of which, is foreign to me. In fact, this is ironic, as (being a vibes aficionado) I used to DREAM about a Vibraphone that had a standard keyboard (so I could become an instant Vibes player ). Who knew, that one day many years later, there would be a ton of keyboard instruments that could do just that. There's probably a message there; that if you live long enough, all your musical/technical dreams will come true.....and an ARRANGER KEYBOARD will one day make it's way into the great concert halls of Europe .

chas

If your Crumar can do it, just for fun, split the keyboard and put the vibes on BOTH sides, with the lower split transposed up unto the same range as the upper. Get yourself a little chord loop going, or lay down a comp for a jazz head.

Now, try playing the vibes like you have a mallet or two in each hand (so no more than two notes per hand) and try doing some lines and patterns alternating between each hand. This is a great system for doing repeated rolls on the same note, or tight intricate rhythmic patterns, things that would be quite difficult to pull off with a simple linear keyboard layout. Your fingers won’t trip over each other, and you will also hear a very clear ‘left/right’ kind of feel to the playing, which a vibe player certainly has…

It’s also a great trick for many, many sounds, things like steel drums, marimbas, kalimba, even guitars and synth sounds. Just like drumming (another great use for the split keyboard technique) there’s a tendency to be super rhythmic if you are beating out a patter with both hands compared to playing a line with one hand and five fingers! Think of Stevie, and that incredible two handed clavinet stuff he does…

It isn’t just for trying to emulate another instrument (although it’s amazing for that!) but it may very well lead you into new ways of playing, new types of licks and phrases that you would normally never try on a linear sound.

It’s one of my go to tricks when I’m trying to break free of my more familiar licks and playing style, and look for something fresh. 🎹😎

Gotta say Diki, you DO think outside the box , however, the Crumar SEVEN does not support a split keyboard (nor have I ever heard any SEVEN owners express any desire for that feature. Almost every owner bought it as a RHODES CLONE (substitute) and few have any desire to use it any other way. It has a mediocre acoustic piano (both modeled and sampled) which is somewhat improved in the latest firmware update but the keyboard action is not well suited for playing acoustic piano (feels like an early Rhodes and quite stiff). To be honest, I don't see how creating two identical (and size-limited) keyboards on each side of a split and playing each side with maximum two fingers would make you sound more like a 'real' vibe, especially since a real vibe is not set up that way. Maybe I'm missing something but in any case it sounds like more than I could get my head around (you know, old dog, new tricks). I'm not against trying new things but I notice that I am getting less adventuresome with each passing day. Playing wise, on a scale of 1-10, after a half century I'v managed to reach a very shaky 4. It's unlikely that I'll get any better in the little time I have left. If anything------.

The good new is that you don't need a Crumar SEVEN to try your technique, and I think that some of our more adventurous members should try it and post the results (I'm NOT being sarcastic here; I'd really like to hear an example using the technique you describe).

chas

You could always use an external keyboard with a split function MIDI’d into the Crumar, just set the same MIDI channel on lower and upper. A 76 gives you a good three octave overlap, which is a healthy range for a solo sound (an 88 even more!).

There’s a demo of me playing The Beatles’ Blackbird over on the Roland sub-forum using the technique with guitar sounds.

There’s airways a drummer playing in my mind, and playing rhythmically well enough to lock with him has always been the secret to good non-classical music. To that end, the two handed rhythmical style has always been my goal, and one of my chief criticisms of the arranger paradigm, which Balkanizes your hands pretty severely. We are bisymmetrical creatures, and using both sides together always seems to lead to strong results!

To be honest, the split technique isn’t anything totally new. You would be expected in a lot of piano music to do this, only you’d have to do it with your hands overlapping (think Debussy or Bill Evans). All the split trick does is allow you to play those close overlapping figures with your hands comfortably apart and not tripping over each other! It’s nowhere near as ‘outside’ a technique as Zawinul’s reverse keyboard layout, but with the same goal in mind…

Get yourself out of rote licks and all too familiar lines and licks. And, once discovered, there’s nothing to stop you from attempting to play it in the close hands position on an unsplit layout. It’s just harder that way! 😂🎹😎

Hello Chas; just listened to your playing and liked it, good work!

Although music like this has nothing to do with my childhood, or youth, and no one in my family listened to songs like this, currently I feel that going this direction can be a better idea than trying to make something "trendy'.

In other words, maybe some things were actually so good and they stay good today just because they are so good, and not because someone is nostalgic.

Kabinopus, music tends to be both cultural and regional. The one exception might be 'Classical'. Truth is, this type of music wasn't heard in very many American households either unless they were middle-class African-American households. Plus, the heyday of Organ-based jazz was 60's to mid 70's where the dominant musical genre was Pop, R&B, Blues, and early Rock (Rock-N-Roll). So if you missed it, you're not alone . There's also the matter of 'Aquired taste' (if you were not born into it culturally). Some people never get it; the 'groove', the 'funk', the emotional overkill , and the whole concept of improvisation. These people are still clapping on the "1" and "3" .

Unlike most other types of popular music, Jazz Organ has ALWAYS made the bass line a prominent, sometimes dominant, part of the song. There's nearly as much improvisation in the bass line as in the solo. It's what sets the groove and is very much dependent on the rhythmic sensibilities of the organ player (and his 'spiritual' connection with the drummer). Sorry for going on and on, you just had to be there .

You're absolutely right about the 'old' tunes, though. They stay good because they were good to begin with. I'm grateful that so many great musicians strive to keep them alive (and fresh).

chas

The thing is, with the Internet being global, there’s no longer any excuse to not have as wide an influence on your playing as you have time for. Start surfing Internet radio stations, you can listen to Balinese pop one minute, Bollywood hits the next, early Deep South blues the next, zydeco, township jive, soca, Broadway, Tuvan throat singing, the sky is the limit!

We may have been raised with little opportunity to listen, but honestly, for the last 30 years the world of music has opened its doors to the curious. Time to start traveling! 🎹😎