[Harp-L] Re: LW's Influence - sharing info w/the list

["Haka Harri" <harri.haka@xxxxxxxx>]

This is a very interesting post because it is much more analytical on the influences of Little Walter than the usual generalisations many of us (including myself)have made through the years. 

And indeed, there is quite a difference between being influenced by horns and "just transferring horn licks to harp".

Harri

 
> Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 11:37:20 EDT
> From: IcemanLE@xxxxxxx
> Subject: [Harp-L] LW's Influence - sharing info w/the list
> To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
> Message-ID: <d32.db037f7.338ef430@xxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
> 
> Hello Larry,
> I'm not subscribed the the harp-l but I do occasionally  browse 
> through the archives online, and your post (and a couple of others  
> on this subject) caught my eye.
> 
> When we were working on the Little  Walter book, Tony Glover, Ward 
> Gaines, and I spent quite a bit of time  exploring the subject of 
> LW's influences.  Of course we'd all heard  that he was influenced by 
> horn players too, but none of us knew offhand of  any specific 
> examples.  So eventually Tony made a tape of Little Walter  
> instrumentals (figuring that's where most of the jazz-influenced 
> licks  would be), and gave it to a friend of his who had been a jazz 
> DJ for 30-some  years, and was a specialist in big bands and 
> jump/swing bands.  This  guy took a lot of time and went through LW's 
> music with a fine tooth comb,  and he came back with a list of licks 
> that had precedents in the music of  horn players.  But it was 
> actually a pretty short list, something like  a dozen examples or 
> so.  And within that list, most of the examples  were pretty short, 
> like a two bar lick that showed up in the middle of a  much longer 
> improvisition.  There were also a few examples where LW  used 
> the 'head' from another song to kick off something that then turned  
> into his own improvisation (like the opening 12 bars of "Juke", 
> which  seemed to be based on a Benny Goodman song I can't recall the 
> name of right  now, or the opening lick of "Fast Large One", which 
> was from the opening of  "Let Me Off Uptown" by Anita O'Day).  And of 
> course there were no  examples of entire songs being copied.
> 
> (BTW, I've been hearing people say  that Little Walter copied Louis 
> Jordan ever since I started playing harp,  but in all of our 
> research, we were unable to find any examples of a LW lick  that had 
> a precedant on a LJ record.  So if you know of an example,  please 
> enlighten me.)
> 
> In the end, we were surprised to find that  there were a lot fewer 
> references to recordings by horn players in LW's  playing than we'd 
> expected, especially considering that "LW copied sax  players" seemed 
> (and still seems) to be the accepted wisdom.   
> 
> But if you really study the evidence, the only conclusion you can  
> come to is that Little Walter really did invent the overwhelming  
> majority of the licks he played.  If there's a another harp player  
> in the blues idiom who was anywhere near as inventive as he was, I  
> haven't heard of him yet.  
> 
> Elsewhere in this thread, someone  wrote that "Little Walter just 
> transferred horn licks to harp."  This  is an easy generalization, 
> but it doesn't hold up to close scrutiny.   But what he *did* do is 
> THINK and improvise like a really creative horn  player would, and 
> then transfer his creations to the harp.
> 
> This does  not address LW's influences in his lyrics or song choices 
> of course, where  in fact there were MANY examples of him taking 
> earlier songs and slightly  modifying them.  But as for his harp 
> playing, the overwhelming majority  of it seems to have been of his 
> own creation.
> 
> Scott
> 
> PS- Please  feel free to share this with the list if you're so 
> inclined.
> 
> PPS - if  you do share this with the list: I know there's a lot of 
> knowledge out there  that we weren't able to tap into while writing 
> the book, so if anyone has  any corrections or additional information 
> or examples regarding this  subject, I'm very interested in hearing 
> about  it.