Re: [Harp-L] Re: Butter TV spot



Steve,

YES! PB's performance on The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album is a perfect example of what I'm attempting to describe. It's all there.

JP


On Dec 20, 2009, at 11:54 PM, steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:



In my sometimes humble opinion, the combination of Butterfield's tone and intensity, and that amazing vibrato, are what separates him from most any harp player I can think of. And, as I have said here many times, Better Days says it all. I never get tired of listening to that album. Next to that, I'd probably put the Woodstock album. I didn't care for East-West and much of his later stuff.
Maybe Howling Wolf is the only other player I think that could get that intense feel, but he wasn't known primarily as a harp player.
Nothing wrong with not liking Butter's playing. Not everybody likes scotch,either, but a person can develop a taste :)
Steve Webb in Minnesota


---- "John F. Potts" <hvyj@xxxxxxx> wrote:
EV 630 writes to Tom Ellis:

Regards your quote below... A lot of harp players have said or had it
said
about them that the harp mimics a human voice in terms of
expressiveness and
communication of emotion. It's a pretty bold and I would think
controversial
statement to say that you haven't heard ANY harp player since
Butterfield
"communicate true feeling with his playing". You can't possibly mean
that in
a truly objective sense?

I'm enjoying this analysis of Butterfield, and in that context I am
asking
this seriously.

Drew,

I can't speak for Tom Ellis, but players like Wilson, Estrin and
Piazza interpret a defined style that was developed and established
by well known ODBGs.  They show amazing technical command of the
instrument, great musicality, and even some new interpretations and
variations of this style. But they are largely derivative, imitating,
adopting, expanding upon and  COMMUNICATING IN a well known and well
established style.  So a lot of what they do is very similar to stuff
that others have played before.  Extremely well done, but
artistically it's mostly an exploration and expansion of something
we've heard before and have learned to expect and appreciate.  On an
emotional level, they don't tell me very much that someone else
hasn't already said.

Butterfield played in a style uniquely his own.  He did not imitate.
His playing moves me because it goes other places.  Whether you call
it rock, jazz blues or whatever, the note placement and phrasing
takes you somewhere different.  It's not the SOS done with more flash
and style.  It's originally individual and provokes a sense of
intensity and anticipation as PB blows in completely new directions
and then STOPS (a la Junior Wells) immediately as soon as his musical
statement is complete. Such urgency and economy makes a powerfully
intense emotional statement i can immediately relate to and which
rivets my attention and holds my curiosity. I just don't get that
from guys who play in the more traditional style who are expressing
well crafted variations on musical ideas we've heard before and
making statements have learned to listen for and  expect to hear.

I don't know what "true feeling" Tom is talking about, but i find
very powerful emotion in PB's playing. I'm hard pressed to think of
anyone since who compares.  For emotional urgency, economy of
expression and provocative artistic statement, Junior Wells is pretty
intense and, quite frankly, I am consistently moved by the intensity
and emotion in the harp playing of Howlin' Wolf. But they came before
PB.

I may be forgetting some players. But offhand i just can't think of
any who make more consistently powerful and unique emotional
statements with such provocative artistic expression when they play
harmonica than these three. These guys consistently reach me at an
emotional level that other players only visit every now and then.
Their playing almost always communicates something i haven't heard
elsewhere.  For my money, that's fully realized artistic expression.
But that's just how i happen to feel about it. YMMV.

FWIW.

JP
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