Carlos del Junco

[Winslow Yerxa <76450.3230@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

TO: internet:harp-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Carlos del Junco (del HOONG-co) is definitely wax to watch. I saw
his two award-winning performances at the World Harmonica
Championships last summer, and he deserved them totally.

For the blues prize he played and sang Rocket 88, and for the
jazz he played first a very difficult fusion composition, then,
and this is what really won it for him - a standard in swing time
- Out of Nowhere or something like that. I can't remember what he
played, but I sure remember how he played it - swung like hell,
fluent, BIG tone and total command of bending and overblowing.
There was some very stiff competition in both categories, and
Carlos nosed past everybody.

I have the record with Bill Kinnear, and will review it in HIP
No. 5, but I find it a bit of an anticlimax after what I heard in
Trossingen. Carlos has a big future, and I'm not just touting a
fellow Canadian. He's the genuine article.

If you want to check out the current CD, titled simply "BLUES"
send him money - as much as you can get - at

BIG REED RECORDS
122 PENDRITH ST, BSMT
TORONTO ON M6G 1R7
CANADA
(416) 533-8883

Another very *musical* player of a very different type doing good
things with a new diatonic approach is Michel Herblin - another
gold medal winner from the 1991 festival. See the review in HIP
No. 4 for more on him.