With Mitch Shiner, you get nothing but ‘good vibes’!

Would you kindly forgive the pun, it had to be used according to the laws of wordsmiths. And might as well add the malaprop adage, “With mallets toward none” to complete the linguistic gymnastics for the balance of the article.

By now, you have figured out that the subject under this month’s spotlight is vibraphonist/percussionist extraordinaire, Mitch Shiner. He’s so talented, Shiner would never give his profession a black eye (okay, so I lied).

There’s simply nothing like a jazz performance with a vibraphone in the mix. A unique sound that can either carry the tune or simply sweeten it.

It’s easy to confuse the vibraphone with its cousins the xylophone and marimba. But there are some not so subtle differences that separate them.

They are all mallet percussion instruments with keyboard layouts. The xylophone is made of wood or synthetic bars (the pipes) that produce the different notes. It has a higher pitch range across 3-4 octaves.

Marimbas are mostly made out of rosewood and have a richer, bass sound and cover 4.3-5 octaves. The mallets are wrapped in yarn or rubber coated.

Vibraphones are made with aluminum alloy metal bars and have a sustain pedal and an electric motor that creates a vibrato “wah-wah” pulse. It’s a mellow, shimmering sound and is heavily featured in jazz.

Mitch plays a wide range of other percussion instruments and can more than handle the traditional drum kit. But it is on the vibes that he really shines.

“I was first attracted to it (the vibraphone) at Nicolet High School (under the tutelage of Mike McDowell),” Mitch said in a recent interview. “I just kept getting better and better.” And, the main criterion was “not many people do it.”

When it was stated earlier that jazz includes the vibes more heavily than other genres. That is especially true of the 50s staple genre, Bebop. “Playing bebop really got me into shape on the vibes,” Mitch said. “You pick up on the harmonic and melodic angles.”

The heaping helping of (Charlie) Bird (Parker), (Thelonius) Monk and (Dizzy) Gillespie as well as the virtues of the Swing Era that preceded it provide the framework for the vibraphone to contribute to. “The way that they improvised!” Shiner’s voice sort of trailed off at that point, but you tacitly knew precisely what he was talking about.

On the vibes you can play the melody, solo or just blend in with the other instruments. “You’re only limited by your imagination,” Mitch said. “It’s very versatile.”

Shiner talks quite a bit about the concept of “lingua franca” in terms of playing music together. Originally used as people of different languages finding a way to communicate with one another.

In this context, a lingua franca is a shared musical vocabulary style that allows different musicians from different backgrounds to play together and still sound seamless.

A case in point would be jam sessions, where musicians who have never played a note together before, can perform as if they’ve been together for years.

It would be a lot easier and save a lot of time if there was a list of venues that Mitchell Shiner hasn’t played and/or the myriad combination of musicians who’ve been with him on this journey.

Mitch is helping shepherd the next generation of players at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and as a Teaching Assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The man at the top of the heap in this area on this instrument, he appears a lot at Transfer Pizza on 1st & Mitchell (so apropos) Streets, which has featured jazz for more than fifteen years.

Fronting a trio with Joey Sanchez on bass and Bony Benavides (who has graced these pages before), he provided the audience with two and half hours of Latin Vibes.

As a conga player, when Mitch launched into his version of Cal Tjader’s “Soul Sauce,” it was enough to leave the crowd breathless. It is arguably the best known song that is driven from that first vibraphone intro. With the congas providing the pulse, it is a great tune. (wachi wara!)

The uninitiated should definitely head to YouTube to see for yourselves.

And everyone should catch some of the Latin Vibes that only Mitchell Shiner provides.