[Harp-L] Jason, wider exposure, and Sunny Girl news

[IcemanLE@xxxxxxx]

Yes, Jason's project would do better on the jam band college circuit - The  
Big Wu, Government Mule, etc. 
 
To hope for a mainstream breakthrough is a bit of a stretch, only because  
what constitutes the mainstream is pretty vanilla. We have to remember that most 
 on this list are bored by the mainstream, but we are definitely in the 
minority  as fans and the demographic of hard earned cash handed over to buy the  
music.
 
A shot on Letterman would be a great potential recognition exposure. It's  
not that hard to accomplish. In the late 90's, we able to generate  interest in 
Sunny Girl (her advantage was that "cute little kid" image) to the  point that 
Letterman's producer was contacting us. Unfortunately, her "manager"  at the 
time didn't take up the ball and run with it.
 
Speaking of Sunny Girl, we flew her down to Orlando for the weekend. She is  
frustrated with the lack of quality players surrounding her in Detroit  and 
also the "Blues Girl" image she is forced to reproduce on stage. The  
unfortunate result is that she is pulling away from music.
 
I had trained her to be creative in the moment and fearless in performance  
for all styles of music; a well rounded musician that can also play blues. 
She's  bored with blues and musicians that are afraid to step out of the comfort 
box.  Colleen always rises to a challenge, but no one is challenging her these 
days  (except me). She performed in a Talented Teen show in Palm Coast and 
also  did a short set at the Reverend Raven concert. Her music included an a  
capella version of "Time is Gonna Come". 
 
Her other tunes were "Misty" and "Summertime". We briefly worked on  these, 
as I was her pianist/accompanist. She sings "Misty" a la Dinah  Washington, but 
never attempted harmonica over these changes. I worked with her  in finding 
the melody, which she absorbed quickly. Then she started to improvise  over the 
melody herself, following the notes in her head - not based on theory  
knowledge, but on intuition. We worked with the idea that she would solo on the  
verse and resume singing the chorus. During actual performance that night, she  
kept soloing away even when we hit the chorus and did a fine job. Here is where 
 true musical creativity and spirit lives - she played beyond what she knew 
from  rehearsal and created on the spot in performance. Not many have the 
fearlessness  to attempt this, especially on stage in front of an upscale audience. 
 
During the break at the Reverend Raven show, we played a few duo tunes -  
when we got up there, Colleen told me to play "Summertime" funky. She described  
a groove she wanted to try. I created one that worked on the spot and away we  
went - in performance. We underplayed a lot - open space, simple 
accompaniment,  coming down to a whisper of sound. The blues bar audience slowly became 
riveted  - chatter and laughter died down - everyone became involved in the 
performance.  You could almost feel everyone holding their breath, it was so 
attentive. It was  big fun.
 
For her and I, we could live in this state of creativity forever, pulling  
off arrangements that truly live in the moment - all we need is the outline of  
the song and away we go. 
 
If only I could get her to move to Orlando - oh, the things we could  create.
 
The Iceman



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