Back in 1990, I heard the following track by (blind) pianist Marcus Roberts on a local jazz station and bought the album. The album is called DEEP IN THE SHED. The song is called "Spiritual Awakening." It still moves me:
In my experience, many if not most blues harmonica players aren't just fanboys, discographers, and gear-heads. They're on a journey. They're exploring something, pursuing something, trying to work something out. Or maybe they WERE on a journey, which is to say a spiritual journey, a deep exploration, but then they got sidetracked.
I'm not really on that journey with the harp anymore; to the extent that I'm on a musical journey, the harp merely supports the explorations I'm making as a singer/percussionist member of a blues duo that performs and records. But I remember those days well, and Roberts's recording summons them up. Even though I played a very small instrument, I was influenced by horn players and others, and I was moved by Coltrane's spiritual commitment. I thought there was something almost sacred about my instrument--as though keeping it in my pocket were like keeping a mandala or mojo bag of juju close to my soul.
I remember many nights when I'd toss some harps in a daypack, drive down to Dyckman Street, drive out to the end where it hit the Hudson, and walk out into the park there--the playing fields at the foot of Inwood Hill Park. I'd toss my daypack onto a park bench, with the soft light scattering down across me, and take out a harp, and start playing. I wasn't lonely or scared. It was constructive solitude. I was without a girlfriend or any obvious ongoing love interest, and that was a familiar condition. So there WAS, in fact, some loneliness down below. But there was also something enlivening about being alone with my axe--as though I were going to figure something crucial out, get down into the nitty-gritty.
Often I'd cycle through familiar licks. Sometimes I'd veer into a handful of licks that I'd stolen from Sonny Rollins one of the times I saw him live. Sometimes I'd pause, listen to the evening, and reconnect with whatever feelings I hadn't quite listened to or connected with.
What I'm sketching is what feels to me like the spiritual dimension of the instrument, as I experienced it in those days. It was a kind of love affair, and I'm sure this is an accurate analogy because there were times when I suddenly realized that I was no longer in love with the instrument--the feeling was gone. And I'd feel guilty about that, almost the way I'd feel guilty if I were with a lover and realized that it was just a sex-thing, not a love thing, and was going to have to end.
I've never spoken about this dimension of the instrument, at least not on YouTube or on this forum, although I wrote about it in "Mister Satan's Apprentice." As I say, I suspect I'm not alone in having experienced and to some extent worked this dimension of the instrument and the idiom. I'm curious to hear other reports. About the wonderful acoustics to be found in the loneliness of abandoned tunnels, for example.
Man I just lost a whole big post about this. My bad!
I agree, harmonica and music have that component of spirituality, not always and every time but for me it has added depth to my life for many years.
My blues began at an early age. So did music as a balm for my pain. It was many years later- my mid thirties- when I truly began the journey and it would not have been possible for me if I had not taken steps to get clean and sober. My recovery from the hell of addiction is based in spiritual living, and this gave me a place for music to be a deep healing salve in my life. I was pretty much incapable of learning the way a lot of people do before I got clean. Even after, I believe I had always lived with ADHD, dyslexia, or something. But stubbornness can be an asset and I found my way onto jam stages, into living room jams, and eventually into bands. Sure it was rough at first, but I kept getting bits and pieces until I had something. Radio, lp's, cassettes, CD's, live shows, all have been a part of my increasing inspiration and desire to play, better, always. I also found my way to a yellow legal pad and a pen as well and began to write lyrics some 25 years ago. Wrote some real clinkers at first! But eventually I improved and have probably 2 dozen that we have published, recorded, and produced. Some are total flights from reality but some are dead on about me. Along with writing, my harp work has gone through a lot of mutation and progress over many years. Again, the sort of learning weirdness I've lived with for most or all my life has put me on a different path of development with the instrument. No less effective! I have had many times on stage where I was there but also behind and above myself, watching and marveling at the event: A band or duo, with me in there, doing something involving synergy. Creating. In the ZONE. That to me is spiritual. I have had nights where I pretty much do not remember what I played and was told later it was memorable. Just not for me. Kind of bittersweet.
I have been graced with many kind people over the years who helped me, confronted me when necessary, and told me the truth when I needed it. Sometimes humiliated, I finally found humility instead and became as much a student as I have been able. Still am today and always.
Pablo Casals was asked, in his 90's, why he continued to practice. His response was something like "My teacher thinks there's hope for me". With that in mind, I keep trying to find ways to play better and in different ways. My trick bag has expanded. In the duo we have crossed over into several "non blues" idioms, roots, Americana, rock, old country. My partner has challenged me to find ways to put harmonica into some songs I never thought possible, at least for me. I have never been more fulfilled in my life than the past 12 or 14 years. Not that I know it all, never, but that I am learning and expressing at a much deeper depth. It's definitely spiritual. I recall a night at a King Biscuit, Saturday night, late. We were on the observation deck over the levee. The last act on stage had finished and there were several people on the deck watching the Mississippi River with Jo and me. Total strangers all of us. I took out a harp and just sort of slipped into Mellow Down Easy, all instrumental. In seconds, most everybody on the deck with us was tapping feet, slapping the railing, or grunting along. Under a full moon, on the river, with total strangers of like mind and desire. Synergy. Spirit. A sort of wholeness. ----------
I just did a repair on a chromatic for Sxip Shirey. I didn’t know anything about his work until I met him. Since then I’ve watched a lot of videos featuring his work and heard him talk about music. He uses harmonicas quite a lot in his work but he is a multi-instrumentalist, including all sorts of noise making devices which many may not think of as instruments. I really like what he says about music and composition and what he wants music to do for him. All of this interview was interesting to me but what he says at 7 minutes maybe pertinent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGG9wt5DIVQ&feature=share
Last Edited by SuperBee on Mar 23, 2018 4:49 PM
