Jazz Articles about Terry Gibbs

Terry Gibbs: 52nd And Broadway: Songs Of The Bebop Era

by Mark Sabbatini
August 14, 2004

It's albums like this that make certain people rant about the “good ol' days."

Vibraphonist Terry Gibbs incredibly still sounds lively and fresh on his 65th album, 52nd And Broadway: Songs Of The Bebop Era , frequently giving new tempos and arrangements to standards from the period. But this isn't modern music with a bebop accent, it's the real deal with a healthy dose of modern spice.

I put this in the CD player without looking ...

Terry Gibbs: From Me To You: A Tribute To Lionel Hampton

by Joel Roberts
July 1, 2004

Tribute albums, by and large, have become a cheap marketing ploy for unimaginative record companies and artists looking to cash in on the legacy of more popular performers and to appeal to what they assume is a public uninterested in hearing challenging or original material. Just look at the way-too-many releases “honoring,” say, Miles or Duke. Of course they’re worthy of tribute, but not necessarily an entire album’s worth by every artist on the block, most with nothing special to ...

Terry Gibbs: From Me To You: A Tribute To Lionel Hampton

by Lisa Dornell
May 14, 2003

“No one wants to see a short Jew singing love songs—unless you’re Al Jolson. But rhythm songs? So long as you have a good time it’s OK.” —Terry Gibbs

Trust me, it’s more than just OK and you will have a good time, as vibraphone master Terry Gibbs sings, swings, and generally carouses his way through this tribute to Lionel Hampton. Featuring many of the classic songs usually associated with the late great King of the Vibes, including “Midnight Sun,” ...

Terry Gibbs: Terry Gibbs Plays Jewish Melodies in Jazztime

by AAJ Staff
January 20, 2003

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 ...

Terry Gibbs: Terry Gibbs Plays Jewish Melodies in Jazztime

by Elliott Simon
December 13, 2002

A klezmer band quickly transitions out of a vibe-based jazz quartet. Is this the latest in downtown fusion projects? No. It is the CD release of 1963's Terry Gibbs Plays Jewish Melodies in Jazztime. Terry is the remaining member of the Gibbs-Hampton-Jackson-Norvo “Big Four," whose collective work helped transform the vibraphone from a novelty into a serious jazz instrument.

Although this session is referenced as a fusion forerunner, the musicians for the most part keep swing and freygish in separate ...

The Terry Gibbs Dream Band: One More Time

by Jack Bowers
August 2, 2002

To paraphrase Maurice Chevalier's earnest anthem in the film Gigi, “Thank heaven for little pack rats!" Just when we'd almost given up hope of ever hearing anything new from the fabulous Terry Gibbs Dream Band of the late '50s-early '60s, TG came across eleven boxes of tapes on the top shelf of a closet marked “Big Band Sundown, Seville 1959." They'd been sitting there since Terry and his family moved back into the house eight months after the Northridge, CA, ...