Re: [Harp-L] Don Les and cross harp

[Joseph Leone <3n037@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On May 1, 2013, at 8:18 PM, Mick Zaklan wrote:

>   Great to see Don on YouTube.  He's a historically important harmonica
> player, both on bass harp and diatonic.
>   Though I don't necessarily agree with it, I've always been fascinated
> with Don's beef (as espoused in Kim Field's "Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy
> Breathers") that cross harp and blues playing have "misled" diatonic
> harpists into "learning from each other how not to play the harmonica."

Yes, I remember he was very vociferous on that point. 

>   If I'm understanding Don correctly, he felt that since there were no
> "wrong" notes in cross harp to be found while following a blues
> progression, players were more likely to noodle their way around the
> instrument, producing their own patterns.  Recycling them over and over
> again.  Wallowing in this security blanket of riffs instead of actually
> learning, apparently, the basics of music.  "You don't hear saxophone
> players or piano players playing the blues like the harmonica players do,"
> Don huffs.
>   Well, this may be true but ignores the fact that serious blues players
> draw from a completely different historical source of instrumentalists and
> recordings than saxophonists, pianists, etc.  Naturally, they would play
> the blues differently.

I think a lot had to do with his surroundings. A Polish boy in Loraine Ohio is not exactly coming from a blues bent. I happen to
be Polish and Italian, spent 9 of my first 18 years in Italy, and as the son of a diplomat, I could HARDLY be considered a genetic candidate for playing blues. It just isn't bred into me. 

>   On the other hand, as someone well known to this list once pointed out,
> harmonica players probably pay less attention to the chords of a tune than
> other instrumentalists do.  They do tend to fall back on their ears and
> pre-conceived riffs.
>   Don further gripes:
> 
> If you ask a blues player what they're playing, they'll say, "One of my own
> compositions."  All of a sudden, they're not only not musicians, but
> they're also composers.  This is one of my secret peeves about the
> harmonica people that don't take up the harmonica and think they did.  I
> don't use cross harp as a blues, I use it as a musician would.  The field
> has been wasted by all these people blowing cross harp but not playing
> anything.

And here's where I agree with you totally...and not with Don. 
> 
>   I think part of Don's rant was a generational thing, a blues backlash
> that I myself have observed quite a bit at the conventions.

I think it was  as much (if not more) ethnic than generational. 

>  Fortunately,
> it's died down considerably from the early days.  Believe me, it was
> nasty.

Yes, it certainly could be tense at times. I went to my first convention in 91 and can remember some animosity displayed by older chromatic players
and some older diatonic players. I happened to start on chromatic at 12 1/2 and diatonic at 16, so I played both. I never understood the rift. Sad when you consider it. Like we don;t put up with enough static? lol

>  Personally I would cut Don a little slack because his statement was
> made in 1993 or prior.  I would like to think that the myriad of
> superb diatonic players we've had at the conventions since then would have
> changed his mind on this.

I think so. I did some playing for him at a Buckeye in the early 90s, and from then on, we were friends. He felt I was melodious (his term). But since I 
was (basically) imitating clarinet, maybe that's what he was picking up? 

>  But maybe not, I suspect that you could have
> played a perfect Little Walter or Sonny Boy solo for Don and he wouldn't
> have been impressed.  Because it didn't sound like something a 1940's
> clarinetist would have dreamed up.
>   Anyway, his position (once you strip away the insults) is an interesting
> one and not necessarily without some merit.  Definitely a cantankerous guy,
> that's for sure.

He had a sense of humor that wouldn't swing with most people. It was dry, veiled insulting, out and out insulting, but sometimes warm. Maybe a sort of Don Rickles humor. Lots of wise cracks. Once I understood him, I accepted it and after that I found him funny. You had to look at his eyes.
Jo-Zeppi
 
> 
> Mick Zaklan