[Harp-L] Re: Totally bored with the blues genre

[Ray Beltran <raybluemax@xxxxxxxxx>]

Couldnât have said it better myself, Mick.

Ray.
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> On SaturdayMay 2, 15, at 6:46 PM, harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> Message: 10
> Date: Sat, 2 May 2015 20:34:03 -0500
> From: Mick Zaklan <mzaklan@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:mzaklan@xxxxxxxxx>>
> Subject: [Harp-L] Totally bored with the blues genre
> To: harp-l <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx <mailto:harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>>
> Message-ID:
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> 
>   I'm constantly amazed by the vitriol harmonica players seem to want to
> rain upon blues harpists for the crime of playing mainly blues music and
> not tunes with other changes.  Or apparently not using enough 16th or 32nd
> notes.  And usually it's the people with the button on their harp doing the
> beefing.  And, again, most of those guys couldn't play the blues to save
> themselves from being buggered by a live moose.  The guys that get up at
> the SPAH Saturday night banquets and play Clyde McCoy's "Sugar
> Blues" or Tommy Dorsey's "TD's Boogie Woogie" note for note and think they
> have the blues idiom covered because they "wah wah"-ed a note or made a
> growling noise.
>   Now I like Randy, and have corresponded with him in the past.  I'm
> puzzled  that he seems to suggest the idiom is stagnate but then goes on to
> name 15 blues players who apparently aren't.  That's quite a few exemptions
> for a supposedly dead or boring form of music.  And I wonder if any of
> those people would agree with his stance.   He complains that the
> same riffs are used over and over again, but then claims he respects
> traditionalists.  Classical players have been playing the same tunes and
> riffs for 250 years.  Note for note.  Nobody ever gives them shit about
> that.  But let a blues player play a Little Walter tune note for note and
> he's living in the past.  He's not ADVANCING the music, you see.  He's a
> "blues Nazi".  I am so sick of this "if it's not new or different, it's not
> valid or interesting" b.s. that I could scream!  Some people want to
> preserve the past and other people want to strike out on their own.    Pick
> your side and let the other folks be.  You want a lot of notes?  Go buy an
> Art Tatum cd and leave the Jimmy Reed people alone.  You're upset that 80%
> of the blues players are boring you and 20% aren't?  I don't know any form
> of music, including jazz, where 80% of the players are truly innovators or
> saying something worth hearing that hasn't been said before.
>   When I was a young guy I recall reading an interview in DownBeat
> magazine  with Cannonball and Nat Adderley.  It had a profound influence on
> me.  We're speaking of two jazz Hall of Famers here.  The brothers stated
> that on their off-nights in Chicago they always made a point to check out
> Muddy Waters or another comparable blues band live in a club.  Why?  They
> explained that they never wanted to lose contact with where jazz came from
> or lose the idea of a few notes connecting with an audience better in some
> cases than a barrage of 16ths.  The idea of economy and of telling a story
> with their horns.  I guess that's a dying concept these days.  Too bad.
> 
> Mick Zaklan