Re: [Harp-L] overblow terminology

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
> Howard Levy once said that it took him several years to discover overblows
> and about the same amount of time to learn how to apply them. Howard was
> not the first to record overblows, several other people used them before he
> did. But they didn't call them overblows (from the sax and trumpet overtone
> series), they just played them.

I don't know when or where Howard made those statements, but they conflict strongly with my memory.  I met Howard in the spring of 1973, when he visited a mutual friend at the university that I and the friend attended. At that point in time Howard was an astonishing player on piano, tenor sax, steel clarinet (which he played like a soprano sax), recorder, and harmonica.  It was pretty scary to compare my own talents on piano and harmonica to his, I can tell you.  I was advised by Howard that he had been playing harmonica for only two years at that point.  As I recall, he was already overblowing with great facility; in other words, he already sounded like Howard Levy.

If my memory is true--and I have few memories so clear as this one, because Howard made one hell of an impression on me; it was one of the highlights of my college years--then after playing harmonica for two years, Levy was already an accomplished overblower with a thoroughly unique, heavily jazz-horn-influenced style.

If the alternative timeline from the quote above is available somewhere for reference, I'd like to see it.  I suppose my memory might be faulty (whose isn't?), or that I overestimated his capabilities at the time, or even that Howard might not remember his own history accurately.  In any case, I can't reconcile my memories with the statement above.

Regards, Richard Hunter