Happy 97th Birthday, Terry🎂

Happy 97th Birthday, Terry🎂

Oct 13, 2021

Happy 97th Birthday, Terry

On Wednesday, October 13th, vibraphonist, big and small bandleader, composer, author, and TV music director Terry Gibbs celebrates his 97th birthday. For six decades, I have been a big Terry Gibbs fan. There is an energy in his music which I find irresistible.

Terry is in relatively good health and possesses an astonishing memory; he can recall details, personnel, and stories of just about every recording session and album he has done, going back to 1955 or before. Even back then, he found novel settings for his vibes playing, including alongside two other stellar vibes players on one album and a 5-horn big band sax section on another. In the 1950s, few women instrumentalists were afforded their proper respect; Terry toured and recorded for years with Terry Pollard as pianist (she is also an excellent vibist; check them out on YouTube) and Alice Coltrane, nee McLeod, who also played piano, and some vibes, with him.

I got to meet Terry on March 9, 2006, at the recording session for his CD “Findin’ the Groove,” (JazzedMediaJM1021) at Entourage Studios in North Hollywood. I was a guest of his son Gerry, whom I had met previously in San Antonio through my late brother, Fred Weiss. Gerry has done several CDs for my Whaling City Sound label and was the drummer for the session.

Just a few years ago, Terry came out of retirement and recorded “92 Years Young: Jammin’ at the Gibbs House,” and that CD, like several of Terry’s pre-retirement recordings, went to #1 on the JazzWeek radio chart.

Today his son Gerry sits at top of the Jazzweek chart with his latest, “Songs From My Father,” a two CD collection of songs written by Terry, and which Gerry has played his whole life. Joining Gerry in his tribute to his “Pops” are four “Thrasher Dream Trios”: Kenny Barron and Buster Williams, Patrice Rushen and Larry Goldings (organ), Geoff Keezer and Christian McBride and Chick Corea (his last recording) and Ron Carter.

Terry is very pleased with how these spectacular talents interpretated and explored his tunes in their own personal way. Sometimes it takes a while for some obvious talent and artworks to be suitably displayed and appreciated.

On your birthday, Terry, on behalf of your legion of fans, I want to wish you a happy 97th and thank you for sharing your gifts with us. Keep it up.

Neal Weiss

President, Whaling City Sound and fan of Terry and Gerry Gibbs

PURCHASE HERE

 

 

www.whalingcitysound.com

 

Read the latest review of “Songs From My Father” from JazzFlits

Read the latest review of “Songs From My Father” from JazzFlits

Aug 24, 2021

Gerry Gibbs took advantage of the corona time by criss-crossing the United States in order to record enough material for a double CD with four different trios. The percussionist did not play ‘Song for my father’ (‘standard’ by Horace Silver, as attentive readers know) but ‘Songs From My Father’. His father is the vibraphonist Terry Gibbs, who also apparently composed enough material for such a production. On piano we hear Chick Corea – in one of his last recordings – as well as Kenny Barron, Geoff Keezer and Patrice Rushen. Corea contributed one piece: the only track not by Pa Gibbs. A tough piece with a few tempo changes, in which son Gibbs had to read a lot. But he must have inherited that skill from his father, who did a lot of studio work after all.
Terry Gibbs’ eighteen pieces – written in the years 1949-1985 – are mostly handy and playable. No complicated harmonies, but a strong groove: in fours, funky or Latin. Son Gibbs is like a fish in water in that. The blues and ‘I got rhythm’ are there; in addition, some atmospheric ballads and a new melody about the chords of ‘Softly as in a morning sunrise’. Simplicity and logic, that’s what it’s all about.
The piano giants make no effort to present themselves emphatically. They swing with dedication and smooth fingers. Whether the basses of Ron Carter and Buster Williams have been recorded properly is a matter of taste. Your reviewer hears a grunt similar to anything but a double bass. Christian McBride’s bass, recorded unamplified as always, was spared this fate.
Gerry Gibbs (57) uses the term “Thrasher” for just about everything he’s in charge of. That can be a Thrasher Big Band or, like here, four times a Trasher Dream Trio. That “Dream” is another favorite qualifier of his father, who for years led his Dream Band: a collection of studio musicians from LA who came to jazz on Monday or Tuesday nights.
Terry Gibbs (96, actually: Julius Gubenko) is present in one piece in which all the participants can be heard: a matter of complicated overdubbing. The old boss is astonishingly flexible in this. The old Gibbs recorded a complete album for the same label in 2017. 92 Years Young: Jammin at The Gibbs House.
Jeroen de Valk

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