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The tunes that this thoughtful and sensitive, tactile and highly kinetic 2- vibraphone tribute to Dave Samuels (1948-2019) of Spyro Gyra renown cover, form quite a spread.

Samuels was taught by David Friedman. Now in his eighties Friedman’s fellow American Tony Miceli is the younger of the pair. He’s 65.

‘Sunset Glow’ the defining opener of these 10 tracks was on new agey ECM 1979 album Dawn recorded by Double Image, a quartet album full of a delicious practically angelic flow, that Friedman featured on with Samuels, bassist Harvie Swartz, aka Harvie S, now in his late seventies, and drummer Michael DiPasqua (1953-2016) who in the early 1980s would go on to appear on the very beautiful Jan Garbarek classic, Wayfarer. As C. Andrew Hovan described it writing on AllAboutJazz ‘Sunset Glow’ “starts out as a whisper and then shifts into high gear.”

Double Image playing live in Norway in 1978.

Friedman and Samuels also used to perform together as The Mallet Duo.

‘Samuels’ – the most overt tribute of all – a wonderfully piquant warm hearted exuberant Miceli tune that the mallet polymath also played in a group that goes under the name of “The Philly 5.”

The standard ‘Nature Boy’ is also among the Glow selections – a melody that is surely impossible to dislike. It is mostly known for a from-the-angels version as a vocal sung by Nat “King” Cole in 1948. This rendition nevertheless isn’t the strongest suit of the album given the main focus isn’t standards – they just pad the album out.

But Friedman and Miceli play it very quietly and sensitively, the hallmark moods and emotional register of an approach where pyrotechnics are kept to a minimum if they even figure at all. The angle into Samuels doesn’t touch significantly on the jazz-rock/smooth side of Samuels’ work at all. That’s a very different beast but could have been alluded to or shoehorned in somehow. After all this strand formed a chunk of Samuel’s musical life as too did a serious interest in the music of the Caribbean.

Its forté instead is derived in the innate reflectiveness of Glow I suppose spurred on by thoughts of Samuels especially in Friedman’s case not just because of his being a figure of reverence and close collaborator but also given that some of the original material neatly dusted down goes back oh a half century or so in some cases. Standards included is the Pinocchio classic from 1940, Leigh Harline’s ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ covered cheesily by Dave Koz in 2024 on his staggering (is that the right word?) truckle, Dave Koz Does Disney.

Again like ‘Nature Boy’ – but less so when Herbie Hancock’s ‘Dolphin Dance’ is interpreted at the end – the Friedman/Miceli approach is a trickle of quiet – turn it down more than turn it up – and reflectively conveyed. There’s nothing cheesy anywhere to be found on Glow. Nobody talks over anyone or plays around merely for larks or to ponder isn’t it ironic?

Barking up the right tree instead is ‘Carousel’, flinging around this Friedman/Samuels that like the opener has Double Image provenance. The fleet fingered piece has already figured on a live recording captured in Fairfield, Connecticut in 2006.

David Friedman tune ‘Traffic’ is jaunty and fast in certain passages.

Most interesting of all is the duo’s knowing version and immaculate refurbishment of Steve Swallow’s scalar ‘Falling Grace’ introduced so very differently to the canon initially on piano by Gary Burton in the 1960s. Click on the YouTube link, above, for the vibes icon’s trio album The Time Machine that Swallow joined him on with Larry Bunker. It is a piece that has been covered by many since including in versions by Chick Corea, Bill Evans, Pat Metheny and Wolfgang Muthspiel. And yet it still seems unfamiliar. So this inclusion is welcome especially for a new generation of jazz listeners who might discover the piece for the first time. In addition I really liked Miceli tune ‘I Am Lost’ and the fun nature of his ‘Noisy Blues’ that is chock-full of surprises.

Maybe a good way to end this Samuels interlude of a review beyond the range of this album however absurd the idea might seem at first blush is to listen to some Samuels with Spyro Gyra. I found the superbly banging clip above that focuses on him a little more than most. While wildly different as a context – and Glow is a world away from ‘Morning Dance’ the smooth jazz Jay Beckenstein classic (16m streams and counting) that Samuels played both marimba and steel pan on – it, like this Boston clip above, nevertheless doesn’t jar. Perhaps wisely Friedman and Miceli don’t go down the “commercial” jazz-rock rabbit hole at all for their project. It wouldn’t have been apt or their bag even perhaps at all.