[Harp-L] Steve Cheseborough's harmonica story--

["Norman Vickers" <nvickers1@xxxxxxx>]

To: Harp-L list

From:  Norman Vickers

Jazz Society of Pensacola

 

Dear Listmates on Harp-L.  Here is a bit of correspondence which I hope will
interest some of you.  I maintain a discussion list called Musicians and
serious JazzFans.  We had been discussing Larry Adler's career which
popularized the chromatic harmonica.  Steve Cheseborough is a bluesman and
author living now in Portland, OR.  He sent  this anecdote which I hope will
be of interest to some of you.  

 

I send this in sequence so you can get an appreciation of the man in order
to appreciate his story.  He usually performs as a single.

 

 

 

From: Norman Vickers [mailto:nvickers1@xxxxxxx] 
Sent: Monday, May 25, 2009 8:36 AM
Subject: Steve Cheseborough's harmonica story--

 

To:  Musicians and serious jazzfans list

From:  Steve Cheseborough via Norman

 

Our listmate Steve Cheseborough now lives and works in Portland, OR.  He is
a bluesman who performs on guitar and diatonic harmonica.  He's also an
author.

His book, now in second printing, relates to blues shrines in Mississippi.
Before moving to Portland, he was a resident of Mississippi and studied at
U. Miss. And their Blues Archive there.

 

See our correspondence-it's not strictly jazz but was generated by the Larry
Adler posts.  One difference,  Larry Adler performed on the Chromatic
Harmonica.  Cheseborough, as the story explains, plays the diatonic
harmonica, as do most blues players.

 

One comment in agreement with Steve C.  I only heard Bob Dylan in person
once.  I was greatly disappointed with his harmonica playing and agree with
Steve's comments about it. ( Agree he's a great  songwriter and a functional
guitarist.)

 

 

 

From: Norman Vickers [mailto:nvickers1@xxxxxxx] 
Sent: Monday, May 25, 2009 8:28 AM
To: 'steve cheseborough'
Subject: Steve Cheseborough's harmonica story--

 

Dear Steve--- that's a wonderful story.  I'll circulate it to our list  and
Harp-L. ( our listmates are selective in their reading, so it will resonate
with those who are interested.)

Also, I have posted some of the Larry Adler stuff on Harp-L, the list
sponsored by SPAH ( Society for Preservation and Advancement of Harmonica)

 

There is a You Tube video of a young man playing the first part of Bach's
"Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" at Carnegie Hall.  It has had wide viewership
there.

He does it quite well.  The first part has no accidentals, so is perfectly
suited to play on a diatonic.  The later part has some accidentals, so he
quits while he is ahead-to great applause from the audience.

 

 

 

From: steve cheseborough [mailto:chezztone@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2009 9:42 PM
To: Norman Vickers

 

Norman: I don't know if it's worth circulating to the list, but you'll love
this harmonica story:
This past Friday night, I had finished my gig at a restaurant and was
sitting at the bar having something to eat and drink. A goateed man,
probably in his early 60s, was also sitting there and drinking good Scotch.
He asked about the music and I told him sorry, but he had just missed it. He
asked what instruments I played and I told him I sing and play guitar,
harmonica and percussion."I'm a one-man band," I said. 
"You're just like Bob Dylan," he replied.
I wanted to set him straight but without offending him if he was a Dylan
fan. "Actually I'm a lot better than Bob Dylan," I said. I told him that I
admired Dylan's guitar-playing and songwriting, but that he is a really poor
harmonica player. "He just kind of blows in and out on it, the way a little
kid does when you give him a harmonica."
The man didn't get offended at all, but became intrigued by the idea that
there could even be such a thing as one harmonica player being better than
another, or such a thing a skill applied to the harmonica. "What kind of
range does a harmonica have?" he asked.
"Not bad for such a little instrument -- three octaves," I said. I pulled
out a harmonica and showed it to him.
"Is that a small harmonica?" he asked.
I explained that there were various specialty harmonicas of different sizes,
but that this 10-hole diatonic was your basic full-sized model, same as what
every player uses.
"Can you play Beethoven's Ninth on the harmonica?" he asked, skill skeptical
that it was a real instrument.
Now...it just happens that he made the perfect request. I don't know a lot
of classical pieces -- even to recognize and name them, let along to play
them on the harmonica. And many classical pieces, even if I were familiar
with them, would involve sharps and flats that would make them difficult to
play on the diatonic harp, especially without having worked on them in
advance. But Beethoven's Ninth's familiar "Song of Joy" theme is all "white
keys," very simple to play on the harmonica, you can even harmonize it in
fact since it stays on the chords that are built in. I've played it before,
just for my own amusement, and it is definitely the only classical piece I
have ever played at all. So I said "Sure," and picked up the harp and played
a bit of it, astounding the man, the other barflies and the bartender. When
they recovered, they started making requests for Schubert, Mozart etc, but I
just smiled and put away the harp, saying, "You'll have to pay for a full
concert. That was just a little sample."

Steve Cheseborough
www.opb.org/programs/artbeat/videos/view/67-Steve-Cheseborough
www.stevecheseborough.com
http://cdbaby.com/all/chezztone
www.myspace.com/stevecheseborough

 
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