I find it strange that his name doesn't come up more often when blues harmonica (or just blues in general) is mentioned. He also plays guitar and piano and of course sings as well. He was the first white harp player (to my knowledge) to tour with Muddy Waters. The only other (as far as I'm aware) was of course Jerry Portnoy.
I love the way that Paul is so laid back and looks like some guy living on the street. But as soon as he starts playing it's like a huge grizzly bear has woken up. People talk about some people having the "it" factor. To me Paul Oscher has it by the bucketful.
I've known him personally for many years and he's a great musician. He also plays sax and accordion as well. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Does anyone know what model of bass harp that is? I saw a video of someone using one just like it a couple days ago. It isn't like the others that are essentially two harps hinged together. It also doesn't seem to be a double bass (having 2 reeds an octave apart for each hole) like the bass harps that Hohner and Suzuki make.
Hohner makes two versions, one has a longer scale, but the way it is setup is that the top rows are the naturals and the bottom row are the sharps and flats and there ae NO draw notes, only blow notes and learning circular breathing may be a good idea. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
barbequebob, I know hohner makes two different kinds of double bass harps, one with with a total of 29 hole and the other with 39 holes. Suzuki makes these two models. But both of these are two harps hinged together. The bass harp that Paul Oscher is playing in this video isn't hinged, it's just one big harp (although it looks like there may be two rows, kind of like the AS-37 Alto and SS-37 Soprano Single Harmonicas made by Suzuki). Were you refering to the 39 hole double bass harp that Hohner makes or do they make another type of bass harp that isn't hinged, like the one Paul is playing in this video?
Last Edited by on Nov 09, 2009 6:16 PM
@Ryan - the hinged variety are octave basses. There are two reeds per hole top/bottom, as on a diatonic, but they are arranged so as to both sound together. You can get other basses without the octave effect; with naturals on one reedplate and sharps/flats on the other laid out like piano keys. Still blow only. I know Tombo make one - the contrabass which is what he's playing here. Paul's is an old instrument, according to a post on Harp-L he bought it in '68 for $17! his is branded "Dragon Fly" (there's a picture in the gear section of his website's photo gallery) and guess what is the Japanese for dragonfly? yup! Tombo!
Last Edited by on Nov 10, 2009 6:15 AM
I think he had some special mic holder built for his rack harmonica, to hold the big 16 hole Chromatic.
I'm guessing that the bass harp is held in the same mic chamber as that. If you look very closely you can see the mic cable hooked over his left thumb.
I think his 3rd position chrom work is pretty tasty too. Here's that rack setup Kingley mentioned. I got a better quality copy of this vid a while ago from the Woodsongs podcast on iTunes (free download) dunno if it's still there though...
WOAH! That is so cool! --now I got me another hero--the list just keeps growing! The change to slide in standard tuning was really impressive--so slick and effective--the way he just hums a couple of beats while getting the slide on--really cool.
Now I'm gonna just have to get me one of those 16-holers and give this a shot--can somebody tell me which is the best harp to get to start on this kind of playing on a chro?
He's playing guitar in E--does that mean his harp is in the key of D (assuming he's playing in third position)?
Last Edited by on Nov 10, 2009 12:12 PM
He's playing in 3rd position with the slide in on a "C" Chromatic. That mean he's in Eb, the guitar is probably tuned down half a step to Eb as well.
Hohner Chromonica or the Super 64 are the classic ones. Suzuki also make good chromatics as do Hering. Avoid the cheap Chinese made ones. They have an awful tone.
To my ear the Hohners have a deeper mellower tone than the others but you may find you prefer another brand.
Last Edited by on Nov 10, 2009 12:29 PM
What some people don't know is that Paul--who I'm happy to call a friend, although I don't see him often--is married to Suzan-Lori Parks, one of the most important contemporary black playwrights. Here's a photo:
When I first met Paul at Manny's Car Wash in NYC in the early 1990s, he was in a suit, sitting at the side bar drinking heavily. I was in awe. He blew harp on one of the very first blues records I'd learned from: MISSISSIPPI MANDOLIN, by Johnny Young. So to me it was like meeting a legend. I went up to him and mumbled something about how he'd been an influence. He eyed me, not in a kind or happy way, and the first words out of his mouth were "I've got a black wife and three black kids." As if to say: that's who I am, motherfu--er. Who the hell are YOU?
This is a true story. I wouldn't have the nerve to make up stuff like that.
Things didn't work out with that wife, I gather. I don't know about the kids. I know that he was, at that point, just beginning to think about a comeback. He was a court officer in Brooklyn, I believe, but he wasn't playing. After that wife left him, as I understand it, he got rebaptized in the blues. That's when we started to see each other occasionally at gigs and jam sessions around NYC. I went to one gig down around Times Square and he let me sit in while he played piano. I was gigging with Sterling at that point but I felt lucky to be sitting in with paul. What amazed me about him was that he could play guitar and piano just as well as he blew harp. He could lay down that Muddy Waters slow-blues groove with more BBQ sauce and effective space than anybody I've ever heard--and he can still do that. Almost everybody else sounds like a fake doing Muddy Waters stuff after you've heard Paul do it.
He ended up giving up booze and hooking up with Suzan-Lori. I'm not sure which came first, but they were interrelated. I went to a gig in Tribeca a few years after that and he was on fire. They were clearly in mad love. It was great to watch. His eyes were shining and they were arm in arm after he came offstage. He cleaned up his whole act, found true love, and moved out to Venice Beach. I've spoken to him once or twice since then, and I ran into him at Blues 2000 up in the Catskills, where he was doing a solo show. I'm not that big on traditionalist blues, as y'all know, but Paul is TRADITIONAL blues, which is different. He actually worked with Muddy, and the music he's playing is his music and Muddy's music all wrapped up together. So it sounds real. He REALLY knows how to phrase and leave space. I'm happy he's out there getting his due, because he deserves it. The fact that his rebirth as a performing artist coincides with a happy marriage just goes to prove the point that sometimes, every now and then, a blues guy gets a big fat share of great (and deserved) luck.
Last Edited by on Nov 10, 2009 2:15 PM
I've heard plenty of stories about Paul frommany different people, inclduing one I can't mention in print from another friend of mine, Steve Guyger. He was always considered by many to be a great musician and at times totally nuts, but I'm also pretty good friends with him.
The man learned tha thing about space from the real deal, and that is the real sound of black blues, which is played BEHIND the beat, phrasing laregly off the 2 and the 4, and with the classic 50's Chicago blues sounds, waaaay behind the beat (and the only music genre that's played farther behind the beat than 50's Chicago blues, especially the early 50's stuff, is reggae).
If you play in more of a rock groove, that is on top or ahead of the beat, and phrase off the 1 and the 3, getting that space correct is close to impossible.
Most of the time, when I gigged with Jimmy Rogers, your solo was often a single 12 bar chorus and you made damned sure you didn't waste notes and they ALWAYS fit the groove properly and it's something too many musicians, harp players included, too often don't really learn at all. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I love that sound... I hear it in some of Little Walters tunes ..an example would be "lights out". Maybe it is just the great vibrato. Did LW use a chromatic?
adam/bob- I think this info about the beats is some of the most important stuff for harmonica players. Bob can you give us a good example of this in someone elses song?
Playing behind the beat is very common in black music, and not just in blues, but gospel, soul, R&B, black rock in the 50's, as well. It is not only important for harp players to learn, but just about everybody else as well, including drummers and bass players.
Classic examples are anything from both Walters and Sonny Boys, Jimmy Reed, BB King, Little MIlton, Albert King, Mahalia Jackson, Roy Brown, Wynonie Harris, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and so it's not just the solos, it's also the vocals as well.
All of LW's recordings are played behind the beat. On Lights Out, he is using a 16 hole 64 Chromatic played in 3rd position. One ting too many diatonic players fail MISERABLY to understand that chromatics are a different animal and they will NOT respond well at all too being played real,y hard and this is an extremely common problem with most diatonic harp players and having good breath control and an extremely focused attack is absolutely necessary.
Now, how do you tell if the groove is being played either ahead, on top, or behind the beat? With whatever tune you're listening to, get a metronome, and first set to click and the 2 and the 4, which is the back beat, and in most black music, and much of rock music, this is usually where the snare drum hits and the bass drum is usually on the 1 and the 3.
When listening CAREFULLY to where the snare hits, set the metronome tempo speed as close as possible to what you'r hearing. Now if the metronome appears to click sooner than the snare drum, then the groove is being played behind the beat (and there are many different delineations of that, with 50's Chicago blues the 2nd farthest behind the beat, after reggae, and jump blues is closer to the beat, but still behind the beat). What this does is give the musical illusion to the listener as being slower than what the actual tempo really is.
If the click of the metronome appears to be slower than where the snare is hitting, then this is playing ahead of the beat, giving the listener the musical illusion of the tempo being faster than it really is. There are many different delineations of this as well, with country and rockabilly being very slightly ahead, heavy metal, punk and grunge being much more ahead of the beat.
Now when you set the metronome tempo and the click and the snare are dead on together, then the groove is being played right on top of the beat.
With many rock producers and recording studios, in the drummer's headphones, they often have a click track running, which is essentially a metronome because rockers, especially during the solos, tend to push the groove, meaning getting more ahead of the beat to make the solo more in your face, but doing that also risks the groove getting heavily sped up and when the vocals come back in, and they return to the groove, the transition often sounds like a disaster because the groove got over pushed. In black music of any kind, including blues, you NEVER want to be caught dead doing that and I remember when I was on the road with Luther Guitar Junior Johnson, a drummer sat in with us and did that, and Luther let him have it with both barrels.
In black music, as well as latin music, tho played differently, the groove is absolutely EVERYTHING and you will get hell if you mess it up even slightly and everything you play can and does have an enormous effect on how the groove plays out and it's just one note that can tootally screw it up.
Learning solos is a trillion times easier than learning groove and feel. Most people I've seen in most open jams that aren't attended by or hosted by very top notch players (I also hosted one for about a year, so I know this for a fact), it's largely solos first and screw everything else because too often, getting their rocks off and the "Look Ma, I can solo good" only attitude is far too pervasive and that is NOT a good attitude for a musician, especially as a pro.
A real pro musician, recording engineer, or record producer listens to these "small details" because they have a HUGE effect on the outcome of the tune and these are things too many musicians/jammers often pay very little or no attention to at all.
That may sound kinda harsh to some people, but trust me, it's 100% the truth. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Last Edited by on Nov 11, 2009 11:00 AM
I think we're very lucky to have BBQ Bob sharing his musical wisdom here.
Bob: Coming from a NYC blues scene, with lots of jump sax stuff happening, I've always tended to push the beat--to swing out ahead of the beat. (Jason Ricci likes to say that I swing harder than any harp player he's ever heard. He's probably referring to this aspect of my playing. Some guys swing way behind the beat, obviously.) What I've learned is that I work best with a drummer or other rhythm-keeper who locks the beat down and will NOT speed up. If I get that support, I lock in, too, and swing very hard. But what sometimes happens is that drummers--bad drummers, mediocre drummers, guys who don't know how to read my swing AS swing--tend to speed up the groove, because they hear what I'm doing AS speeding up, rather than as swinging hard ahead of the beat.
I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.
The moment I realize that a drummer is doing this, I feel what he's doing as "killed swing." It kills my groove. It feels like a rock-dog of a drummer just pounding right after me, trying to keep up, rather than a cool-daddy drummer who knows exactly where the groove is and is willing to slam along right in that pocket.
I got lucky with Mr. Satan (Sterling), because he swung hard but kept his own beat, and did NOT speed up his beat. So I could lock in, swing like hell--including in front of the beat--and he didn't give a damn. Heck, half the time HE was hitting his guitar licks there, too.
I wrote about this in MISTER SATAN'S APPRENTICE, but musicians don't often talk in precise terms about this particular phenomenon. Yet the way that musicians swing & carry the groove is, in some ways, THE most important thing, as you've noted. It's what make one band incredibly danceable and another band just......off. It's what makes some guys stick together as a band for years--they all swing the same way--and other guys grow quickly irritated with each other and end up feuding.
Adam, that drummer doing that behind you is the typical MO for someone whose background is a rock drummer, and 98% of rock drummers will always push the groove during the solo, often to a point of speeding things up and if he ever did that with some of the black blues musicians I've ever worked with or an old school white big band jazz bandleader, they won't hesitate to hand their heads to them in no uncertain terms and make damned sure everyone sees and hears it.
I'm willing to bet that he maintained the groove mainly with the skins and not enough with the cymbols and too much use of skins and not enough cymbols makes the groove plod and the entire swing groove is pretty much flushed down the toilet.
From personal experience, much of it pro, that's often very typical of a lot of white drummers, wheras black drummers or a white drummer very heavily influenced by black drummers will have the cymbols more in play when it comes to the groove and when they swing, the groove is much more danceable and never plods.
It also brings out a huge truth that may ruffle some feathers among lead players, be it guitarists, harp players, etc., that having a great drummer or bass player (and this does NOT mean solos at all, and if you judge great drumming or bass playing by solos alone, that's rank amateur thinking that you are usually gonna find in 98% of open jams and on a pro level, that's extremely low musical standards) will do FAR more to improve a band than a great guitarist, harp player, or any lead instrument will because, truth be told, if the groove is garbage, no matter how good the lead players are, the band is still gonna flat out suck no matter what.
Good grooves will carry a mediocre lead player and make them sound 100 times better, especially if the drummer and bass player is good and completely locked in, but a bad groove, with a bad drummer and/or bass player will hurt a band more, and quickly will expose the lead players' warts very quickly.
In this order, good drummers and bass players for blues is extremely difficult to find and even harder to keep because they're ALWAYS in demand far more than great guitarists, harp players, etc., and saying this to harp players may kick the ego down several notches, but this is 100% true.
Drummers like what you had I have absolutely ZERO tolerance for. In black music bands, drummers and bass players, in that order are quickest to get hired, as well as the quickest to get fired because with black music, including blues, the groove is EVERYTHING!! ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I found this out the hard way,when our regular drummer broke his wrist. The fill in drummer was a good drummer,but a rock drummer. He had no clue how to play blues. It was a constant struggle trying to find a groove with him.He seemed to never leave any space in which to play. It gave me a deep appreciation of what a good blues drummer can do for you. I didn't miss the water until the well ran dry.
Tuckster, that is the truth with rock drummers as they are not used to playing behind the beat, which also means that a ton of space is needed and rock drummers try to fill up every space possible, and if they're used to playing ahead of the beat, it makes it even worse, and they also have problems with their volume and dynamics.
Like I said, REALLY good BLUES drummers are very tough to find, and even more difficult to keep because they're always in demand enough not to be committed to any one band and still keep a gigging calendar of 3-5 nights a week. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Thanks for your posts on this great thread, it is the most interesting and informative stuff, and the best definition and explanation of 'the groove' I have read.
Man, I've done gigs where I'd rather be working with a metronome or a drum machine than some drummers, and that's really bad. Working with a bad drummer can leave you both physically and mentally exhausted.
I remember doing a pick up gig once where it was an entire weekend that I was hired to play on and we'd get paid on the 2nd night. The guy who hired me, the guitarist, never told me who was gonna be playing drums, but at least I knew the bass player and he was a good blues bass player.
Unfortunately, the drummer was, in the nicest way possible, flat out sucked, and some moments he was ahead of the beat, some moments behind, plus his time was horrible and after he was given a solo, he committed the two cardinal sins that would get a drummer fired in 98% of pro situations: dropping beats and losing the time.
After the first night, me and the bass player were both saying to each other that we came home totally wiped out because the drummer couldn't keep a groove to save his life and if we were gonna be paid on both nights rather than on the second night, we both would've bailed out of this gig in a hurry at the end of the first night.
I told the guitar player that if he was to hire another drummer like this guy, don't ever call me again because that was flat out torture.
I can deal with mediocre guitarists far more easily than dealing with a bad blues drummer. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I could not agree more with this. Some one who doesn't know anything about music can go out and hear a band and the next day be talking about them saying "I don't know what it was about those guys, but they were REALLY good." I was probabley because the rhythm section kicked ass. I've gotten spoiled over the years because I've played with some really good drummers and bass players. A couple of months ago I was at a jam, called out a song, and it kept going faster and faster until it ended up about twice as fast as it started. Near the end it sounded like we were playing a completlely different song!
Man, when I was running a jam, that was very often the truth and so I had to be that someone that got on everbody's ass to get them in line and didn't take crap from nobody.
When you're around good rhythm sections, it's real easy to get spoiled.
Now there are tons of people who bitch and moan about the "special invite" jams, which are often called "snob jams," but truth be told, those jams tend to have a far higher level of overall musicianship than open jams do and even if you're around a drummer who might be playing ahead of the bea, if their time is consistent from start to finish, I can easily adjust, but in an open jam, you gotta be ready for a freaking horror show.
Whenever I find out I'm with people who are ahead of the beat, I make damned sure that I call the tempo off slower or I'm gonna feel like I just got run over by a bus on serious drugs!!! ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Bobs explanation of the groove is excellent. I'd love to see a video example of setting up the metronome on the 2/4 and hearing the snare. I'm simply a 'hobbyist' with the harp and although I THINK I understand what's being talked about there an example would go a long way towards a better understanding.
Adam did a couple of videos on just counting the 12 bar blues. I see this concept as a similar but more advanced type of 'lesson'. FWIW.
---------- "You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. You Cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom."
Most any metronome will easily allow you to do adjust to that setting but to actually hear it, you CAN'T be listening like the way the usual music fan/hobbyist does (the usual fan/hobbyist too often has only two very basic listening parameters: solos first in a major way, and then the vocals and almost NEVER about the groove), but listen like the way a pro musician/recording engineer/record producer listens to music does, meaning being VERY ANAL about each and every minute detail, sometimes known as LISTENING TO MUSIC WITH BIGGER EARS (which obviously doesn't having some whack job stretch out your ears to look like Dumbo the elephant LOL), and a video can't really help you learn that because the only way to learn it is by paying EXTREMELY CLOSE attention to EVERYTHING that's going on, which few hobbyists/fans ever really do (and if you ever watch American Idol, this is exactly the way they're listening to what's happening and whenever I've watched the show, I've agreed with Simon Cowell 98% of the time and I often hear exactly what he's talking about before he even says it). ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Thank You! I`m glad you enjoyed it! ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
