Celeste...why?

[Claude]

Hammond B3 ... why?

[Swinging Swede]

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Hammond B3 ... why?

Because you can't get a pipe organ to gigs.

MG

[aparxa]

Celeste on the original Pannonica suits pretty well to the track imo.

Is Monk the exception that proves the rule?

No rules as long I have only one reference

[Teasing the Korean]

One of the coolest instruments ever. I will be happy to take any CDs or LPs off your hands with celeste.

Villa Lobos and Les Baxter, two giants of 20th century music, used the celeste to great effect.

[king ubu]

Raymond Fol does one tune on celeste on this great solo album:

It's been released last year in the latest (last, it seems) batch of Jazz in Paris discs from Universal France. The whole recital has a ducal touch, Fol having taken the Duke's seat on one special occasion. Lovely disc, for sure!

[catesta]

I had no idea what one actually sounded like and had to find some sound clips.

Now I know what you're all talking about.....

Sugar Plum Fairy

[.:.impossible]

I've always wanted to see the inside of a celeste.

I've seen photos of a vibraphone rigged with a three octave keyboard. Each key strikes a vibraphone bar with a mallet. You play it as you would a piano. I guess the idea is to be able to play larger chords, since we are mostly relegated to four note chords on the vibraphone. Some folks have worked out grips to hold more than two mallets per hand, but I haven't seen anyone use it very effectively.

[7/4]

I've always wanted to see the inside of a celeste.

I've seen photos of a vibraphone rigged with a three octave keyboard. Each key strikes a vibraphone bar with a mallet. You play it as you would a piano. I guess the idea is to be able to play larger chords, since we are mostly relegated to four note chords on the vibraphone. Some folks have worked out grips to hold more than two mallets per hand, but I haven't seen anyone use it very effectively.

That's essentially what a Fender Rhodes is. Instead of bars, there are little steel rods.

[.:.impossible]

This thing was a monster. There is a reason the vibraphone looks like it does. If I find a picture, I'll post it here. Definitely nothing like a Rhodes.

I understand what you are saying though.

[mikeweil]

Also McCoy Tyner played it on a cut on "Trident", I believe.

Tyner used a harpsichord on that LP.

[Free For All]

Also McCoy Tyner played it on a cut on "Trident", I believe.

Tyner used a harpsichord on that LP.

I just checked my copy and he plays both- harpsichord on "Celestial Chant", celeste on "Once I Loved" and both on "Land of the Lonely".

[flat5]

Don't all the ice cream vans have a celeste player on board?

[JSngry]

Yeah, a little-bitty immigrant wanted for murder in his homeland. They keep him in a cigar box when he's not stashed up under the cash register playing his little-bitty celeste. Shitty gig, but it beats the hell outta prison in his homeland.

America - the land of opportunity!

[7/4]

Yeah, a little-bitty immigrant wanted for murder in his homeland. They keep him in a cigar box when he's not stashed up under the cash register playing his little-bitty celeste. Shitty gig, but it beats the hell outta prison in his homeland.

America - the land of opportunity!

Wow!

[7/4]

This thing was a monster. There is a reason the vibraphone looks like it does. If I find a picture, I'll post it here. Definitely nothing like a Rhodes.

I understand what you are saying though.

Oh yeah, I'd expect it to be huge!

[.:.impossible]

Yeah, a little-bitty immigrant wanted for murder in his homeland. They keep him in a cigar box when he's not stashed up under the cash register playing his little-bitty celeste. Shitty gig, but it beats the hell outta prison in his homeland.

America - the land of opportunity!

I love it. Especially "little-bitty". Probably has crooked fingers too I bet.

[danasgoodstuff]

There are no wrong instruments, just wrong times/ways to play them...

[Don Brown]

No one's mentioned Celestial Blues by Woody Herman's Third Herd featuring Nat Pierce on celeste. It's a real swinger recorded for Woody's own Mars label.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I was playing something with a celeste intro by John Lewis a few days ago. Damn me, what the hell was it? Oh yes, it was

wait for it

Illinois Jacquet - Black velvet!!!!!!

MG

[Jim Alfredson]

I had no idea what one actually sounded like and had to find some sound clips.

Now I know what you're all talking about.....

Sugar Plum Fairy

Although this video claims the opposite, I had read somewhere that The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy was originally composed for glass harmonica.

Aha, wikipedia comes to the rescure:

"One of the best known pieces is the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from the ballet The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky's first draft called for glass harmonica, but he changed it to the newly-invented celesta before the work's premiere performance in 1892."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jN-kTaKEvo

[AllenLowe]

ah, more propoganda from the powerful celeste lobby -

[Guest Bill Barton]

Celeste Lobby? Wasn't she a vocalist with Whiteman?

[Fer Urbina]

I like Jimmy Rowles with Giuffre in "Deep Purple" (Atlantic).

The good thing of boogie played on celeste (Meade Lux Lewis with Charlie Christian Blue Note session) is that there's better "separation" between Lewis' both hands. Ideal to appreciate the left-hand bass.

More than vibes, the instrument sounds like glockenspiel to me (vibes without big pipes and rotating disks).

Telegraphically,

F

[Alexander Hawkins]

Just listening to Ellington playing celeste and singing (!) on 'Moon Maiden' from 'The Intimate Ellington'. Great one!