Re: [Harp-L] 100 Authentic Blues Harmonica Licks



My point in posting Sonny Rollin's "Blue 7" is that the blues is very amendable to all sorts of expressions; not all are simple. The blues as played by Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Count Basie, etc, is still the blues, just as truly as is the blues as played by Big Walter and Muddy Waters.

Anyone who thinks the blues is limited to a few tunes and a couple of dozen riffs simply isn't familiar with American music.
(Or they're yanking our chain.)
WVa Bob

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 7, 2014, at 9:36 AM, "Harmonicology [Neil Ashby]" <harmonicology@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> The word I was looking for is definitely "Jazz". While there are, as Winslow mentions "several flavors of blues", then the separate labels of "blues" and "jazz" provides some way to classify those various styles.
> 
> Some tunes might be jazz in the first position and blues as played in the second position; the tune "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" is such an example (which tune in the second position sounds more like "When Johnny is Carried Home").
> 
> The tune "When the Saints Go Marching In" is often included among "blues" but is definitely jazz.
> 
> By correctly using of the labels "blues" and "jazz" then these styles of music become much more clear.
> 
> /Neil (" http://thebuskingproject.com/busker/2025/ ")
> 
> On â6â/â6â/â2014 at 3:24 PM, "Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> 
>> Walter Horton recorded more than one tune with "Shuffle" in the 
>> name. One of them is based on a Pinetop Smith piano tune, 
>> Pinetop's Boogie - http://youtu.be/fDp9cOLxYv0 - that was widely 
>> imitated by guitarists, pianists (who still play it) and Walter 
>> Horton.
>> 
>> Blues can't be narrowly defined, and even blues musicians don't 
>> alway agree on a definition. Some point to the 12-bar blues form, 
>> even though several other song forms are used in blues. Others 
>> point to the lyrical content and mood of the tune, as bluesman 
>> Johnny Shines did. Johnny as a walking encyclopedia of the music 
>> and used to ride with Robert Johnson in his younger days. Johnny 
>> contended that if the lyrics went something like "My girl's so 
>> pretty," that it wasn't blues even if it was a 12-bar blues, used 
>> blue notes, etc. If the song was a song of religious praise, 
>> again, that wasn't blues to Johnny.
>> 
>> In other words, definitions of blues have several possible 
>> parameters, and which ones you choose apply to are highly personal.
>> 
>> Several flavors of blues exist, and none invalidates or is in any 
>> way superior than the others. Two larger streams can be discerned:
>> 
>> ==The urban, largely northern stream, that is often embedded in 
>> jazz and highly informed by systematic musical education. Sonny 
>> Rollins would be paddling in this stream.
>> 
>> ==The stream that flows directly from the rural south, often into 
>> cities in both the South and the North, where it's changed by its 
>> environment but remains largely the result of oral tradition 
>> carried by people of rural, working backgrounds with little 
>> interaction with higher education. Walter Horton navigated this 
>> stream his entire life.
>> 
>> Both streams mix in the flow from several related musics. 
>> Untangling which part is hokum, or old medicine show, or gospel, 
>> or pure dance music, and so forth may have useful academic 
>> applications, but for people who actually listen to the music and 
>> go out to hear it, the distinctions are largely meaningless, 
>> especially when used to value one thing to the exclusion of 
>> another.
>> 
>> Winslow
>> 
>> Winslow Yerxa
>> President, SPAH, the Society for the Preservation and Advancement 
>> of the Harmonica
>> Producer, the Spring 2014 Harmonica Collective
>> Author, Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
>>             Harmonica Basics For Dummies, ASIN B005KIYPFS
>>             Blues Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-1-1182-5269-7
>> Resident Expert, bluesharmonica.com
>> Instructor, Jazzschool for Music Study and Performance
>> 
>> 
>> ________________________________
>> From: Harmonicology [Neil Ashby] <harmonicology@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> To: harp-l <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx> 
>> Sent: Friday, June 6, 2014 7:15 AM
>> Subject: RE: [Harp-L] 100 Authentic Blues Harmonica Licks
>> 
>> 
>> Actually, my next instrument will eventually be the clarinet; I 
>> cannot afford any sax at this time. That Sonny Rollins tune is 
>> actually real blues style; therefore Walter Horton's uplifting 
>> "Shuffle" would be described as something other than "blues".  Any 
>> ideas?
>> 
>> /Neil (" http://thebuskingproject.com/busker/2025/ ")
> 




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