Terry Gibbs – Plays Jewish Melodies in Jazztime
Plays Jewish Melodies in Jazztime
(Mercury / Verve – 2002)
by Matt Robinson
Opening with a few bars of wild Bar Mitzvah dance music based on “Bei Mir Bist Du Shöen,” this reissue of a long-ago album by vibraphonist Terry Gibbs is more Jazz than Klezmer, but still manages to keep listeners Hora-fied almost all the way through. Supported by the swing time rhythms of drummers Bobby Pike and Sol Gage, pianists Alice Hagood and Alan Logan and bassist Herman Wright, Gibbs mixes his crystaline klopping with the freer forms of trombonist Sam Kutcher and Klez-hearted clarinetist Ramon Musiker.
Tapping and trilling his way through traditional tunes like “My Yiddishe Momme” and “Nyah Shere” (“New Dance”), Gibbs also offers original creations like “S&S” (“Es and es”; “eat and eat”), and “Shaine une Zees “(Pretty and Sweet”), demonstrating where his Jazz heart truly lies.
©2002, M. S. Robinson, ARR
