Thelonious Monk, Little Walter, and Paul Butterfield

[alciere@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

I've been listening to Thelonious Monk over and over in the car tape deck. 
The initial riffs aren't a lot different than the Juke era Little Walter. 
The improvasations are more chromatic, and the harmonies are a lot more 
complex, but the basic meolody isn't much different at all. 

Also, while I think of be bop as excessive, with lots of fast notes, 
actually a lot of the music is laid back with lots of spaces. The 
transitions both in the improvisations and in the basic riffs sound similar 
to Little Walter's. Little Walter's little transition licks from one riff to 
the next are almost as impressive as the riffs themself. 

In contrast to this, Paul Butterfield's jazz tune, Work Song, is wonderful, 
but sounds more like psychedelic rock improvisation. Both Little Walter and 
Butterfield take the basic jazzy melody, break it down into its simplest 
form, then build something new and cool.It feels like they use the 
limitations of a diatonic harp as an artistic plus, rather than a 
limitation. 

Still, I wish I could get those nice little Thelonious Monk dissonant chords
on the harp. 

Rainbow Jimmy
http://www.spaceanimals.com
http://www.mp3.com/spaceanimals