This is one of the albums I put on and suddenly think, "hey who is that vibraphone player?" And it turns out it's, once again, David Friedman, one of the cats who played with everyone and is such a humble person. No ego, but a great musician and also great teacher. I was lucky enough to have lessons from him at UdK Berlin and I am a bit ashamed to tell that back in those days I didn't know at all who he was. If you hear vibraphone in funky grooving music since the 70's it's probably him. See his huge discography at Discogs. But apart from him, Chic is such a great band, this was their first album. Everybody knows their songs, they are timeless and they are as catchy as they are of really high quality. No wonder, Chic's Nile Rodgers (guitar player/producer) and the unfortunately deceased Bernard Edwards (bass) worked with the greatest on this planet and Rodgers still does. Rodgers/Edwards songs made the world dance, and still do.. A Chic concert is always fun, their energetic performances still make everybody dance..
Everybody dance!
... and here's a beautiful love song with a David Friedman intro..
This is the title track called Dark Horse. Just as in the album version it features sax and piano solos. It's a pretty wild performance, matching today's start of the Chinese New Year: THE YEAR OF THE FIRE HORSE!Live at Bimhuis, we added a drum solo. Afterwards, I decided to seperate it from the song and post it as an extra video below. Why not in one video?Because the video would become very very long and experience shows that people will not stick around for longer that 6-7 minutes. Yoràn's free drum solo is actually really great and in this seperate video, the true drum lovers can watch and learn from his drum story telling. Sometimes people ask me; What are drummers doing in their solos? To give you an idea of what Yoràn is doing in his solo: He starts with a pattern, an idea. He keeps the pattern going and plays variations over it. Then he combines it with soloing over it with call and reponse phrases and slides in new patterns. Technically it's interesting because he demonstrates a lot of independence and speed, as well as dynamics and sound colours, while telling a story, which means in musical context that the solo has certain elements which can be recognized by the (trained) listener. Many people in the Western part of the world miss the melodic and harmonic context during a free drum solo. It's fair to say a free drum solo without any accompaniment is like an abstract painting. Within the given context you can hear and see what you can manage, depending on your own frame of reference and expectations. In the end, it's about: does it resonate with you? Because both, the painting and the free drum solo, they lack a clear subject (no lyrics, no recognizable image), both forms are highly subjective and open to the interpretation of the audience. They function as a conversation between the artist's feeling and the viewer's/listener's perception.But you also can listen to it with a pure analytical drum ear and try to follow the patterns and phrases. As a musician and human I (try to) do both :-) Enjoy!More info:Susanne Alt: sax, Matthijs Geerts and Ike van Bergen: keys, Thomas Pol: bass, Yoràn Vroom: drums, Helene Jank: percussion Performed at 16th of January 2026 at Bimhuis, Amsterdam, Recorded by Onno Prillwitz Filmed by Robert Glass and Albert Nooij. - This is one of the albums I put on and suddenly think, hey who is that vibraphone player? And it turns out it's, once again, David Friedman, one of the cats who played with everyone and is such a humble person. No ego, but a great musician and also great teacher. I was lucky enough to have lessons from him at UdK Berlin and I am a bit ashamed to tell that back in those days I didn't know at all who he was. If you hear vibraphone in funky grooving music since the 70's it's probably him. See his huge discography at Discogs.But apart from him, Chic is such a great band, this was their first album. Everybody knows their songs, they are timeless and they are as catchy as they are of really high quality. No wonder, Chic's Nile Rodgers (guitar player/producer) and the unfortunately deceased Bernard Edwards (bass) worked with the greatest on this planet and Rodgers still does. Rodgers/Edwards songs made the world dance, and still do.. A Chic concert is always fun, their energetic performances still make everybody dance..Everybody dance!... and here's a beautiful love song with a David Friedman intro..
