The Jack West & Lalo Vibe

October 19, 2006
by John Stoehr


Two Savannah natives come home for gig at Kokopelli's Jazz.

One day in 2004, two musicians met in Austin, Texas. They were each performing at the South By Southwest Festival. They were performing on two different kinds of instruments. They lived at two different ends of the country.

But Lalo had more in common with Jack West than she ever realized.

They both grew up in Savannah.

"It turns out I used to carpool with his sister on my way to school," said Lalo, whose real name is Laura Friedman.

Before that time, Lalo had made a name for herself as one of New York City's top jazz vibraphonists. Her most recent CD, "Half Moon," received accolades from the country's top jazz magazines and a new book of vibraphone compositions is poised for release next month.

Meanwhile, West and his band Curvature were one of the top ensembles in the San Francisco Bay area, winning acclaim for innovative recordings.

West is also known for inventing his own instrument, an eight-string guitar, which he uses to make layers of sound: harmony, melody and percussion all at the same time.

After discovering their shared history, they made another discovery: that the individual musical vocabularies they had developed over the years were complementary.

"We really dug each other's music and were amazed by the similar vibe," Lalo said. "We both play jazz-influenced music that's not standards and accessible."

They decided to join forces and make a recording. Since then, they have been touring together on and off.

"Both of us spent a lot of time on our instruments and our instruments are very strange," Lalo said. "We want to explore all the different sounds of our instruments."

Though complementary, the music is different when they play together.

Lalo, noting her most recent record, said she tends toward a moody, brooding, worldly kind of jazz whose spirit is absent when playing with West.

"If we ever give ourselves a name, it's going to be Bright Orange," Lalo said. "Any time we get together, it's totally sunny.

"In big cities, musicians are often negative, but when Jack and I play, it's like, 'This music is so much fun.' Playing with someone like that is such a joy.

"There must be something about being from Savannah."

Live shows, such as their homecoming gig at Kokopelli's Jazz this weekend, demonstrate the seamlessness of their music in which it's hard to tell which tunes were composed by which musician.

Either way, the tunes are original - mostly.

"We're both crazy Stevie Wonder fans," Lalo said. "We'll throw a couple of his in there, too."

If You Go

What: Lalo with Jack West

When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Where: Kokopelli's Jazz, 107 W. Broughton St.

Admission: $5

Information: 231-8369, lalovibe.com, curvature.us - Savannah Now

March 1, 2006
by David Dupont

From the beginning the vibraphonist Lalo headed off in her own directions.
“I was the kid,” she said in a recent telephone interview, “who hit the wrong note and liked it and would play that.”
Learning to play the vibraphone was “just a big game. It was just another toy,” said Lalo. “I was so intrigued because there were so few instructions. That piqued my interest even more.”
Now a New York-based recording and concert artist, Lalo will perform Friday at 8pm at Owens Community College. Now with two solo recordings to her name – the newest, “Half Moon”, was just released in January – she is intent on thrusting vibraphone into a lead role in contemporary jazz. A National Public Radio commentator said her first release “injected some rock vitality into the vibraphone.”
Lalo feels for jazz to progress it must do more than interpret standard tunes. Her compositions bring a range of influences into play. They all reflect her life as a New York musician. One night, she said, she’ll be playing with a rock band, and the next with an orchestra. Her goal is to thrust vibraphone to center stage on the contemporary music scene.
Her partner in the Owens performance will be guitarist Jack West, an equally self-directed player. West, Lalo said, is completely self-taught. “He figured all of this out on his own,” she said. The result is an unorthodox approach to music, and continues to amaze Lalo. She finds herself wondering “where’s that sound coming from.”
With West she feels she’s playing with “at least three other musicians.”

Who: Vibraphonist Lalo with Guitarist Jack West

Where: Mainstage Theatre in the Owens Community College Center for Fine and Performing Arts

When: Friday, 8pm

How Much: $16; $10 for senior citizens and students
- Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune

March 2, 2006
by Steven Cornelius

Lalo makes her living playing the vibraphone, an often-heard but little-known niche instrument at the far reaches of public awareness.
“When people learn to recognize the sound, they realize that the vibraphone is all over the radio. I want to bring that sound into people’s consciousness, to introduce it to a wider range of listeners,” she said last week by phone from California.
Being a female instrumentalist has been challenging and rewarding, she said. “At the Berklee College of Music it was a 9-to-1 ratio of men to women. That sure was interesting. It quickly became clear that I had to show that I was there to practice.
“Once I was out of school people would say to me, ‘Hey, I can shop you.’ They were interested in exploiting image to a degree that I am not interested in. All this has just made me more determined than ever to show that I am here for the music,” she said.
Making music was always about exploration for Lalo.
“As a child I would perform a classical piece on the piano, but if I hit a wrong note I would go off into some little thing of my own. For me on the piano it was always more about creating than gaining agility. That additional focus didn’t happen until I started playing the vibraphone,” she said.
Lalo, 27, performs with guitarist Jack West at 8pm tomorrow at the Owens Community College Center for Fine and Performing Arts. It’s a matching of committed individualists.
“Jack sounds like no one else. He didn’t go through the standard musical background, but instead developed his own thing. He invented his guitar in order to produce the sounds he was hearing in his head.
“We combine our original compositions, about half and half. We don’t really sound like a duo because Jack gets so many colors out of the instrument, including bass and percussion sounds. We are sort of a jazz jam band with world-music influences. It’s high energy and really fun, but at the same time there’s a lot going on,” said Lalo.

- The Toledo Blade