Artist:     Ted Piltzecker

Album:     Brindica

Label:     Zoho Music

Release Date:     11.9.2018

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A little out of left field, we were re-introduced to the vibraphone—the pedal steel of jazz—by a master. A former trumpeter in Chuck Mangione’s Jazz Ensemble and the George Shearing Quintet, Ted Piltzecker was really a closet vibraphonist, practicing first in his dorm room at the Eastman School of Music, then honing his skills during his tenure with Mangione. After getting off one of the Shearing tours, Piltzecker said, “I put the trumpet in the case, and it was out of the house the next day. I never touched it again.”

Trading brass for tuned percussion led Piltzecker to other means of expression, and on Brindica (“Brazil, India, Africa”) he’s responsible not only for vibraphone and marimba but talking drum, bell, clapping, some vocal percussion—which I’d swear are clucks—as well as keyboard.

Given all that participation and the fact that the mostly-instrumental album has only one vocal track (with lyrics by poet Langston Hughes), still, the vibraphone doesn’t hog the spotlight on Brindica. “From the Center” weaves in a New Orleans feel with horns a-plenty, keyboard and a generous sprinkling of marimba: if the Portuguese had colonized Louisiana instead of the French, this is the music we’d be hearing in the Quarter. Piano, tenor and alto sax, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, flute, alto flute and piano all get solos, and the wide array of percussion—from bell to steel pan and at least six different drums—play important roles.

Light-hearted and mostly melodic, it’s easy to listen to Brindica many times to keep discovering new elements, but if you’re in the mood to daydream with some background music, Piltzecker’s latest can also lift your spirits without making you feel like you’re taking an exam.

—Suzanne Cadgène