He played primarily a three octave chromatic which he sandwiched between his seemingly long hands. I think this is, in part, the secret to his tone. He opened and closed his hands, modulating his tone the same way an acoustic style country blues player might. To my ear, he has the most expressive voice of any chromatic player that I listen to, and I pretty much listen to and love them all.
Btw, it's really uncomfortable to hold the harp that way...
He was a great player, that's for sure. I read his autobiography "it ain't necessarily so" when I was about 10. Much admired.
There's a lot of other guys out there you don't hear so much of, weren't as well known, mostly because they were born later. Larry Adler was born at the perfect time to be who he was. There are some things that Larry played that Dom Sgro played as well, and I think Sgro's version is better. Sabre Dance is one that comes to mind. Dom Sgro was the guy playing lead on the Johnny Puleo records. Dom's extremely versitile. I've only seen one guy do Charlie McCoy-style stuff on the chromatic that sounded like Charlie playing it on a diatonic and it was Dom. He and his brother started out as Borrah Minnevitch Harmonica Rascals, then were 2/3 of the official U.S. Marine Corps Harmonica Trio, they were part of Puleo's Harmonica Gang (that's where their awesomest stuff was recorded)... also were on the Grand Ol Opry when they went through a Country phase. Larry's a lot like Howard Levy, you have to say "WOW!" when you hear him, but most people don't sit around listening to him all day. Dom's a little easier to listen to on a regular basis. Dom didn't always play classical music, but when he did it was kickass and his brother Tony played the kickassiest chord solo that ever was played on "Night on Witch Mountain," which was actually Mussorgski's "Night on Bald Mountain." Dom's chromatic was pretty awesome on that. But that chord solo, is the most badass thing ever played on chord. I've talked to Dom and tony about those Puleo recordings, they just walked in and sight read that stuff COLD, then never played most of it again. Maybe they went through it while they were in the hallway or something if they were lucky. You listen to that stuff and think that they were sightreading cold, it blows the mind! The Sgros, by the way, are still around.
There was one movie where Larry played a Marine or something. He played this really ROCKIN' bluesy stuff. Not on Youtube anymore. I wish I could embed it. It rocked!
Larry was a monster and probably the first player (if not the first) to begin playing classical music on the instrument and one of the first classically oriented musicians of any instrument to work with jazz musicians and the session he did in 1937 with Django Reihardt and Stepehen Grappelli is some amzing stuff to listen to.
The way he uses his hands to shape his sounds is a HUGE lessons EVERY HARP PLAYER absoluteLY NEEDS to learn ASAP. regardless if it's a chromatic OR a diatonic.
I still remember seeing him on the Johnny Carson Tonight show playing the out of Flight of The Bumble Bee.
He never learned to do any repairs or maintenance until he was in his 80's, when his harp teach, Anthony Dannecker's father, was on vacation from the old London Hohner offices and he had to retune a reed and was actually quite proud of finally learning how to do it at such a late age.
To many classical musicians, he is largely the ONLY harmonica player they truly respect, hands down. He was also a huge influence on blues harp great George Harmonica Smith as well and has mentioned that on many occasions. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
@Bob Yeah I didn't get into detail earlier because I was busy, anyone even remotly interested in the harmonica should listen to some of his music. One thing Bob didn't mention (or thought about) was he was a acoustic player. Remember when he first started and well into his career. That was the way you played the harmonica. Now with that in mind watch some his youtube vids and look at how he holds the harp. You would have to be one big handed person to do that, hold a mic and get it to sound like that! I've tried to do it without a mic and I can't. I learned to play the chrom with a mic and actually hurts when I try to play like that! Great harmonica player and a pretty funny guy!
Harp was never originally intended to be an amplified instruemnt, but nearly everything weren't originally designed for that purpose in mind. One of the most radically designed chromatics ever, the CBH chromatics were designed as a chamber (AKA acoustic instrument) and having owned one, I personally can say I much prefer it played acoustically than amplified.
His brother Jerry was a terrific chromatic player in his own right as well. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
On Larry being a human effect machine... Dom Sgro comes back into this thread by coincidence only. There is this effect Dom Sgro came up with from hearing piano players delay one key like a nanosecond or something, it's called a delayed octave. The only people I've heard do it are Dom Sgro - he uses it often and like a million times on "I Will Wait For You" - and Phil Caltabellotta as a tribute to Dom. I was listening to a recording of Larry playing Rhapsody in Blue a couple of years ago. He starts playing these octaves and then he breaks out into these delayed octaves for a few seconds. I thought this was huge because Larry was doing this back in the 1930s or something. I posted this on Slidemeister. The response was most of the people couldn't hear it and I was probably crazy, delayed octaves don't exist, they're proving it with computer programs and I was thinking all this time, "hey, clean out your ears." Even Phil chimed in on it with one of his three lifetime posts there, says hey, if you guys don't believe it, look me up at Garden State and I'll play 'em. It was hilarious. Larry Adler Delayed Octave Thread on Slidemeister
On a delayed octave, you don't hear the delay, it's too fast. What you hear is a music-box type sound. I've never heard any other instance of Larry playing a delayed octave and he went into them briefly on that recording, which unfortunately has been removed from Youtube by the Record Industry Overlords. But it was very interesting that he hit them, period. He was doing some cool things with tone.
