Re: [Harp-L] Max Geldray

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

I have to agree. I've been listening to Max lately and marvelling at his easy rhythmic jazz feel and his playfulness. When I heard him on the Goon Show as as teenager, I used to think he was "just" a melody player. Listening back now I can hear how he effortlessly wove improvisation into the melodic flow.

The only way to really hear Max Geldray is to check out the Goon show, an anarchical BBC radio comedy that ran for most of the 1950s and inspired the youngsters who would later become Monty Python's Flying Circus. Each half-hour comedy would feature two musical interludes, one from Max and one from singer Ray Ellington.

You can find several old Goon shows on Youtube (audio only, as this was radio), and one actual video with Max trying to keep a straight face while he plays, as his melody keeps cutting to things like Peter Sellers playing rhythm with a seltzer bottle or a close-up of Spike Milligan's mouth making some of the specialized nonsense syllables that were bywords of the Goon show. Several old episodes have been reissued on CD, and some are available on the web if you look. But as far as I know, no-one ever compiled a CD of just Max.

Max Geldray had an interesting life story. Born Max Van Gelder in Holland, he took the stage name of Geldray (Van Gelder supposedly sounded too Dutch for a jazz musician) and worked in Europe during the 1930s, but then fled to the UK during the war to avoid the Nazis (he was Jewish, and the rest of his family died at the hands o f the Nazis). There he became a Goon show regular after the war. He later moved to the US and spent his final years as a part-time counselor at the Betty Ford Clinic, and died there at the age of 88, just a few years ago.

Winslow

Winslow Yerxa

Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5

--- On Tue, 10/20/09, MundHarp@xxxxxxx <MundHarp@xxxxxxx> wrote:

From: MundHarp@xxxxxxx <MundHarp@xxxxxxx>
Subject: [Harp-L] Max Geldray
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2009, 9:47 AM

 
There were faster players than Max Geldray..
There were more technical players than Max Geldray...
But NO ONE has mastered Jazz on the chromatic with as much soul and feeling 
 as Max Geldray... In my opinion.
I wish I had known him... He inspired me to play harmonica when I was 8  
years old... That is a long time ago.
I hope more harmonica players... chrom and diatonic, can learn... from Max  
Geldrays EXQUIZITE tone...
In my opinion...
He played the harmonica well?
NO... He played...Simply the best...
FIND Max Geldray music and enjoy it!
John "Whiteboy" Walden
Cebu City
Philippines.

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