Sitting In: Joe Locke’s ‘Great Vibes’ Playlist

Our ‘Sitting In’ series invites guest artists to curate playlists for JAZZIZ.com. Today’s featured artist is vibraphonist Joe Locke. To skip straight to the playlist, click here.

Joe Locke is a World Vibes Congress Hall of Famer whose most recent record, Subtle Disguise, combines the spontaneity of jazz with the spirit of poetry and the intimacy of folk music. It’s a musical profile he has developed over the course of a long and multi-faceted career, during which he has collaborated with a wide range of artists, from Cecil Taylor and Kenny Barron to the Beastie Boys and Grover Washington, Jr.

Locke began playing the vibes as a teenager, after his mother encouraged him to take up the glockenspiel in his high school marching band (you can read more about that embarrassing episode here). He was met with early success in the 1990s, playing sideman to the likes of George Cables, Eddie Henderson and Freddy Cole. But it wasn’t long before he was releasing albums under his own name, and in the process becoming one of the most respected vibraphonists in jazz.

Here, he shares with us a playlist of the musicians who most inspire him. Obviously, the list is loaded with vibraphone legends, like Milt Jackson, Bobby Hutcherson and Roy Ayers. But it also includes artists who are writing the next chapter of the jazz vibraphone story.

“In putting together this playlist for JAZZIZ, I wanted to show the wide aesthetic scope the vibraphone is capable of expressing,” says Locke. “In addition, I hope this playlist will serve to expose the listener to some lesser-known, but amazingly gifted artists. Many of the tracks here served to inspire me on my own journey. I’m forever grateful to the great vibes players who created them.”

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