Back in the 1930s - when Borrah Minnevitch first heard Ernie Morris' (the black guy in the Harmonica Rascals) vibratto, he snatched Ernie's harmonica, and took it apart to see what made it sound like that... of course it was nothing. But he was used to mechanical harmonica trickery -we'd call it customizing today from Leo Diamond, who served 18 years hard labor in Minnevitch's Harmonica Rascals. When I hear Harmonica Rascal's stuff from the 1930s and 1940s, I hear stuff that sounds like specific customizing techniques had been applied to certain harmonicas... but I never had that smoking gun, because of the recording quality. I got this mint condition LP of Leo Diamond from FLEAbay that was recorded in the 1950s in hi-fidelity and now I got that smoking gun. I can hear four very significant customizing things that have been done to this harmonica. I did a sort of blind test with my go-to-ear Wally Peterman (as I'm doing here) and he picked up the major things I did, plus something else).
This recording is from the 1950s. The stuff I'm noticing is stuff I've also heard on his recordings from the 1930s.
---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne Elk River Harmonicas
Interesting. The style of music and harp technique make me really think of Larry Adler! but discovering which devices have made the chrom better...no clue. Maybe the slide and also a gain into performing bends?
There's this misconception out there that nobody ever customized a harp before 1980 or whatever... but As far as modern harmonica customizing goes, Leo Diamond was a stud and invented it, he was employing a lot of then-revolutionary techniques back in the 1930s. That's one of the things. He's bending down every note to pitch. To bend a note down that much to pitch, the harmonica has to be tuned way sharper than stock - but the harmonica wasn't tuned up, it was tuned down and wasn't in the key it started life out in. Wally Peterman said it sounded like it was tuned all the way up to 450. THe slide, yes, there's like no air leaking through it. Two custom things down, more to go - the slide wasn't one of the big four I was thinking of, though. ---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne Elk River Harmonicas
Well... It's possible something has been done about the volume of the harp. Maybe not the ootb covers.Vibrato is not performed here using the hands but the hands play a role in cupping...I think covers and/or mouthpiece are not original.
OK, I'll come clean on as much as I can talk about. Some people can hear this stuff, some people can't... that's why I ran this by Wally Peterman this morning in the Elk River Forum - without saying what it was that I heard - and he heard the same things I did - plus a couple of other things I didn't notice. Wally has the most incredible ear on earth. it's superhuman. WAY BETTER than mine. He's my ear check.
Remember that all these things - he was doing them in the 1950s here and I can hear it on stuff he was doing in the 1930s.
1) Embossing - It has an unmistakeable embossed tone.
2) Custom tuning - It has been tuned specifically so that notes are bent to pitch. Some of them he hits and bends them down past pitch then levels up to pitch. I mistyped earlier, Wally said to make this happen he would have had to tune the harmonica to A=460! What we think he did was take a 270 and tune it down to a low C with solder.
3) Air loss. There isn't any. This harmonica is incredibly tight. The loss you usually get on the slide isn't there. He's customized the slide assembly so it doesn't leak. Wally said he can hear the increased compression from leather windsavers. That's something I didn't notice at first, but the compression is there. Leather windsavers is something you can train yourself to hear... compare the tone of chromatics from the 1930s with later ones.
4) He's dramatically reshaped the reeds. On the higher reeds, he's thinned the reeds considerably. You can really hear this in the vibrato he gets at 2:24 - I had a "holy sh..t!" moment when I heard it. The note is F5. Pick up a chromatic and see what kind of vibrato you can get on F5 - or try it on 5 draw of a C diatonic for the same note and see what kind of vibrato you can get.
All of these things he's done allow him to play with the techniques he uses. The reed thinning and air sealing especially - plus a couple of other things - all make these strong vibratos, easy bending possible - coupled with the fact of course he was a hell of a player.
Some might think I'm crazy, but when you blow a reed, emboss a reedslot, then blow it again about 50 million times, etc. you recognize tones and response.
Leo Diamond could get a little weird sometimes in his music, but I consider him one of the best chromatic players ever. He and Leo Friedman were also the guys who taught Jerry Murad how to work on harps and Murad was a nut about it. Ask Joe Leone to tell his story about going through the baby food jars at Murad's house that time.
My point for bringing all this up is to make this point: these guys were just as intelligent as we are.
---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne Elk River Harmonicas
in Kim Fields' book "Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers" some of those vaudeville guys talked about how the Hohner chromatics were such leaky crap, they would work on everyone's harp in a given band on an almost daily basis. it seems to that that these guys had a true "the show must go on" attitude. ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
When I evoked Larry Adler, I first thought about the difference of vibrato technique, which is hand performed by L.A., and throat performed by your guy with -as you emphasized- an outstanding result; I would never have thought, however, that the reeds could have been modified in the sense you describe, and now I understand why the windsavers have been modified as well: it was a necessity! Therefore, having assumed that "something changed about the sealing but without touching the windsavers", I inclined to mouthpiece changing. Anyway, that huge customizing brought obvious improvements and the final result can surely be highlighted. Thanks for chipping in, and for the lesson!
Very interesting - would never have caught it myself but it doesn't surprise me. The chops, the orchestration, - all while doing hilarious 'shtick' - pretty amazing guys.
Very sweet and bluesy Diamond cut.
@ David Sorry for your loss - Tell us more about H. Cecil Payne. That's a gerat tribute line. ----------
Thank you Bonedog, if you look a little down in the threads there was a thread I had about him it was called OT: Cecil Payne, my greatest musical influence... Its a recent thread shouldn't be very far down. I was mistaken earlier on it being low C, we think it was a G that had been tuned down from an A 270. Bob McFarlane, his son is THE Todd McFarlane, has the closest style probably to Leo's and is just as talented. Bob is playing on this video below about 50 seconds in. He's doing a lot of stuff just like Leo, but when you listen to Bob and Leo, you hear a difference and it's the harmonicas themselves. Compare the bends especially, Leo's harmonica obey's Leo's every whim. Bob has to work a lot harder to get his to do that stuff... The bends especially... Bobs got to force them in:
---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne Elk River Harmonicas
Leo Diamond...now that cut you posted, Dave, that is tone to die for. Thanks for for this topic...utterly fascinating. Leo's tone might even surpass Larry Adler's wonderful expressiveness, in this cut. Puts me in a whole new 'quest for tone' mood. I think it's important to realize just how much internal harmonica design and modification, along with technique, and the sound delivery system, of course, all contribute to tone.
T'was my pleasure, Robbert. He gets almost a diatonic-like tone from the chromatic and when you listen to it against Bob McFarlane, who is equally as talented and has a similar style, it really pops out that Leo has a better tool to work with. ---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne Elk River Harmonicas
Leo Diamond is one of the chromatics in these videos below. The customizing is a lot more subtle on these, but it's there and it ain't just him. Most of the guys were doing this stuff, especially those in the groups, where they shared what they knew. They were really close, except for, you know, stuff like when Sammy Ross tried to kill Bill McBride on the beach, but Sammy was a nut. He probably weighed like 400 pounds, he had Bill on the ground and was getting ready to smash in his skull with some object, the only way they could get Sammy off him - and not kill him - was somebody, Leo Friedman maybe - yelled out they'd got some food in a care pack from home and Sammy jumped off the guy to get the food. But those guys were for the most part, a band of brothers. I was talking to Tony Sgro the other day and he was telling about how when Minnevitch died, all the harmonica players in New York got together and had this huge party to celebrate it... "there was drinking and everything," Tony says.
But anyway, I'm rambling. They embossed with a ball bearing attached to a rod. The ball bearing was about 1.2 inches in diameter. Leo Diamond and Leo Friedman were the guys, as far as I know, turning everybody onto this stuff.
The guy who comes in at 1:46 on the first video sure sounds a lot like Ernie Morris on a diatonic. I love how they have the bass harmonica sounding like a didgeroo, or whatever it is they call that thing.
---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne Elk River Harmonicas
Moon Cat, I liked your comment to me earlier today about it sounded so much like a clarinet. I bet if you took some folks who weren't harmonica players and asked them to indentify that instrument, I bet a lot of them would get it wrong. That is some incredible tone.
---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne Elk River Institute for Advanced Harmonica Studies
"Oh, Eeyore, you are wet!" said Piglet, feeling him. Eeyore shook himself, and asked somebody to explain to Piglet what happened when you had been inside a river for quite a long time.
Last Edited by on Jun 22, 2012 5:17 AM
