Toronto Star Blues Festival

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I attended the above-name festival from Friday, July 25 through Sunday
July 27.  I heard some great music, much of it not blues, the name of
the Fetival aside, and had some thoughts about blues harmonica. 

First, a big harmonica comment: although this was supposedly a blues
festival, and the harmonica is supposedly one of the major blues food
groups, there was little harmonica to be heard during the three days. I
found this to be pretty disturbing.  If you can't hear a lot of harp at
a blues festival, then something is going on, and by definition it's not
harp-friendly.  

Second big comment: I heard a few amazing bands at this show that didn't
play either harmonica or blues.  The Afro-Celts have as many as 10
people onstage at a time, and they play heavy African rhythms with
Celtic melodies and instruments on top, and these big synthy noises and
arpegiators growling down low.  They make you want to dance, and the
sound is intoxicating.

Theresa Andersson, Swedish born and New Orleans raised, played electric
violin and sang her own music on top of a NOLA rhythm section of guitar,
bass guitar, and drums.  The violin runs through a pitch shifter, delay,
distortion device, and wah wah, and she works those effects smart and
hard.  She sounds like Hendrix playing the violin and singing like
Bjork, and all the implied viruosity is there.  Her rhythm section can
handle the subtlety and the big noise in equal measure.  I saw her twice
this weekend, and both times she put on an absolutely stunning
performance of high-voltage, big groove electric rock.  It was as
electrifying as the Doors show I saw in NYC in 1967, i.e. as good and
unique as I can remember.  I highly recommend a visit to see her
perform.

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones performed, with a very able saxophonist
holding down what used to be Howard Levy's seat. They were great, of
course, but I must say that the constant stream of very fast picking on
very fast pieces got to be a little monotonous in a ticky-tick kind of
way.  

On Friday night I heard harp emanating from a club just offsite, and I
dropped in to find Les Smith playing harmonica with the Mike Branden
Band.  Branden plays hard guitar-driven blues, and the band lays down a
big groove, thanks in large part ot a very potent drummer.  Smith plays
effective lead and backup; his chording is especially deft.  
 
David Gogo, Canadian guitarist, put on a dazzling show Sunday of very
heavy guitar-driven blues with a loud backup band of hammond organ,
bass, and drums.  He was funny in a very intelligent way, too, e.g. in
his presentation of a chance encounter the night before with The Artist
Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.

Earlier that day I'd seen Mark Bird Stafford, a Canadian blues harp
player very much in the Little Walter mold, and it made me think a few
things about blues harp.  Stafford's phrasing was true to Walter's, and
the rest of the instruments in the band were also true to the stylings
of the era;
and I couldn't help but notice how many more notes the other players
were playing.  Blues harp is about the big sound and the big note, not
the big run that winds up and the instrument.  It's cool, but it's hard
not to notice how much more ground the guitar and organ are covering in
their solos, and their notes sound big and nice too.  Is that why there
were only a couple of harp players at this festival, and only one
featured?  

David Gogo told me in a brief conversation that he felt pretty much that
harp players hadn't progressed in the last 20 years like guitar
players.  To take one obvious example, most of the guitarists at this
show have learned to use a wah wah pedal a la Stevie Ray Vaughn.  That's
a big change in blues guitar sound.  It's a big change to have all those
fast runs going all over the place.  What big changes have happened to
blues or rock harmonica sounds and approaches in the last 20 years? 

I'll tell you what: John Popper, and Carlos del Junco, and Mike Stevens,
(the latter two Canadians), and Paul deLay, and a bunch of others doing
new, exciting work.  But those guys weren't at this show.  Why?  
Something's got to change here.  I don't want to see another blues
festival with exactly one featured harmonica player over four days of
shows on three stages.

Anyway, I also saw some very good traditional blues stuff: Sue Foley,
Anson Funderburgh, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Big Bill Morganfield,
etc.  Overall, this show was a lot of fun, and a pretty good bargain
too.  Toronto is still feeling the effects of the SARS scare, and
there's a lot of hotel and restuarant space available to visitors at
bargain prices. On the biggest day of this show (saturday July 25), they
pulled in 14,000 people, which is big enough to be fun for a crowd-hater
like me.  To top it all off, there was a jazz festival going on in town
too, with free admission (!), so you could take your pick on any given
day at no added cost. 

I plan to make a bid to play this show next year. I recommend that other
Harp-Lers do the same.  This is a big blues show in a big city, and it's
not cool for harp to be almost nowhere in sight.

Thanks and regards,
Richard Hunter
http://www.hunterharp.com