[Harp-L] RE: My Five

[John Kally <jkally3@xxxxxxx>]

I thought I'd slip in before the thread dies.  If I remember  
correctly the original post asked about albums that influenced us and  
of course by now many of the ones listed would be ones I'd list too.   
I'm not going to list my overall most influential but for what it's  
worth, the harp records (and yes, I'm an old guy, I owned the vinyl  
on all these)  I bought first that really made me wear out the  
grooves were:
1.  Fathers and Sons: Muddy Waters (Chess double LP now a single CD)   
I got this the week it came out and Butterfield with Muddy was just a  
killer, so passionate.   Later  I went back to learn the Walter/ 
Cotton/etc solos when I got the original versions of the tunes redone  
here  .
2. Room To Move: John Mayall (also got right when it hit the stores;  
of course reissued several times on CD).  This got lots of airplay on  
the underground stations of the day and I know it influenced lots of  
players even though it's not exactly brilliant playing. It sure was  
exciting at the time. Incidentally I think this may be  the first LP  
to actually list harp keys in the booklet that came with, or maybe it  
was the liner notes (it's only been 35 or so years!).
3. Otis Spann "the Blues is where it's at" George Smith is just  
wonderful  in this live studio session recorded when he was touring  
with Muddy's band, which provides the backup here. I was living in LA  
at the time I found this in a cutout bin and tracked him down thanks  
to this LP (never had a lesson, though, but at least I had the chance  
to talk to George a couple of times and see him with different  
bands).  I recently got the import CD reissue and after not hearing  
it for decades it still surprises me.
4.  Bill Evans with Toots" Affinity"(reissued on CD: Toots  was so  
good on this, made me get the "Jazz Harp" book when it came out (not  
like I can really play this stuff but I did buy a chromatic and still  
fool with it).  Defines jazz  chromatic at least for me, plus I loved  
the cover art!
5 Paquito D'Rivera  "Explosion": good title,  I read a review in  
Tower Records Pulse about some diatonic jazz player named Howard  
Levy.  What an eye opener!
I left out Little Walter, just because he shows up often enough  
already (and justifiably so); I never had a Walter LP when I got  
started as "Best of" was out of print and I had to rely on a stack of  
45s a local record store had acquired when Chess emptied out it's  
warehouse.  Fortunately my teacher Gary Smith loaned me "Best of" to  
tape before the various legal and bootleg reissues turned up.
Sorry if I ate up bandwidth on this ramble but now I need to go dig  
these out for another listen.  Thanks!