Re: [Harp-L] Grégoire Maret

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

The Dallas SPAH you're referring to was 10 years ago, while IAJE went belly-up five years ago, so you're talking about old experience.

Musicians evolve and develop - at least the good ones do, and Grégoire is no exception. I agree that his approach is cerebral seeming. But when I saw him in San Francisco a few months ago, his playing was lyrical, passionate, and even at times ferocious. Clearly he's evolving.

By way of comparison, Toots was an exciting, fast, and even showy player for much of his early career (1940s-50s) . His fame as a ballad player didn't develop until the beginning of the 1970s. In other words, the expressive side of his playing took decades to develop and mature.

Perhaps we'll see a similar progression from Grégoire. I'm already seeing the evidence.

As for the onslaught-of-notes thing, his latest CD features very little fast playing. It's all about the orchestration and the total ensemble sound (and the connections between the series of pieces) - much of it is quite lush.

Winslow
 
Winslow Yerxa
Author, Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
            Harmonica Basics For Dummies, ASIN B005KIYPFS
            Blues Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-1-1182-5269-7
Resident Harmonica Expert, bluesharmonica.com
Instructor, Jazzschool for Music Study and Performance


________________________________
 From: The Iceman <icemanle@xxxxxxx>
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Tuesday, October 1, 2013 2:27 PM
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Grégoire Maret
 

I'm sure he can play beautifully, but what I heard live at SPAH in Dallas and also at an IAJE Convention was a lot of notes flying around.