[Harp-L] HERESY- Vive la difference!



Technical perfection, cutting-edge innovation, pop-music infiltration ... Hmmm.  

To my simple mind, it's not so important. it's a simple matter of taste.

To my ears, most jazz harp, indeed most harp other than blues, often sounds  - again, to my ignorant ears - very technical, not what I love the most in the sound of harmonicas, and often I don't get the heart of it.  Hey, I've  a great video of Larry Alder with Nina Simone, it's beyootiful, but I still don't get his tone.  

That's to My ears - which, like the rest of me are damaged, slightly bent and a bit aged.  Be thankful they aren't YOUR ears, and I will reciprocate.

To MY ears -

those little twenty dollar diatonic toys (;>) are uniquely capable of bringing the deepest, purest personal tone literally from a player's guts and bringing out a silky-smooth, or harshly gut-wrenching, or lyrically dizzying, emotionally moving sound.  

I call that blues, you can call it whatever you want: stale, run of the mill, old-fashioned, hackneyed, boring, derivative, simplistic.  

And I've loads of respect for my many good friends who do all that other stuff too, often quite beautifully and with great acumen, verve and musicality.  One needn't like it, though, or damn it as small stuff.  Please.

For me, I hope one day to be labeled a run-of-the-mill ten-hole blues sucker.  I'd be in awfully good company, with Lynwood Slim, Kim Wilson, and so many others.

Not an argument, not even an opinion, merely a subjective taste.  And it's that taste, my taste, for which I play, not anyone else's.  I trust you all do the same.  

So maybe we're ALL heretics!

-Dave Fertig




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