Re: [Harp-L] Rick Dempster and Body & Soul

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jason Rosenblatt wrote:
<I don't know if I'm making Rick's point below or refuting it, but
<here's a crack at Body & Soul.
<http://www.shtreiml.com/bodySoul.mp3


My reaction to this is the same as my reaction to most of the ambitious 
chromatic-on-diatonic stuff I've heard: half the time I'm completely 
amazed, and the other half of the time I'm grimacing.  Sometimes I have 
both reactions to a single phrase.

The problem is that I've been having the same reactions to this approach 
for about 20 years now, and I kind of think the parts that make me 
grimace -- the out of tuneness, the differences in timbre, all the other 
oft-cited ills -- should have gone away by now.  When will they go away?

All that said, the amazing parts are f---ing amazing.  I don't know if 
I'm ever going to really crave hearing an evening of ballads like "Body 
and Soul" played on the diatonic, but that Rosenblatt dude is a monster.

On a related point, the single best performance of "Body and Soul" that 
I have ever heard was Charles Leighton's version on chromatic harmonica, 
performed at a meeting of the New York "Top Brass" harmonica club 
organized by Rob Paparozzi and hosted by Wade Schuman (the leader of 
Hazmat Modine) in Wade's NYC apartment in 2001 or thereabouts.  Charlie 
made the skies open and the heavens sing.

In my opinion, it is very, very hard to play a jazz ballad on the 
diatonic that compares with the same ballad played on chromatic. Ballads 
are red meat for chromatic players.

regards, Richard Hunter
hunterharp.com