Transcript:
To the occasional jazz listener, specific instruments might come to mind when thinking of the genre, saxophone, trumpet, piano, bass, drums. But what if we heard a different vibe on stage? You're listening to Off the Record with Stephen Philip Harvey, where we sit down and talk to a variety of musicians on today's music scene.
Today we're sitting down with Joe Baione. He's an Eastern shore native and a nationally recognized jazz vibration. We're sitting down to talk to him about his life with the vibraphone, a mallet percussion instrument as a tool for jazz improvisation. But how did he find his way to this vibe?
That's a great story! I was a percussionist all through high school, elementary... drums, snare drum set, all that stuff. And my dad knew one of the folks in town that always sold musical instruments. He sold my dad a set of vibes because my dad said, Hey, do you want to start playing the vibes? And it was a tiny Jenco set.
So I just started fiddling with him. And in college, I was still playing drums and stuff, and all of a sudden I started doing a few gigs on the vibes. I got to the point where I was like, okay, I can do the I enjoyed the vibraphone. More than a drum set because there's a billion drummers and I'm one of those guys like this.
This could really be a cool thing to do and make a career out of it, or possibly just play here and there. But it evolved and that's how the vibraphone came to me. So I thank my dad for that.
Some might think of vibraphone as a non-traditional instrument, but just like the saxophone or piano, it has a history of being used in this music. Joe detailed some of this history and his influences in our conversation.
Back in the fifties was actually called the Vibra Harp. Lionel Hampton was the pioneer that really made the vibraphone take off.
It evolved over time. But I, my influencers are definitely Mill Jackson. Bobby Hutcherson. I love Lionel Hampton. Some of his runs when he does it, and not only Milton, Bobby and Lionel, but there's so many great vibraphone players out there, but I try to take bits and pieces of what they're doing and then create my own voice.
This week, Joe Baione hits the stage in Delmarva at the Jazz on the Waterfront Festival in Crisfield, Maryland. When asked what to expect of his performance, this is what he had to say.
My group that I go, the name that I go by for my performance is the Joe Baione Vibraphone Experience, because it's quite an experience, it's a very lively energetic and then it can be soft when need be.
But it's a diverse styles of music genres and it's gonna be pretty awesome. I'm gonna showcase my album tunes and I'll throw a couple standards in there maybe and do some couple funky pieces in there to go with it and just get the crowd loving it and bringing that energy.
That was jazz vibraphonist, Joe Baione. He performs this Saturday at the Jazz at the Waterfront Festival in Crisfield. More information can be found at crisfieldjazz.com.
This was Off the Record, hosted by me, Stephen Phillip Harvey. A Delmarva Public Media Production. To hear more Off the Record interviews or to listen to other original segments like this, visit delmarvapublicmedia.org.
