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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
one upmanship jazz vs. blues on harp
one upmanship jazz vs. blues on harp
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colman
88 posts
Oct 01, 2011
1:45 AM
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with all the harp players to be heard ,internet and live,i noticed an element of one upmanship mostly from players of OB,draw .frame of mind-"we`re finaly playing harp like a horn and not just blues cliche`s".this sounds like i play better than you attitude.isn`t jazz full of [cliche`s] just like blues ,even the same licks most of the time.
arn`t these [cliche] licks the very words of the language
that define blues language.Ithink we have the best time to learn any thing you want on Harmonica, and BLUES is the root to put your feet in the mud of music. you can lick that harp untill you start spitting out some soul..do it...
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Stevelegh
307 posts
Oct 01, 2011
7:05 AM
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Evolution my friend. If you think about it, if we were playing the harmonica properly, we'd be playing 'Oh Susannah' in the key stamped on the coverplate.
I think what you're seeing here is simply the appreciation of technical ability.
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jonlaing
326 posts
Oct 01, 2011
7:59 AM
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Also keep in mind that Over bending isn't just a jazz thing. There are plenty of hardcore blues players using OB's extensively. One-upmanship can be in any musical idiom.
I think the craze about OB's is that (in blues at least) you can open yourself up to using note patterns that aren't cliché, simply because those notes weren't available to the traditional blues guys.
IMHO, the best way to avoid a cliché is to play real sincere music, though adding some new notes to the mix is definitely an easy quick-fix.
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The Iceman
116 posts
Oct 01, 2011
10:53 AM
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Is the perception of an "attitude" purely coming from the harmonica player, or is it somehow being perceived as such by the listener? The listener (with his own baggage and attitudes)is part of the equation, too. I've known people who've claimed attitude from someone when it was really insecurity on the part of the perceiver.
What I witness is a total explosion of different kinds of music being played on the diatonic now with the OB technique allowing all the notes to be considered.
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The Iceman
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Joe_L
1489 posts
Oct 01, 2011
11:40 AM
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'What I witness is a total explosion of different kinds of music being played on the diatonic now with the OB technique allowing all the notes to be considered."
I guess this sort of depends where you live and the crowd you run with. Most of the players I see and run with are fairly traditional blues players. I don't hear much non-blues being played on the harp. I don't hear a lot of people playing OB's.
In fact, most of the hardcore blues players that I know, seem to look down on players that use that technique. Most of the people that seem to really dig the OB stuff are other harp players, not the blues freaks.
A couple of months ago, I went to one of Hummel's blowouts. He had Sugar Blue, Billy Branch, Rod Piazza and Carlos DelJunco on the bill. The audience members that were hardcore harp geeks thought Del Junco's performance was amazing. The blues fans were wondering why Hummel had hired him, because they weren't digging it. Some of the comments, if written, would violate the forum creed. They preferred Sugar Blue, Billy and Rod.
Personally, I won a harp contest last year by doing the exact opposite. I didn't go modern like some players. I went more traditional and tried to play more lowdown Blues than anyone else. To the others players, my playing was pretty pedestrian and probably pretty cliche, too. On that day, it worked for me. I walked away with about $500 worth of swag.
I guess it really depends on the audience.
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Last Edited by on Oct 01, 2011 11:43 AM
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jbone
646 posts
Oct 02, 2011
12:29 AM
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i would not know an ob or od if they bit me on the a$$ although i may do some just incidentally. it's not something i've studied or practiced.
what has impressed me greatly and influenced my playing is the blues guys and later, swing and jazz guys who use 3rd position, both diatonic and chromatic harps. the important thing to me is that 3rd has a lot more notes right there without increments of bending.
not that i've left 1st or 2nd behind, but 3rd is a much bigger part of my playing in recent years. one reason is, besides the wider range of possibilities just sort of built in, i don't seem to blow out as many reeds. i was notoriously hard on draw 4 and 5 for years. my solution has been to turn up but play with somewhat less force and more finesse. in 3rd this is easy and one can hit some great runs without a lot of bending or overbending/drawing.
audiences may notice that the harp sounds a bit different in 3rd than 2nd but by and large they aren't really interested in why. some of my peers here are catching on to 3rd somewhat and that's good to see.
i definitely like to have a 12 bar blues going and the band jazzes it up some while i'm on board.
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kudzurunner
2714 posts
Oct 02, 2011
1:31 PM
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"Influenced as much by horn players as by other harmonica players, and as much by jazz as he was by blues, Jason Ricci freed the harmonica of these customary, if self-imposed, restrictions for the first time."
Oh, I'm sorry. I've just misquoted Scott Dirks, Tony Glover, and Ward Gaines. It should be "Little Walter," not "Jason Ricci." Page xii in the uncorrected proof of BLUES WITH A FEELING: THE LITTLE WALTER STORY.
Let's try that again.
"Influenced as much by horn players as by other harmonica players, and as much by jazz as he was by blues, Little Walter freed the harmonica of these customary, if self-imposed, restrictions for the first time."
Little Walter, according to Dirks, Glover, and Gaines, made a point of staying out ahead of other players, inventing new licks, new rhythmic approaches, and forcing them to chase after him.
That's why he was a great player, and why we still care about him. Anybody who tries to insist that jazz and blues are somehow different things, or that we should all reign our creativity in if we want to play "real blues harmonica," is dishonoring the spirit in which Little Walter achieved his greatness.
I'm OK with people veering away from the spirit of Little Walter, as long as such people understand and acknowledge what they're doing. But generally they don't. Sometimes they actually have the nerve to set themselves up as guardians of the True Religion of Little Walter.
Overblows are one way of putting yourself out ahead of the pack. Little Walter would unquestionably be exploring them if he were around today. They're certainly not the only way of achieving that end; they're simply one good way. But there are other good ways. Many, but not all, of them, involve new technologies. Some of them involve non-standard positions (non-standard for blues, I mean). Some of them involve covering and transforming songs that are decidedly not part of the blues common-stock songbook. "Smoke on the Water," for example. (Little Walter and his band played all kinds of things that they didn't record and some of them would surprise contemporary blues harp fans. If they heard it and liked it, they worked it up and blasted it out.)
I like Hakan Ehn not because he sounds like Little Walter, but because he plays in the spirit of Little Walter, which is to say that he tries hard not to sound like people who are trying to sound like Little Walter.
If you're inclined to disagree with me, you need to read--or reread--Little Walter's biography.
Last Edited by on Oct 02, 2011 1:43 PM
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Frank
2 posts
Oct 03, 2011
4:55 AM
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For my taste the bottom line is musicianship and tone. I can careless if someone sounds exactly like the Walter's, Toots, Stevie, the Sonny's Etc. I also can careless if someone sounds totally unique. If it "sounds good" better yet "sounds great", to me and my ears- Then I'm a happy camper, PERIOD...
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kudzurunner
2716 posts
Oct 03, 2011
9:14 AM
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I agree. In fact, I'll go further than that. Sometimes I like New York Super Fudge Chunk and other times I'm happy with generic soft-serve yogurt. I like to hear passion in somebody's playing; I like to hear people who know and have mastered the tradition--what my teacher Nat Riddles would call somebody who can play "properly"--and I like to hear people who, having done that, are trying to say something new. I can enjoy Junior Wells "Messin With the Kid," and I also enjoy Sugar Blue updating that song, making it sound modern and urban for OUR time, just the way that Junior made the blues sound modern and urban for his time.
The only thing I don't particularly enjoy is somebody who replicates famous blues harmonica recordings or solos note for note, or is devoting his creative impulse to that task--UNLESS that person is still very much in a student phase and understands that what he is doing is essentialy engaging in what graduate students call a final public oral exam. In that case, great! Somebody who has passed beyond that phase demonstrates that he's passed beyond it by stamping his individuality on what he's playing, so that I say, "Wow! I've never heard it quite like that before!" Cotton and Branch do that with "Juke," for example.
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