RE: [Harp-L] Roadhouse blues and other rock standards

["Bradford Trainham" <bradford.trainham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I do Wild Night in second position on a c harp, but I've never been
completely satisfied with that.
Instead of the cool sax thing he does for a break, I usually play a verse,
doing essentially what the singer does.
This works, but I'd like to be able to credibly tap in to that phased sax or
what ever the effect is he has on that.
Brad Trainham
 

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of John F. Potts
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 3:56 PM
To: Mike Fugazzi
Cc: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Harp-L] Roadhouse blues and other rock standards

Bands that do more R&B material than straight ahead rock material (or a mix
of R&B and rock) are usually more receptive to harmonica than straight ahead
rock bands.  And, although i like to rock out well enough, i prefer an R&B
groove anyway. Or reggae.  One gets tired of just playing blues all the
time, not that there's anything wrong w/ blues.  Rock music is fun to play
because it's so free stylistically (there are no conventions that must be
adhered to in order to play rock).  On the other hand, there's nothing worse
than a pure rock band pretending to play blues.

R&B style jazz (certain material by Cannonball Adderley, Eddie Harris,
Miles Davis. etc.) is cool and can be played on diatonic without overblows
IF the band is receptive to harp and promises not to modulate all over the
place (which shouldn't be necessary playing  
this type of jazz material anyway).  But that's a big IF.   I've been  
lucky.  A guitar player i used to play R&B and rock with years ago graduated
to playing jazz, He likes my playing and understands my capabilities on
diatonic harmonica.  So he invited me to sit in with his jazz band. His bass
player liked my playing and also plays with a different jazz band, So he
invited me to sit in with that band. So now i get to play with a couple of
jazz groups who are receptive to harp and sympathetic to selecting harp
playable material, which  
stretches me and is good for my development, as well as being fun.   
But I suspect the real reason they keep asking me back is that the crowd
seems to really like it, possibly because they don't ordinarily  hear
harmonica played on that type of material.

As far as rock material is concerned, I think Sunshine Of Your Love  
(Cream) is a great tune to jam on with harmonica. Harp also works on   
Doctor My Eyes (Jackson Browne). A terrific (and often overlooked) tune for
harmonica is Dear Mr. Fantasy by Traffic. I also really like to play harp on
Wild Night  by Van Morrison, but I'm sure what position sounds best on Wild
Night. Any suggestions?

JP

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