Guy is an amazing player ...It is soooooo refreshing to hear something besides the same old slow blues 2nd position E...
If you are ever in DC, book a lesson with him. Fred is quite a teacher and a gentleman. ---------- Greg Jones 16:23 Custom Harmonicas greg@1623customharmonicas.com 1623customharmonicas.com
I didn't pay attention to the harp he was playing, but it isn't necessarily custom (1), and if it is, who is to say how off of stock it is (2).
I am not a huge fan of his Little Wing cover with Dave Chappelle, and it was enough to keep me from checking him out (seemed like fast blues thrashed out over non-blues progressions). This, though, was just, WOW!
In this tune, I liked the jazz-funk-blues fushion of it all! It was very modern, very bluesy, but totally different.
I'm about to switch from guitar to keys in my band it seems. Ideally I'd like to keep my hand in with some guitar too, but that's another story. One of the motivations behind this is so I can play some harp. I've proposed we do Boogie On Reggae Woman (we're a funk / soul / disco outfit) and Fred Yonnet's version is the one I have in mind. I just haven't told the bad yet.
I've just been checking out his site. We know he's a Seydel guy, but does anyone know which model and tunings he uses? He offers three models on his site, but it doesn't say much about what he uses on his site or the Seydel site.
It's real fun to listen to, that's for sure -- and I like how much he is interacting and playing with the bass player -- a real conversation happening, not just a "featured artist" blowing his brains out with the other guy there as window dressing......
The other cool thing about what he's playing is that it's not just pentatonic scale work -- there are a lot of chromatic lines threaded through all of his soloing....
I read a response from Yonnet on one of his youtubes saying that he plays OOTB Seydel 1847 Silver.......
Last Edited by on May 29, 2012 11:12 AM
I have to listen again when I can, but I were the solo breaks diatonic progressions? He played just about every pitch available on the harmonica at some point in time.
Beyond the themes in the tune - which were ultra impressive - I don't recall if he was just playing out or following the harmony. There were some cool blow bend riffs and runs with OBs.
It would take me forever to learn the themes and then the changes the solos are over...not to mention up to speed. That is some crazy sh!t. ---------- Mike VHT Special 6 Mods Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas - When it needs to come from the soul...
Fred Y. plays out of box 1847 Silvers and is a Seydel endorser. He doesn't use the conventional position system which is interesting enough. He just knows what harp he's supposed to use. In addition to playing with Prince, he has also played NBA games, sat in with Stevie Wonder a bunch of times, and played a few huge political rallies in DC. His wife is a successful PR rep which, of course, helps when you are a great musician. (Really?...lol). I think he was on NPR a couple of weeks ago but I haven't found the link to it, yet.
---------- Greg Jones 16:23 Custom Harmonicas greg@1623customharmonicas.com 1623customharmonicas.com
One thing I noticed with this first vid is that Fred is a lip 'blocker'. He tips the harp up and gets his embouchure from his bottom lip. This is the technique Jason and Christelle use. IMHO this is the most important but the least taught technique out there.
Once you get it, you've got staccato and all the abilities of a lip purser and the tone of a tongue blocker without straining your upper lip.
My playing has come on leaps in the last couple of months due the the guys here showing me this, for which I'm eternally grateful.
I've been trying to cop a few licks off this. It seems to be played with a D harp, but I don't know if it's standard richter tuned. His licks are so unorthodox, I can't tell. Mike, have you had a go at this at all. If anyone can fathom it, it'll be you.
I sent an email last night to Seydel and got a reply from Rupert Oysler. Brilliant!
Hi Steve,
Thanks for your inquiry and interest in Seydel. Fred does use out of box harps, and he works on them himself. I'm not sure what, if anything, he does beyond gapping, reed adjustment, and some fine tuning ( i don't think he does do any embossing etc.). Before we developed the stainless steel reeds he did play the Favorite, but he quickly fell in love with our stainless steel reeds and switched over to them. He usually plays the Classic 1847, but he also does make hybrid harps by using Favorite covers and even sometimes combs, and mounting the 1847 reedplates.
Hope this helps.
I encourage you to reach out and email Fred directly, he is a very friendly guy, and of course would love to know a fan! fred@fredyonnet.com
Thanks for the post. I'm at home and managed to sit at the piano and work out the key. The song is in F#M. Fred is using a B harp in second position from what I can gather. I've got to learn some high end stuff. It's so beautiful and such a contrast to all the lower end stuff on this track.
I think a B harp works, but it goes beyond 2nd position. I haven't really sat down with it beyond the pattern he uses as sort of the basis of his rhythm playing and trying to find the notes he is using for some of the fills. He is all over the harp literally playing every note on it.
Regarding the actual riffs that make up the theme, I have no clue, lol. I haven't messed with that at all.
I *think*, and this is literally after trying for about 1 minute before work this morning, that he is playing arranged parts over the real changes and that most his leads are either diatonic changes or extend a few bars at a time.
What makes this song so impressive, IMO, is the head/riff/theme or whatever you want to call it. The rhythm playing and soloing are way cool, but someone else can insert their own ideas there, obviously.
Freddy is a great player. I first heard his CD in 2001, which was more like a promotional EP for the Weltmeister Blackbird (aka, Seydel Blues Session, Bushamn Soul's Voice).
The first video in this thread is an example of understanding the chord progressions and knowing what notes work well over the changes. In other words, Freddy has, and has developed good ears. It's easy to get stuck in a rut playing blues all the time. I often like to scan through the radio and play along to whatever style comes across the air. Playing other styles really helps you develop as a musician, as well as a harp player. Keyboard knowledge is a plus also. I think it's important to surround yourself with good musicians who will inspire and challenge you to move to a new level.
Great video and playing. Thanks for posting this, Mike.
I went through a handful of vids of his this week and I think he is pretty much a straight to the PA player. The wireless mics I've seen are straightforward vocal mics. ---------- Mike VHT Special 6 Mods Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas - When it needs to come from the soul...
There seems to be a bit of a turn away from the traditional harp through amp thing. There's been vids from Fred, Todd and even Jason Ricci recently just running through a P.A.
I'm really enjoying it. You can hear the tone of the harp, which is helping me to hear what instruments I like the sound of.
I was looking for harp-based versions of "Boogie On Reggae Woman" last night and came across Yonnet's version. I watched several videos by him. I've never met him, but the "IRock Jazz" video makes it impossible not to like him.
I'm of two minds about his playing--and again, I'll stress that I've never seen him play live. What I've found on YouTube, though, offers some consistent themes, at least to my ears:
1) remarkable technical ability, by any standards. Plays fast, difficult stuff.
2) great interaction with fellow musicians, and exciting to watch. Truly compelling stage presence.
3) a tendency, more often than not, to stress speed over lyricism. This isn't always true, it's just generally true--although there are exceptions, such as here:
4) a tone without much subtlety. The word that came to mind as I watched his videos--and it's not a nice word--is "brutalist." He is, for the most part, the opposite of sweet or lyrical. His tone on the diatonic harp has little in the way of tonal shadings, undercurrents, swelling and receding overtones. Mark Wetmore, the coach of the U of Colorado cross country team, used to tell his runners (the Buffaloes) to "bang it out" on Sunday mornings: get up a good head of steam and keep rolling. Yonnet bangs it out. His overblows aren't particularly smooth; sometimes they squeak.
5) As I said in a much earlier thread, his sense of blues tonality, like his approach to tone, lies somewhere outside the core of the blues tradition. I don't get the sense that he's spent much time learning the subtleties of blues tonality, of the sort retailed by Big and Little Walter, Junior Wells, etc. This becomes pointedly apparent every time his jazz solos dive down into straight-up blues riffs. His heavy vibrato and boundless energy sails him right by the deep stuff. Since many people have insisted that the blues lie at the heart of jazz--and, in particularly, the ability to edge notes in ways that make them speak, echoing blues singing--this last point arguably undermines his entire approach to jazz.
I say "arguably" because I know the history of jazz is the history of changing tastes, changing aesthetics. When Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie first came on the scene with bebop on the early 1940s, moldy-fig critics of the time made exactly the same claim about them: that their tone was "thin," undeveloped, wrong. It's possible that my critique makes me a moldy fig here--although the praise I've heaped on various elements of his playing and performing isn't at all typical of the moldy fig orientation.
Still, that residual off-ness--or some version of that off-ness--is what my ears hear, along with all the great stuff. I wish they didn't. Yonnet is an incredibly gifted, energetic, soulful player: one of the best players in the world, surely. It's often been said that the true test of a jazz player is the ability to play a ballad: the ability to take your time, deploy tonal shadings, play long, feelingful notes, let go of the need for speed. If somebody can post a video where Yonnet plays that sort of ballad, with beautiful/moving tone, controlled/modulated vibrato, and something that might be called lyricism, please post it!
When a player this gifted comes along, I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting him to be THE great redeemer of the instrument--the guy (or gal) we can all embrace as deserving of every bit of fame and stardom, every bit of public acclaim, that he accrues. He's certainly headed in that direction. But he hasn't gone as far as I wish he'd go. What I hear, with Yonnet, is something I can only call uneven development. I hear far more practice time devoted to technique, acquisition of harmonic knowledge, and performance skills than to tone and blues tonality.
Here are a couple of videos:
It's possible that some of what's bothering me, tone wise, has slowly ebbed in last few years. His tone is smoother here. But the blues-tonality thing just isn't there:
The last video, below, is from 2014. Very dynamic stage presence! I love the intensity, the fusion grooves, the whole thing--except for elements of the "tone thing." Is brutalist too harsh a word for what I'm hearing? It probably is. Am I wrong to yearn for more subtlety? You tell me. This IS amazing playing. But........
Watching the latter part of this video, around the 10:30 point, I started chuckling. The MF can definitely blow!
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Aug 07, 2015 5:19 AM
His sound reminds me of Tom Ball. Not that keen on him though, great player no doubt about it, but the Jazz/rock thing is well...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. ----------
"Those British boys want to play the blues real bad, and they do"
Frédéric is awesome and refreshingly original. I've been following him for a few years, and he is really hitting the sweet spot lately.
In terms of harps, I have heard rumours that he uses standard 1847 plates with Favorite combs/covers - stock Seydel components, so not really "custom" harps.
Adam, great analysis. I recently made a demo of Boogie On Reggae Woman in Yonnet's style. The band I was auditioning for were looking looking for a stand in harp player and wanted to hear something acoustic and a Capella. They passed me over for a fat bearded hipster who could barely play but looked the part.
Your comments made me take a look at the video using your thoughts on Yonnet's playing as a guide.
First thing I noticed was that my playing is violent. I don't normally use anywhere this much attack and its almost like I'm thrashing the harp in places. I think this is something to do with Yonnet's "brutalist" approach you describe, except I've exaggerated it to the point of caricature. My timing is another matter. Oh dear....
Another thing that is now obvious is that I'm punching way above my weight from a technical standpoint. Fred is a genius who has his licks and technique down. I'm trying to play stuff that I simply don't have the technical ability and muscle memory to execute this kind of playing. I submit this video not by any means as a show piece, more as a cautionary tale. Perhaps the fat hipster was the safer bet.
The word "brutalist" was probably a mistake, since it's generally applied to a specific sort of architecture, one featuring unadorned concrete in massive quantities. I'm leery, quite frankly, of offering candid thoughts about the playing of top players--and in this case, a player whose technical gifts far exceed my own, somebody who could summon up a note swarm that would blow me bodily off whatever stage I might encounter him on. As I've tried to make clear, although I hear what I hear and am being honest about it, I'm aware that ALL players are constantly evolving and that one of the surest ways we can each continue to evolve is by learning to listen for what doesn't quite work--in others' playing and our own--even as we take just pride in what we've achieved.
My own weaknesses as a player, for example, are pointedly evident to me, and if I had more focus, I'd establish a daily program of practice sessions to address and mitigate them:
1) my third-position playing, especially on shuffles, lags far behind my cross harp playing.
2) not nearly as good on slow blues as on other sorts of grooves. Especially in band contexts, has a bad habit of losing the groove when he tries to throw in a lot of notes.
3) since 95% of my professional playing has been with duos, I'm not nearly as comfortable in band settings as other pro players
4) because of hand grip and/or lack of practice, doesn't have as good an acoustic sound as other players like Ronnie Shellist and JR; doesn't "wah wah" as effectively
5) fakes his way through jazz ("St. Thomas," etc.) but still can't play it.
6) overblows well, but can't sustain OBs and can't effectively deploy overdraws
And that's just for starters. I have, however, managed to mitigate two items that used to be on that list
7) can't play and think musically using fast 1/16th notes (I spent a year on this and came up with "Crossroads")
8) still can't play "Georgia" (Alan and I finally started playing this one and now I've got it, more or less.)
As for you, Steve, the answer is practice, practice, and more practice--not just generalized playing & noodling, but practice designed to address specific issues, such as knowing what the vocal melody of the song actually is when translated to harmonica, and hearing the lyrical "curve" of the melody rather than hearing a disconnected series of notes. You can only hear that melodic curve if you've got a keen sense of where the downbeat is and where the groove is, so anything you do to practice grooving the groove will help.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Aug 08, 2015 4:31 AM
Thanks for the critique Adam. You're 100% correct, even if you've highlighted another issue with my playing here, LOL! I am playing a bunch of poorly connected notes in many places rather than playing melodically through. I've basically thrown everything including the kitchen sink, rather than the nice tune that it is. And practice. Proper focused practice to address issues and make improvements. This is one of the first recordings of myself I've ever made and I don't think its unfair to say I've been under some illusions as to my ability and how my playing comes across. I certainly need to make this a regular exercise. Thanks again for the comments and I certainly take these onboard.
