Re: [Harp-L] Valved players unite! - Valves and Flecktones

[Pierre <plavio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris:
> According to one of the flecktones that I know, Bela was the weakest
musician.

Yeah, but he was amongs giants. In my mind Futureman was the weakest, never 
liked the sound of his synthetic drums. Kind of bothered me on some tunes.

I always felt Béla put the team ahead of himself; to my mind he is a great 
band leader. Seemed to me he was more than generous letting others lead 
although everyone was fair. I think most of the compositions are Béla's, at 
least in the early days.

> Victor Wooten will have a substantial run.  That band wouldn't have
been as successful without him.

Victor is tops, probably half the crowd at shows were there to see Victor. 
For sure he can write his own ticket, but what are the odds that it will all 
click again. To be really successful, a lot of elements have to align.

> Bela certainly puts on a good show and they regualrily had extended
solos and jams.  Bela is an odd fella, but he understood success was
about "the show" more than the music. They used a lot of gimmicks and
were very successful.

To me, its all about the show, anything that creates joy helps whether its 
comedy of gimmics. The Flecktones definitely milked this.

I must admit that I have fallen prey to using cheesy gimmicks like
playing oh susannah with no hands.  Sells a CD or generates a tip
everytime!!

Doing Vaudville now I see, try oh susannah with no hand while running on a 
treadmill.

House is on, gotta go,

Pierre.







---- Original Message ----
From: plavio@xxxxxxxxxxxx
To: winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx, harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Valved players unite! - Valves and Flecktones
Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 14:19:38 -0400

> Did not know the Flecktones had split up, too bad really, they are
> right up
> there as one of the best shows I've ever seen. Well they had a really
> long
> run (14 years). I had noticed Béla is coming to the Montreal Jazz
> Festival
> with Jean-Luc Ponty and Stanley Clarke. I seriously doubt any of the
> Flecktones will have such broad success individually, they were just
> so good
> together, anyways that's my theory and I respect that they want to do
>
> something different.
>
> With respect to Winslow's post, you are certainly right about the
> deep bends
> on half valved harps. Been a year or so since my experiment. I urge
> anyone
> to try it, but get good valves first, don't try and make your own
> (initially).
>
> Thanks for the info.
>
> Pierre.
>
> PS: The Montreal Jazz Festival is on again for the 26th year at the
> end of
> June and beginning of July. If you want info, just ask me offlist,
> thanks.
> BTW, its not just Jazz, lots of blues and other stuff (Cajun,
> Klezmer, ...)
>
> This years lineup includes: Dr John, Toots and Kenny Werner, John
> Mayall,
> Pat Metheny, Sonny Rollins, Raynee Lee with Oliver Jones, etc.
>
> These are the you-pay shows, free shows are anounced in June.
>
> http://www.montrealjazzfest.com/fijm2005/programmation/artIndex_en.as
> p
>
>
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Chris Michalek

www.michalekstrone.com
CD Available
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/michalekstrone