Re: [Harp-L] re: Zen Harmonica




Everybody has their own way, my way is to get down with it, and give all I got. if I 'aint sweatin,' I aint playin'.

Those immobile bebop guys and bluegrass guys sweat, too.


If you've got the moves, use 'em. But moving around isn't the only way to give it all you've got.

But whichever way you can give it all, give it all, because an audience knows when you're phoning it in. (I realize that Randy knows all this stuff, but it's worth pointing it out.)

The two best movers I ever saw were James Brown, of course, and Jerry Lee Lewis. I saw Jerry Lee at a party that Playboy Records gave at the 1975 DJ Convention in Nashville. Playboy had Mickey Gilley, Jerry Lee's cousin. Gilley was playing his set when Jerry Lee got up with the sole intention of demonstrated who was king. (Gilley was doing much better than Jerry Lee on the charts at that point.) Gilley very politely ceded the stage and Jerry Lee launched into his hits.

Now, everybody in that room knew about the famous piano seat move and most had seen it more than a few times. At a show back in 1957 or so Jerry Lee, out of sheer excitement, stood up at a certain bar in Whole Lotta Shakin'. He knocked his piano bench over and the crowd went insane and tore up the theater. That was the only time he did it spontaneously, but in every show he ever did after that he stood up and knocked his piano bench over at exactly the same moment, and crowds all over the world went insane every night of the year.

So here's Jerry Lee, in front of half the Nashville music business, along with Hugh Hefner and a crowd of bunnies, girlfriends and executives, and everyone knows what's coming. And at the magic moment Jerry Lee knocks over the bench and a bolt of lightning hits me, even though I know exactly when the move is coming, and suddenly I'm standing on my chair screaming with everyone else in the room.

Yay for good moves, even the choreographed ones when they work that well. The next time I got the bolt of lightning I was sitting on the steps of the Village Vanguard, on account of I was too broke to buy entrance, listening to Bill Evans. Not only did Bill Evans make no moves at all in performance, but if he had I couldn't have seen them.

Both guys gave their all at those shows. Bill Evans just loaded it all up into his music.

K





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