Re: [Harp-L] re: Zen Harmonica

[Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Everybody has their own way, my way is to get down with it,  and give all 
> I got. if I 'aint sweatin,' I aint playin'.

Those immobile bebop guys and bluegrass guys sweat, too.

If you've got the moves, use 'em.  But moving around isn't the only way to 
give it all you've got.

But whichever way you can give it all, give it all, because an audience 
knows when you're phoning it in.  (I realize that Randy knows all this 
stuff, but it's worth pointing it out.)

The two best movers I ever saw were James Brown, of course, and Jerry Lee 
Lewis.  I saw Jerry Lee at a party that Playboy Records gave at the 1975 DJ 
Convention in Nashville.  Playboy had Mickey Gilley, Jerry Lee's 
cousin.  Gilley was playing his set when Jerry Lee got up with the sole 
intention of demonstrated who was king.  (Gilley was doing much better than 
Jerry Lee on the charts at that point.)  Gilley very politely ceded the 
stage and Jerry Lee launched into his hits.

Now, everybody in that room knew about the famous piano seat move and most 
had seen it more than a few times.  At a show back in 1957 or so Jerry Lee, 
out of sheer excitement, stood up at a certain bar in Whole Lotta 
Shakin'.  He knocked his piano bench over and the crowd went insane and 
tore up the theater.  That was the only time he did it spontaneously, but 
in every show he ever did after that he stood up and knocked his piano 
bench over at exactly the same moment, and crowds all over the world went 
insane every night of the year.

So here's Jerry Lee, in front of half the Nashville music business, along 
with Hugh Hefner and a crowd of bunnies, girlfriends and executives, and 
everyone knows what's coming.  And at the magic moment Jerry Lee knocks 
over the bench and a bolt of lightning hits me, even though I know exactly 
when the move is coming, and suddenly I'm standing on my chair screaming 
with everyone else in the room.

Yay for good moves, even the choreographed ones when they work that 
well.  The next time I got the bolt of lightning I was sitting on the steps 
of the Village Vanguard, on account of I was too broke to buy entrance, 
listening to Bill Evans.  Not only did Bill Evans make no moves at all in 
performance, but if he had I couldn't have seen them.

Both guys gave their all at those shows.  Bill Evans just loaded it all up 
into his music.

K