[Harp-L] "The Conversation"....Harmonica as a Second Language

["samblancato" <samblancato@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dan wrote: "Contrast this approach with Little Walter's bands on his
recordings-- the more you listen, the more incredible
those guys are, and you know when they played in clubs
they had a chance to stretch out... it must have been something!

Dan"

Hey Dan, 
Man, I couldn't agree with you more.  After listening to this stuff for
close to 25 years it's like I'm hearing it fresh all over again.

Yes, the approach taken by the Meyers brothers was different.  Only in the
last couple of weeks I've searched the internet for some
information/critique of what these guys were doing when they were with
Little Walter and Fred Bellow (a.k.a. "The Aces").  David and Louis Meyers
played off of each other with David laying down percussive riffs over which
Louis would place closely related chords and melodic lines (they were
brothers who had playing with each other all of their lives). They brought a
lot of jazz and swing sensibility to their sound but they didn't over
complicate it.  As a friend said to me last week, 'they did just enough to
make in very interesting without making it too complex'. The effect is
almost fugue-like with its counterpoint qualities.  That's why they were
able to produce such solid rhythm work often without a bass involved.  Just
listen to "My Babe" or "Sad Hours". They laid the foundations for what blues
harmonica support is supposed to be and I'm continually amazed at how great
their work sounds even by modern standards. Hell, those modern standards
(Rusty Zinn, Junior Watson, et al) are often referring directly back to
their work.

Dan also wrote: "I see this quite often with blues guitarists a la Stevie
Ray".  Yep.  You know I could never quite put my finger on why this stuff
never appealed to me.  But I think you nailed it.  It's the one sided-ness
of it.  There's no conversation, no interplay, and I don't think it's
harmonica-centric on my part; I wouldn't like it any more if a power trio
with a harp in front that was doing this kind of thing. 

It's hard for me to get this point across with local people that I play
with.  With local guitarists it's like they're either "on" or "off"; the
idea that the support work you do around the harmonica IS AS IMPORTANT as
the harmonica itself seems really hard to get across.  

I think modern rock has screwed up their heads so that they think there can
only be one voice heard at a time, and the idea the that the whole is
greater than the sum of it's parts is lost.  

One of the reviews I read (on wikapedia, I think) said that for a time in
Chicago there was Muddy's band, the Aces, and everyone else.  I think the
harmonica was key to this, not because of harmonica itself (though the
qualities of the harp certainly are part of it) but because of
conversational direction a group had to take to make this grouping of
instruments really take off.  

Sam Blancato, Pittsburgh