This exceptional live 1979 radio date features four of the top international vibraphone players of the period. Karl Berger was a major figure in the New York Avant-garde scene, playing and recording with Don Cherry, and, along with Ornette Coleman, founded the Creative Music Studio. Dave Friedman studied at Julliard under the noted modern classical composer Luciano Berio, Tom van der Geld was founding member of Children at Play and recorded with ECM, and Wolfgang Lackerschmid is known for his duets with Chet Baker. Add a crack bass and drum accompaniment that brings out the best in the band. The album opens with the piece that critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt called “the bravura piece of Vibes Summit”, Friedman’s Points and Parallels. Solo order: Karl, then Dave, as Tom leads the troup into collective improvisation. Van der Geld’s Fog “…paints an early Autumn morning when the fog hangs over the fields.” Berger’s Marimba Dance reverberates with the rhythmic sounds of Trinidadian steel bands and West African balafon music. Then there is Berger’s meditative Smile, followed by Lackerschmid’s lyrical, lilting Sabada. Van der Geld and Friedman play the beautiful John Lewis jazz waltz Skating in Central Park as a mesmerizing duo, and Milt Jackson’s classic blues Bag’s Groove pays tribute to the father of the modern jazz vibraphone, with everyone exchanging figures and phrases in a rousing no-holds-barred improvisational melee. Great vibes – what a pleasure!