My gig on Wednesday ended a tad early and I was able to catch Aki finish his gig at Blondies in SF- and take this video. It had been a while since I'd seen him. Wow.
It occurred to me that the harp positions are a little like languages. 2nd P is my 'first language' and the one I am by far the most fluent at. Obviously - Aki is more than 'fluent' on 3'd - he's a master.
A topic worthy of it's own thread - that I briefly got into with Dennis Gruenling a while back - is the notion of 'lick based' vs melodic centered music and playing. I contend that though Blues has it's melodies - it is predominantly 'lick based'. That is not pejorative in my mind. I play Blues but also Country, Rock, Folk, and Reggae etc. - and like having a melody to center my playing on. Aki here demonstrates how compelling and inventive a great player can be - in hyper 'lick' mode. It is not easy to remain creative within the limits of most blues. It's so simple, -but so hard to do really well. - - Of course there are blues players not as skilled or inventive, who rely to much on a limited 'lick vocabulary'. That is another matter.
re. tone and set up. Aki is playing a JT30 with a hot CR element (I believe he said) - directly into a Fender Blues DeVille. His Sonny Jr. being the shop. Unlike me, - the man don't need no stinking pedals!
Cool ideas! This is the best I've heard from Aki! Like it so much. Thanks for posting ---------- Konstantin Kolesnichenko(Ukraine) http://kolesnichenko-harmonica.com/
