Something I wanted to share with the list.
With age, I'm starting to realise that more and more I enjoy the harmonica playing of casual players. Sometimes I like it even more than the harp playing of many "pro" players.
I guess I should clarify what I mean by casual harmonica player. By that I mean musicians whose approach of the harp is as a secondary instrument. Pro musicians who would not describe themselves as harmonica players.
A few examples could maybe help clarify what I mean:
- G. Love of G. Love and Special Sauce is a great example. He plays a decent harp, but you can hear that he rarely if ever practiced. Now he still sounds very good (not too sloppy, I guess), but he sticks to relatively simple stuff. The thing is it's always effective and very often quite inventive as well.
- Ben Ellman of Galactic is another good case in point. Ellman is a killer sax player who doubles on harp occasionally. Now he usually vamps and rarely (if ever) uses the harp to play melody, but he's got a ton of energy and (again) in my opinion dares things that more seasoned harp players in general wouldn't.
I asked myself why these guys' playing appealed to me. And I think the reason is intent. Too often maybe, a harmonica player feels obliged to play something because, after all, he's the harp player. And while that something may sound good and be played with great chops, it doesn't always add to the song. When these guys whip the harp out, it's because it's the right thing to play for this particular song at this particular moment. I dunno, it's just a theory, but that's how I feel it.
Now this raises a secondary question which is, collectively, do we harp players have an ego problem ? I listen to a lot of sax, to make that parralel, and it seems to me that sax players don't feel the need to play all the time, especially sax sidemen.
Maybe it's misperception on my part, but I thought it would be interesting to discuss and also highlight other examples of non-pro harp players that sound great...