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

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

checker758 wrote:
> I would never be foolish enough to argue that Little Walter's genius 
> came out of nowhere, or that he was uninfluenced by anyone who came 
> before him.  Obviously to play blues at all is to use the work of 
> others as the building blocks for your music.  The point I was 
> addressing was the suggestion by others on the list that *all* he 
> did was copy some horn players.  I think it's pretty obvious that he 
> borrowed his approach to the instrument from horn players, and like 
> even the most creative musicians, borrowed a lick here or a head 
> there.  But I don't believe his style can be summed up as easily 
> as "He just copied sax players A, B and C", some seem to be willing 
> to suggest.  Based on everything I've learned about him, he didn't 
> seem to consciously copy anyone, or any one style - it's more like 
> he absorbed the whole spectrum of jazz, blues, R&B and related 
> music, and some of the better bits and pieces occasionally bubbled 
> to the surface.  But I think the only thing he was consciously doing 
> in his playing was trying to NOT sound like all the other harp 
> players out there at the time, rather than trying to sound LIKE some 
> horn player or another.

> ...BTW, I've long felt that one of the elements in LW's playing that 
> really separated him from everyone else, and which I don't hear a 
> lot of people talking about, is his apparent resistance to basing 
> his licks on easily repeatable breathing patterns.  His approach to 
> the instrument did not seem to be directly based on finding 
> something that "worked" based on the limitations or design of the 
> instrument - i.e., a certain number of in breath notes had to be 
> followed by a certain number of out breath notes in order to be able 
> to be played easily - but on specific *musical* ideas that didn't 
> necessarily have any direct bearing on the physical demands of 
> executing them.  And in this way, he clearly WAS influenced by the 
> approach of horn players, who obviously were able to base their 
> phrases on notes that worked rather than breaths that worked in an 
> in/out pattern.

I agree completely with everything in this post. It's as wrong to argue 
that Walter just copied horn players as it is to argue that he came out 
of nowhere with a completely original conception.
(FYI, I found the post about Walter's jazz influences, also by Scott 
Dirks, in the harp-l archives at: 
http://harp-l.org/mailman/htdig/harp-l/2004-April/msg00129.html
I must've imagined the stuff about "The Sidewinder," but there are 
plenty of other specific jazz tune references in that post.)

I would argue that the most important thing Walter learned from horn 
players was a concept--that you could put a horn (including a harp) in 
front of a band, and produce a performance centered around the horn that 
would satisfy an audience completely.  I don't hear any blues bands 
before Walter putting out anything like Roller Coaster, or Backtrack, or 
Boogie--3-to-4 minute instrumentals centered purely on a harp soloist. 
My guess is that Walter knew it could be done in a structural sense 
because the sax players were already doing it.  What Walter needed to 
make it work with harp at the center was a harp sound as big as a tenor 
sax.  With a microphone in his hands, he had that too.

As Tony Glover once said, "Genius is a f---ed over word these days, but 
Walter was one for sure.  What's more, he knows how to get you off."
Most of the people we revere as geniuses had one really big idea in 
their lifetimes.  Walter had at least two.

Regards, Richard Hunter
hunterharp.com
Latest mp3s always at http://broadjam.com/rhunter