Somebody emailed asking if I'd ever heard of a player named Dan Kaplan and I was forced to admit that I hadn't. (In fact, I believe he may have sent me a CD last year and he and I may have exchanged an email or two.)
Regardless, he's never been mentioned on this forum--the forum search comes up blank--and he deserves our attention. He plays down-the-middle blues, but his tone and his phrasing are strong and highly individuated. He's a master, in fact. He does everything right, and he sounds like himself, not like a copy of any other player. On the basis of this one video, I'm going to put him on this website's honorable mention list.
Who ARE YOU? Yeah, nice work. I really appreciate him playing completely through himself. You can't do what he does without a whole lot of want to. He (the person he IS) resonates through the instrument.
"Blues for Marcus Dixon" is on Dan's CD, "Vera Hall". It is as I recall all solo harmonica and mostly his own compositions, which span a wide range from blues to jazz, gospel and even some Hank Williams Sr. for good measure. He also has a CD of harmonica and piano, "Bus Window" Suffice to say it's great.
Dan Kaplan lives in Austin, TX and is also an artist, which I believe is his main vocation. I first came across him by chance a few years ago doing a solo set at an unofficial SXSW showcase at a rather noisy bar where, at first, no one was paying much attention to this dude just blowing harmonica down a vocal mic through the cheap ass house PA. But his performance was one of those things where your first thought is "Who the hell is this guy!" followed immediately by, "I wonder if I can sell all these harmonicas I've got here."
As on "Vera Hall", Dan was playing only harmonica, weaving rhythms, chords, and melodies inside, outside and around each other. His playing was so extraordinary that pretty soon a pretty good portion of the crowd got sucked in and the applause started to roll in.
Adam is absolutely correct, Dan Kaplan really does deserve the attention of this forum. More info can be found here: www.paperharmonica.com ---------- LSC
Last Edited by on Apr 08, 2012 11:39 AM
That Bus Window track was absolutely beautiful. Thanks for the heads-up on this guy.
It's nice to find someone just quietly turning out this sort of stuff without the hoohaa, fanfares and look at me, shit. Just sitting back and doing it. Great. ----------
