Jazz Fusion in the styles of Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report or Alan Holdsworth is certainly not the first genre you'd associate with diatonic harmonica, and some might even say that it's not achievable to convincingly play in that style. I might even have been amongst those doubters a few months ago, at least until Seb Charlier invited me to attend a part of the mixing of his latest album, Precious Time. The album is to be released soon, and Sébastien has edited and shared a video that highlights the musicians contributing to the project and features some of the music. I've blogged about it here: http://www.musicalramblings.com/2009/08/seb-charliers-precious-time.html. In all instances but one (at the very end), if you find yourself wondering "is this harmonica?", it is.
I can imagine that some will say that the sound of the harmonica is drowned by the effects used, but I think it remains characterisc and distinguishable.
I'd be interested to hear what people who might be customers for this kind of music think...
Benoit _______________________________________________ Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l