Celebrating Vibists Today!

Thank you for participating in our Jazz Appreciation Month Listener Poll…today we celebrate vibists. Be sure to tune in to hear all of your favorite vibists, which, of course, include Terry Gibbs!

 

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Terry Gibbs, widely regarded as on the of the best jazz vibists in the world, knew how to be in the right place at the right time. He and television were both coming of age in the 1950s and he took advantage of all that this newfangled piece of technology had to offer. He worked on early programs like Star Time, Judge for Yourself, the Regis Philbin show,  Mel Torme’s show and the Steve Allen Show, where the two often played together – piano for Allen and a Yamaha YV-3710 vibraphone for Gibbs. He moved to Los Angeles to be closer to the epicenter of television and film and rode the wave for many successful years.

Born Julius Gubenk in 1924, Gibbs won a talent contest when he was 12 and began touring almost immediately. He holds the distinction of being one of the few musicians to turn down a scholarship to the famed Julliard School of Music in New York ; they wanted him to be a timpanist but his love of bebop and the vibes prevailed. He went his own way. After World War II, Gibbs toured with Buddy Rich, Tommy Dorsey and Woody Herman and co-led a sextet with Louie Bellson and Charles Shavers. In 1951, he joined Benny Goodman’s band but when he settled in LA in 1957, he started his own ensemble, The Dream Band. It was named “Best Band in the World” in a 1962 poll in Downbeat magazine. Along the way, he was also inducted into ASCAP’s Jazz Wall of Fame and received many other honors.

In the mid-1960s, Gibbs opened a music store in Canoga Park, CA with Mel Zelnick, a former drummer with Benny Goodman. Called The Music Stop, the store became as much of a teaching facility as it was a retail record outlet and jazz enthusiasts spent many happy hours there, often with Gibbs in attendance. He is consistently remembered for his infectious energy and joyful persona.

Still going strong at the age of 91, Gibbs was recently honored with a birthday celebration by the Los Angeles Jazz Institute. During the span of his career he has released 65 albums and created more than 300 compositions, many of them performed by the jazz world’s greatest performers. His music, and his legacy, are still being written but, to be sure, one of the biggest beneficiaries is that under-appreciated jazz instrument, the vibraphone. Gibbs has singlehandedly put it on the jazz map.