That depends on your definition of blues. If you mean that this doesn't sound like someone doing typical 2nd position draw bends, you're right. Actually sounds a lot more like a sax player playing blues to me.
Not blues in 6 keys. Poll, of sorts, who ever listens to Levy (or any of his congregation) because it's music they enjoy listening to? Blasphemous I know but technique is one thing and music is another. What would Albert King do to Howard?
I actually have to say, his new CD Tonight and Tomorrow is one of the best jazz albums I've heard in years. I don't think his musicality is really something one can put in question. Howard is hands down one of the most musical players of his generation, on any instrument. He doesn't aproach harp from a standard perspective. He doesn't blow standard blues harp. But if you want to count his technique against him, and say it isn't musical, you need to re-examine what your definition of musicality is.
Amazingly, I find myself agreeing with EV360 on this one. He's playing a competent, unexceptional jazz blues solo in the first video. It's far beyond anything I could play, of course--in terms of harmonic knowledge, all those shifting tonal centers--and it was far beyond what pretty much any diatonic player could do at the time. (I'm hedging my bets, because I suspect that Carlos del Junco could have done something pretty close to this in 1992, although probably not quite that smoothly in all 6 keys.) It's essentially an exercise--or at least that's how I hear it. The OBs are indeed a little out of tune.
Now, lots of jazz trumpet players play occasional notes out of tune and it's no big deal; it's part of how they manifest "effort," soulfulness, and bluesiness in their playing. So slight out-of-tuneness per se isn't a huge deal to me. But I don't believe that this particular solo would convince a straight-ahead blues harp player that overblows are something that must be investigated.
I'd hope, though, that Carlos's playing, Jason's, my own, and now Jay Gaunt's and the other young Turks' playing might serve that function. Overblows are so damned fun, and if you know how to use them, they mesh seamlessly with any mode of deep blues playing, acoustic or electric.
It would be a mistake for somebody to totalize from this video and say, "Overblows just don't really WORK in blues harmonica playing." This isn't blues harmonica playing. This is jazz harmonica playing. There is a difference.
Last Edited by on Oct 03, 2010 10:17 AM
Adam: "not blues". Agreed, and that was my point. Jazz? Absolutely. No doubt a genius on the harp. I spent a week with Howard at Augusta, pre-Flecktones. Carlos was there too. My point was that I (me) don't listen to much of it. Jean Luc Ponty or Mahavishnu doesn't get a lot of play either. I love it, but I don't listen to it often. The musicality was never in question. My (blasphemous) poll was to ask who does, regularly, listen to it. What Albert King would do is more to the point.
Last Edited by on Oct 03, 2010 11:37 AM
I keep struggling with that overblow thing...all to no avail. Man, if I could get those things down and move them in and out of my playing as it is now, I would be hell on wheels. All I get when I try them is no sound at all or just a squeal that makes no sense. I keep reading what you guys write and nothing changes...I CAN'T be that bad or that dumb. Something ain't right, etc etc etc Do the harps have to be modified to this? All I use is Big Rivers out of the box, totally stock. And a couple of Golden Melody's, keys of C, D,and G, because they get a sound I'm looking for in a coupla' tunes, etc etc Comments welcome
joelee, me too, sort of. I do blame my OB limitations on the quality of my harps. I'm precise in my playing and the tone is there too. More understanding of theory would help too. I'm trying to step up and do mods myself and get 12th down. It's coming, slowly. And no, we're not that bad or dumb, but I do get the frustration.
Last Edited by on Oct 03, 2010 11:37 AM
@joeleebush. Yea I know how frustrating this is, it's still fresh in the mind!!. I've been in the same boat!! I cannot remember what particular piece of advice helped me get it but I've added my own thoughts FWIW on the 'Starting to overblow' thread. Setting up harps can help and if you're prepared to give it a go look at this vid by Joe spiers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qkx7a5mAKA. I managed to get overblows before setting up my harps. It is mainly technique, having said that if your harmonica is badly out of adjustment, you will struggle.
It's not blues harmonica, it's a jazzman playing blues on a harmonica. This doesn't diminish its importance one iota. It's simply a way of making a reasonable idiomatic distinction--which is also a way of avoiding silly questions, for example, about what Albert King would think of all this.
Little Walter was a bluesman who was profoundly influenced by jazz horn players. I'm reading Wayne Goins's unpublished biography of Jimmy Rodgers and that theme comes through again and again. There's a long history of productive interchange between blues players and jazz players. But individual instruments evolve idiomatic traditions, and individual players express varying degrees of attachment to those traditions.
My own approach to blues harmonica has been profoundly shaped by a commitment to stealing everything I can from jazz, blues, and funk horn players. I'm drawn to the cry in the sound of Bobby Watson and Maceo Parker--the blues note--and so I try to get a little of the jazz/funk flavor that surrounds that cry.
Overblows just make it a little easier for me to steal licks. But not having overblows certainly didn't stop Little Walter from stealing licks from Louis Jordan and Joe Liggins.
Howard's approach to playing blues on the harp is very much a jazz piano player's approach: he's not nearly as interested in blues tonality, per se, because that's not a core element of blues piano playing--unless, of course, you're talking about Otis Spann and the other guys who hit the major and minor third simultaneously. Two side-by-side keys a half step apart. Harps can't do that--or rather, it can be done, but it's not something most of us would want to try at home. :)
I happen to love Howard's melodic excursion, because I love jazz piano. But what I really love in a jazz piano way is when guys like Gene Harris and Les McCann throw down the funk. As a harp player, that's the stuff that appeals to me. I don't believe that's the stuff that appeals to Howard. And I think that's the stuff--not the clean stuff, but the dirt--that some people are missing in Howard's playing, or at least the sort of playing highlighted in the first video above.
It's only "missing," though, if you demand that Howard be something that he's not. He's a different kind of musician, with different preoccupations. By the same token, I just can't begin to move with the chords the way a jazzman moves. Is that my lack? I've learned not to think so. We all do what we're passionate about doing and what we've got some intrinsic gift for doing. That's where the fun--the bliss--is.
Here's a great Gene Harris video: swinging like hell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwXkS7lht7I
Last Edited by on Oct 03, 2010 12:10 PM
The dirt, as Adam termed it, is what I get from Albert King. That's why I asked what Adam called a silly question. I guess it was inevitable that this would digress into "what is blues". I usually dodge this one. Albert, and others, could nail it with one note. It's not a chord progression or a scale but whatever it really is it's not what Howard does. He is amazing at what he does, which IMHO, isn't blues. When I saw him do "Round Midnight" he brought some serious soul but it's not what I usually get listening to him. By contrast, Adam, I actually listen to your music- especially the funk. AGAIN, I don't listen to Howard and I wonder who does, beyond marveling at the virtuosity.
Last Edited by on Oct 03, 2010 12:50 PM
I listen to Howard on a regular basis. I also listen to Adam regularly. I think they both have very different styles, but there's a lot of great things from both of them that I'm working on incorperating into my playing.
Last Edited by on Oct 03, 2010 12:52 PM
Howard Levy is a great musician. He is a fabulous harp player and piano player. I have seen and heard him do his jazz thing. It was very nice.
I have seen him play Blues. It didn't move me at all. In fact, it was kind of boring. It lacked emotion. Just because something can be done, doesn't mean that it needs to be done.
@Littoral: I don't think that you and I really disagree. We both like the dirt! But I also like the tinkle, the meander, the free exploration, of jazz. And the 12-bar blues form, considerably leavened with transient harmonies, is a core element of jazz--so close to the core that I simply don't think it's fair to say of Howard's first video, "It's not blues." It's certainly not the Albert King/Albert Collins sort of blues--but it's much close to the B.B. King style of blues when B. B. is in his Django mode. Or at least it's within spitting distance of that. It's blues the way many legitimate straight-ahead jazz guys play blues. Pat Martino and Joe Pass play blues, in this sense, and it's wonderful music, full of interest.
But here's the difference: the sort of jazz blues that Howard is playing in the OP video is, from my perspective, entirely legitimate as what it is: jazz blues. When Howard steps into more traditional blues contexts, with a reference-standard sort of drums/bass/guitar Chicago or West Coast blues trio, he's doing something quite different. At that point, Albert King and all those who share his perspective--including you and, in this case, me--have every right to begin judging Howard's blues playing in line with the idiomatic outlines of urban/electric blues harmonica, broadly conceived: Big Walter on one end, Sugar Blue on the other, if you will. Judged that way, I strongly suspect that he suffers a little for the comparison. Or at least that's how I see it. But I've always been a huge fan of jazz, and not every blues player and/or fan is that sort of jazz hound. For many years in New York, as I was making my way forward with Satan & Adam, I listened to far more jazz than I did blues. WBGO FM out of Newark was always on in my apartment. I enjoyed the afternoon blues hour, but my listening hours ended up being dominated by jazz. I had no real interest in learning how to PLAY jazz, though. But I had a great deal of interest in stealing heads, riffs, and swirling energy from jazz guys, and from horn players on all the various margins of the blues. Pacquito d'Rivera was another favorite. I tried to copy that hot swirling melodic energy and rhythmic intensity, without worrying about mastering the changes. If there's any secret to my playing, that's it. Or that's half of it. The other was the guy I was playing with, who had a lot of that energy himself--funk and gospel and jazz along with blues--and gave me a remarkable daily forum for working out my new (and purloined) ideas.
On "Kick and Stomp," I throw the head from Art Blakey's "Moanin" into one song--I never did learn how to solo over the song itself, but I've always loved the head--and I stole the melody of an obscure Houston Person recording, "Sweet Sucker," and made it the opening sequence of "Every Day I Have the Blues." Please check out "Sweet Sucker" on iTunes. What I did is a 100% ripoff, with a few small changes in bar 10, and I'll be the first to admit it. The opening melody of "Down Ain't Out" is 75% of the head from another Houston Person jazz blues tune. The jazz/blues world is full of ideas for a harp player who is hungry to find them. There's a world of cool, interesting licks that sax players play that sit just outside of what we harp players tend to do. A parallel universe. Some of those licks don't fall naturally, but some of them quickly become natural when you fall in love with them and try to translate them onto the diatonic harp. Those three overblows in the middle octave give you a little more latitude on the borrowing end.
Last Edited by on Oct 03, 2010 2:14 PM
I don't like the first video. It does not move me. It's to many notes and no groove.
However, I've purchased one 3 month subscription in Howards Harmonica School and it really showed me what he can do. In much of the intermediate lessons, he keeps his playing much less complex and it's absolutely amazing how soulful and funky he can be. Before I saw those performances, I was not a fan. Now my feeling has switched completely!
I prefer much of his intermediate lessons over the advanced ones in which, to my ears, he just plays too many notes. But that's what he likes, I guess.
I know I certainly listen to his playing, but for sure there is an element of listening due to harmonica interests. Though I think it's a shame that people like Ev630 aren't able to completely free their minds from the "blues genre" and "blues harp" sound to really hear the amazing eargasm that is going on. It is kinda like none of us listen to indian sitar music (ok, maybe a few do), possibly cause our minds and ears aren't free enough to take in the amazing sounds happening. Humans certainly have a tendency to discard anything out of the ordinary and label what's unfamiliar as bad or good. As far as some of the blues players Adam noted as inspirational, I know I do not really listen to Jason Ricci's music or especially Jay Gaunt's stuff. I don't hear much of a solid timing and groove in either of those players playing. No melodic ideas or development of themes and lots of out of tune notes. It comes across to me as harsh and the playing ultimately seems desperate. Don't mean to incite a riot here, just to me, Howard has a very laid back and subtle syncopation and groove. He seems to force nothing and always be in control, like the best of virtuosos. A lot of the blues harp virtuosos, not so much. To me the ultimate consummate player is Dennis Gruenling, now his stuff I can and do listen to all day. VERY enjoyable and so much class and style and laid back intensity that Jason or Jay do not show. I'd say probably my favorite musician is Pete Fountain. If you notice, he always acts like he's singing and plays solid calm melodic ideas with a huge thick tone and development of ideas. He's the player I've been trying to emulate the most for the past 3 months. It's not little walter, but it's for sure a blues.
My hair comment will come back to haunt me someday. Someday I'll meet Howard, and he'll run his fingers through his hair and say, 'Oh, you don't like my hair?' and I'll have to skulk away in bald embarrassment.
My reason for being here is to gain more access to what music can do. I get there sometmes and I want more. Houston Preston "Sweet Sucker" is 9 whole minutes of pure tasteful MUSIC. Thanks. Reminds me of Ronnie Earl or Snooks Eaglin. More to study...
Jazz or blues, it's HARP, ie 10-hole diatonic. Now you may find, as I do, that Howard's music gets a little samey after a short while, but there's only one instrument that makes THAT sound. It's what you do with that unique sound that counts, and what I find frustrating is that so many performers seem to be stuck in a 12-bar rut. The harp has featured on some of the greatest hit songs we have known, apart from its blues heritage. It doesn't need virtuosity to play a killer harp refrain, just good songwriting, or great interpretation.
Oh, and try spray dry shampoo.
Last Edited by on Oct 04, 2010 3:57 AM
I am always amazed at Howard's playing. Though this clip may not have the grit and dirt to hit me on an emotional level, intellectually it blows me away. The guy is a great harmonica player period. And that is not to say that I have'nt seen him do soulful, moving stuff live, because I have, and I love it. What I really want to know is: when is Wayne Goin's biography of Jimmy Rodgers coming out?
Uhhh, blues is a FORM not just a STYLE. Until you listen to lots of Jazz you don't know how much good 'blues' there is out there. I listen to Howard Levy because I enjoy his music.
Please Ev630, I was listening to Pete Fountain before you were born. I think it's interesting also that many straight ahead blues lovers here are saying it lacks emotion and that the harmonica is letting him down, but I also think that's the other way around: the straight ahead blues players who refuse to advance their instrumental technique to its limits are letting the music down. Charlie Parker was one of the blusiest players around and nothing he played sounds like 2nd position blues. Can't blues be intellectually stimulating, beautiful, and rough all at the same time? I think Howard's tone is also one of the more powerful and pure tones.
Also, I don't think that overblows are specifically the "advancement" of the blues. Essentially those notes have always been used in the blues on most other instruments. I appreciate the minimalist approach and movement for sure, but I think the question comes down to whether you want the vocabulary of a 3rd grader or a college professor. If you can say everything you need to say after 3rd grade, more power to ya. Or maybe there just wasn't as much to say :p
Blues as a style is one thing, but blues is technically a form that is usually based on the I IV V chord changes (and in jazz, it is quite common to have the ii-V-I also, and sometimes other chords, but that's another subject!). Jazz guys also use a lot more chord extensions.
I've seen video of you Michael. If you were born before me then you should consider registering yourself as a non-ageing miracle. Maybe sell the skin care products on cable.
My apologies Ev630. Just based on your posts I thought you were either really old or really young, so I just guessed. Just another incidence where, yet again, your correction was needed.
"My apologies Ev630. Just based on your posts I thought you were either really old or really young, so I just guessed. Just another incidence where, yet again, your correction was needed."
Well, anyway, I'm glad I was able to put you on to Pete Fountain.
Now listen, Nurse Mikie, seeing as I'm really old, it would be nice if you could warm the bedpan next shift. There's a good little feller.
Well I know you're anxious to put me on to things, but it was my 80 year old clarient teacher that did that. A portland legend, played with many of the greats in the 50's and 60's.
And sorry to disappoint you but I am an R.N. case manager meaning I run the show, not help with bedpans. And, when it's time for your shot, the needle will come extra big and sharp ;)
Blowgard, I have heard a whole lot of Levy, and incredible amounts of it are emotional. That doesn't make sense to only say it's cerebral. He's the closest thing to Coltrane playing the harmonica.
To put Howard Levy into a little box marked 'jazz' is to do him a massive disservice and suggests to me that people need to listen to a bit more of what else he does.
