[Harp-L] Sugar Blue

[Peter Madcat Ruth]

Playing fast like Sugar Blue has to do with technique, not electronics.
Playing fast has to do with playing with precision, not wasting any air, not playing too loud (let the amp make it loud for you), and lots of practice.

Peace & Joy,

Peter Madcat Ruth

> Regarding Sugar Blue and his super fast playing: I had the pleasure of
> meeting Sugar Blue and listening to him talk about his work at one of the
> Monday night sessions Joe Filisko chairs at the Old School in Chicago. He
> blew my mind when he told the audience that the big influences on him were
> Chicago players like Little Walter.  When I asked him how he got from the
> kind of thing Walter did to the kinds of things Sugar was doing on pieces
> like "I Live In a War Zone," from 1976, where he sprayed notes from the
> harp as quickly as anyone had ever done to that point in time, he replied
> that in the early 70s he was listening to, and occasionally playing with,
> free jazzers in the Coltrane mode, and he had to keep up.
> 
> In other words, Sugar Blue can play really fast, whether there's a
> compressor in the FX chain or not.  And he's not the only one.  (Did
> someone say "John Popper"?  "Howard Levy"?)  Speed is the result of lots
> and lots of practice and a solid understanding of where the notes on the
> harmonica lie.  Compressors are optional.
> 
> Regards, Richard Hunter
> 
> -- 
> Check out our 21st Century rock harmonica record "The Lucky One" at
> https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/richardhunter
> 
> Author, "Jazz Harp" (Oak Publications, NYC)
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