Re: [Harp-L] Days of Wine and Roses

[Joseph Leone <3n037@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sep 11, 2012, at 3:42 PM, fjm wrote:

> It was interesting to hear the sub30 version.  What was striking was how it raised all the same objections that overblows do.  Intonation and articulation.  What I'd like to hear is a P.T. Gazell cover of this song.  There's a guy who knows how to play to pitch.  fjm
> 
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIzU5lGLtac


The Toots version of DOWAR is all wrong. Wine & Roses is a love song. But a tragic love song. It should be done tragically. Some songs just shouldn't be 'bopped'. Like Alfie shouldn't be bopped. Ebb Tide shouldn't be bopped. Ghost Riders shouldn't be played as a Tango. Georgia should be done on a diatonic. And yada yada...... 

As for P.T., I'm not sure he does it consciously, and considers the listener, but he has a tendency to deliver songs in a pleasant manner and pick decent material. Too many harmonica players play what they want to play the way they want to play it. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. 

And since a harmonica can sound like a number of different instruments, one should be cautious. For example, if you are playing a sax, no matter what genre you are in, be it bop, re-bop, hard-bop, boogie woogie, jazz, blues, raggae, polka, marches, etc. it will always sound like a sax.

A harmonica can sound like a piccolo, flute, clarinet, harp, accordion, even violin. So, picking the right song is one thing, but delivering it is quite another. 
Earlier I wrote that my wife overheard the clips I played from a previous poster and said "Whose strangling a cat". Ok, maybe not to ya'all, but this is a danger signal. A red flag so to speak. It tells me that the average person would think the same sort of thing. It tells me that maybe that kind of intonation will fly with other harmonica players, but the general listener won't be enthused. There have been times when I (myself) heard a player sound as if they were having a bowel movement through the harmonica, so I can see that point. 

It also brings up a very important subject. If we all continued to play like this, we would not be gaining many fans. And maybe this is the reason for declining interest in harmonica. At least from a spectator point of view. Luckily I understand that the demonstrator was only doing what he was doing AS a demonstration of what can be done. But am I alone? Or do others thing that intonation is important?

smokey-joe