Re: [Harp-L] Rick, Roscoe, Chris and the rest of the family

["ben bouman" <fitgo@xxxxxxxxxx>]

The best jazz I've heard so far on harp is the Deb from Magic Dave 
Therault.... no overblows /overdraws....but when he starts to solo it;s like 
hearing his trombine untill all of a sudden you realize it's  harp....
Ben Bouman
www.seydel1847.de
www.marbletones.com
www.marble-amps.com
www.harmonicainstituut.nl
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Planet Harmonica" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <Roscoharp@xxxxxxx>; <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2006 10:53 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] Rick, Roscoe, Chris and the rest of the family


<< But...um... Rick, FY I -  improvising over the chords to  Body & Soul (I
think it's Eb,D,Dm,-just about the hardest modulation  to play  on 
diatonic!) is
not why I play overbends. It's easy to  set up that kind of  straw horse
argument to try to make a point, a  la: "The day I hear Toots play a 
convincing
version of Roller Coaster on  chromatic is the day I'll accept it as a blues
instrument.>>

Indeed. One might even be slightly nastier and say "The day I'll hear a 
chormatic player playing Donna Lee at speed (and not the way Toots plays it) 
will be the day I accept chormatic as a jazz instrument". Except for some 
reason everybody knows that's b*shit. And yet Howard Levy plays it at speed. 
OK, I think it's ugly, but it's not because of the overblows, it's because I 
think Donna Lee is ugly, even when Coltrane plays it.

Considering the hardest pieces of a genre as representative of the whole 
genre is silly. But then again I can't even begin to understand how whole 
genres can be dismissed as "uninteresting". It smacks of either immense 
pride or great lack of musical understanding.

<< You'd have to listen very carefully to tell where the overbends are on 
my
recordings, which are plain old rock/pop. (Not " freak-out type  material".) 
No
one has ever said they sounded awkward & ugly, but it's true  I can't play 
the
changes in B&S. (Yet.) So what? How did using overbends get intrinsically
mixed up with playing jazz or playing in all twelve keys? >>

As to that last question, if you pardon my taking Rick's side for a second 
(much as I disagree with him on the intent) the boasting of people just like 
Chris on lists just like these certainly hasn't helped. Saying that if you 
don't overblow you're not a consumate harp player, that any tune in any key 
can be played on the diatonic, that because one overblows fluently one is 
amongst the greatest harp players in the world can't help. Truly, it's 
overblowing (pardon the pun) the importance of a technical aspect of playing 
way out of proportion. Not unlike TB-ing often is, indeed.

<< When you say you haven't heard Michalek yet, well, then, you haven't 
heard
him. Like the other poster who slammed Michalek the other day, how can you
criticize something you haven't heard? (See my long post #45003, near the 
end)
Next to Howard Levy, I would say Chris is the best OB player out  there. His
overbends don't stick out to me. >>

I agree that slamming Chris without having heard him is silly. I disagree 
about your last statement in more ways than one, mostly because you're doing 
the thing you're slamming Rick for : what the hell is an OB player ? Has 
overblowing suddenly become a musical genre ? A style ?

Furthermore, and I understand you guys are all friends so this may be hard, 
especially publicly, but I don't think his playing  is *that* good, and I've 
listened to Monk Alters Chi several times, and to many of the samples he 
regularly posts. I'm frankly surprised at seeing you all jumping to Chris' 
defense. I don't think that any serious jazz musician would consider Chris' 
playing exceptionally good. And if you're going to set yourself up as a jazz 
musician, that's the standard you need to meet. There's this place on Chris' 
album where one of his solos follows a guitar solo (I think it's on Minor 
Swing, or one of the gipsy jazz flavoured tunes) and honestly the contrast 
in fluidity between the guitarists' playing and Chris' is audible and 
painful. And the guitarist isn't like McLaughlin or Lagrene, you know what I 
mean ?

I'm sorry Chris, this feels like I'm insulting you but I'm not. It's not 
like you don't know my opinion already anyway ;-) I'm trying to be honest 
here, and I see too little of that on the list especially amongst the more 
advanced players, as if suddenly, because someone has worked hard and 
studied long, it becomes touchier to tell him he's not there yet...

And of course, it's just my humble opinion, but I stand by this : Chris' 
playing, to my ears, does not meet the standard of any of the jazz musicians 
in my record collection. And it's all the more surprising (or shocking, 
depending on where you're looking from) in regard of the serious boasting 
that he does.

But the core of my post was not to criticise Chris. I just don't understand 
this whole "OBs are Evil" / "No they're not" debate. Has anyone on this list 
heard Don Les ? OK, with Mo Vint behind, his playing didn't sound too much 
like jazz, but listen to the lines, it is ! And there's not an overblow in 
sight. And I'd bet that there is not one person on this list (maybe even off 
this list) who can play like Don Les. Not one. And let me tell you, *that* 
fluidity of playing would knock the socks of some sax players. So why is 
everyone judging the "jazz-ness" of a player based on his capacity to OB and 
not all the other, frankly more important aspects of his playing ? Let 
*that* be the new standard of *jazz* playing and let's see who passes or 
fails ?

<< Incidently, I've personally heard  Levy play the s**t out of  Body & 
Soul.
Raised the hair on my arms.  Rick, maybe you wouldn't dig  it, but I sure 
did!
There are probably a few others who can play B&S. Maybe  even Chris. Maybe
George Brooks. Maybe one of those South American whiz kids.  Maybe a bunch 
of
folks.>>

I just thought you argued it really didn't matter ? I was all agreeing with 
you and suddenly you pull the carpet off my feet !

Who gives a damn whether anyone can play Body and Soul on the diatonic 
harmonica ? Can it be played on the Bagpipes ? The Harpsichord ? Can 
Mussorgsky's Pictures of an Exhibition be played on a chromatic harmonica ? 
No ? Ah, it's not an instrument for classical music then. Can Hendrix's Star 
Spangled Banner be played on a diatonic ? Popper aptly demonstrated it 
couldn't (by trying it, gotta give him credit for balls, at least !). The 
diatonic is definetely not an instrument for rock then !

I know you're mostly agreeing with me, Roscoe, but it seems to me there's a 
little bit of you that's still half convinced that's where the legitimacy 
lies :-)

Ben FELTEN
http://harmonica.typepad.com
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