[Harp-L] Purple Haze

["Michael Peloquin" <peloquinharp@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris Michalek is way too scary for this old fart.
When I heard him play Purple Haze (Hendrix) on 10 hole in St. Louis, I was 
blown away. He was onstage at Jason Ricci's harp blowoff with a great rhythm 
section and tore it up. Maki (Jason's killer drummer) and Christopher Strone 
(bassist extrordinaire) gave Michalek the drive to evoke the spirit of Jimi 
on our humble instrument. Earlier in the set, Chris admittedly was not that 
compatable with Jason's Hemi Rig. When he played Purple Haze though, I 
thought that it was perfect.

The mp3 clip that Chris provided was good, but the live moment was 
incredible. I never thought about what position he was in until I heard the 
mp3. It was given away at first by 3rd note that you hear in the melody 
(minor 3rd.) I knew that it was a well played overbend (6OB) and the only 
position with limited difficulty that has a minor 3rd on an OB is 2nd 
position.
The part where I started to doubt myself was when he played the 4th note in 
the melody (4th scale degree also) 4 blow and 1 blow sound like super 
finessed draw notes with Chris' master vibrato.
This is vibrato(pitch variation) NOT throat tremelo (volume variation.)
I think that Chris would welcome all to steal his licks but dare anyone 
(even HL) to approach his vibrato mastery on any note on the harmonica. This 
includes blow, draw, bend, OB--he can finesse them all.

More soon on Chris Michalek's soon to be released CD: Hey Is For Horses.
stay tuned for info at http://www.michalekstrone.com

Michael Peloquin
http://www.globerecords.com/cgi-bin/db/search.cgi?specific=itemno&phrase=GLO-025