David Friedman (percussionist)

David Friedman (vibraphon) at Moers Festival (former International New Jazz Festival) 1978

David Friedman (born March 10, 1944, New York, United States) is an American jazz percussionist. His primary instruments are vibraphone and marimba.

Friedman studied drums in the 1950s, then marimba and xylophone in the 1960s at Juilliard. In the 1960s he was a member of the New York Philharmonic and the pit orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera, and worked as a jazz musician with Wayne Shorter, Joe Chambers, Hubert Laws, Horace Silver, and Horacee Arnold in the 1970s. He and Dave Samuels played together in drum workshops before starting a project in 1975, called The Mallet Duo. They also assembled a quartet called Double Image during the years 1977–1980. Friedman later worked with Daniel Humair and Chet Baker, and taught at the Manhattan School of Music and in Montreux in the 1970s. He moved to Europe and now(-2021) lives in Berlin, Germany, and has been teaching many European percussionists/vibraphonists.

Discography

As leader

  • Winter Love April Joy (East Wind, 1975)
  • Futures Passed (Enja, 1977)
  • Of the Wind's Eye (Enja, 1981)
  • Shades of Change with Geri Allen, Anthony Cox, Ronnie Burrage (Enja, 1986)
  • Junkyard with David Charles (DMP, 1992)
  • Ternaire with Daniel Humair, Jean-Francois Jenny-Clark (Deux Z, 1992)
  • Air Sculpture (Traumton, 1994)
  • Other Worlds with Anthony Cox, Jean-Louis Matinier (Intuition, 1997)
  • Birds of a Feather with Jasper Van't Hof (Traumton, 1999)
  • Earfood (Skip, 2004)
  • Weaving Through Motion (Traumton, 2014)
  • Rodney's Parallel Universe (Skip, 2007)
  • Retro with Peter Weniger (Skip, 2010)
  • Thursday (Malletmuse, 2018)
  • Flight (Malletmuse, 2019)

With Double Image

  • Double Image (Inner City, 1977)
  • Dawn (ECM, 1979)
  • Dialogues: Three Duets for Marimba, and Vibraphone (Marimba, 1985)
  • In Lands I Never Saw (Celestial Harmonies, 1986)
  • Open Hand (DMP, 1994)
  • Moment to Moment (Double Image 2006)

With Four Drummers Drumming

  • Four Drummers Drumming (Backyard, 1990)
  • Electricity (Backyard, 1991)

As sideman

With Tim Buckley

With Daniel Humair

  • Triple Hip Trip (Owl, 1979)
  • Surrounded 1964/87 (Blue Flame, 1987)
  • Ear Mix (Sketch, 2003)

With Jazzanova

  • Another New Day/L.O.V.E. and You & I (Ropeadope, 2002)
  • In Between (JCR, 2002)
  • Remixed (JCR, 2003)

With Hubert Laws

  • Afro-Classic (CTI, 1970)
  • Morning Star (CTI, 1972)
  • The Rite of Spring (CTI, 1972)
  • Carnegie Hall (CTI, 1973)
  • In the Beginning (CTI, 1974)
  • Then There Was Light Volume 1 (CTI, 1974)
  • Then There Was Light Volume 2 (CTI, 1974)

With Yoko Ono

With Beth Orton

With others

References