Re: Toronto Star Blues Festival

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My responses to this message are interspersed below. Thanks, RH

Mudharp@xxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> Richard Hunter wrote: <snip>
> 
> <<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.>>
> 
> Richard,
> 
> What do you think IS going on? Do you think they deliberately tried to
> avoid harp in the Toronto fest?

I have no idea what the motivation might have been: simple disinterest,
anti-harp bigotry, I dunno.  I can only observe the effect.

> Regarding the Canadian blues harp player, Mark Bird Stafford you
> wrote: (sorry for the out of context snippage)
> 
> <<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? >>
> 
> I'm trying to understand your point here, but I'm not sure I do. Is it
> that you think that some festival promoters are looking for busier
> players and that most harp players don't fill that bill? That harp
> players aren't high tech enough? What do you mean by, "how much more
> ground the guitar and organ are covering in their solos"? Advanced
> technique or just flash, or is it something else? 

What I mean is that the Chicago blues harp style is now over 50 years
old.  It is beautiful music and it will never die, of course, but the
same could be said of Bach, and Bach is typically confined to one
station on the entire radio band, wherever you happen to be.  Blues
guitar players have moved on; the big audience has gone with them. 
There were certainly traditional guitar stylists at this show -- Anson
Funderburgh's style is straight out of the 50s -- but there were plenty
of newer stylists as well.  In short, the harp was not well showcased at
this event, Stafford's solid playing and band notwithstanding, and I
don't think the answer is loading up the program with more Chicago-style
harp players.   

> As you know,
> especially since you're one of them, there are a lot of harp players
> that are pushing the boundaries of what's thought of as traditional
> harp playing. 

Yes, this is true.  

> I wonder why the promoters of the Toronto fest may have
> overlooked one of the best, right in their midst, in Carlos del Junco?

I don't know.  Like I said, it's disturbing. The best way to make it go
away is for some of those leading-edge harp players to make an effort to
get on the program, at this and other festivals, and show promoters and
audiences that something exciting is going on where harmonica is
concerned.

Regards, Richard Hunter
www.hunterharp.com