Re: [Harp-L] Harmonica Blowoff

[Grant Walters <grant@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Marc:

Glad you made the show.  

Hard to really get the feel for Andy Just with a "blues" band...
That's Mark Hummel's band,  So Mark sounds Great as usual.

Andy Just...rocks....so if you want to hear him rock...
For another taste you can see him tonight at 
http://www.clubfoxrwc.com/    (probably has Volker Strifler on Guitar). 
I noticed the Little Fox has changed name  to Club Fox.
He plays a set and then Jammers get up and then he finishes the night...final set.
This is a great venue and the Jam on Wed night s in Redwood City, Ca..I go sometimes and always very fun.
This scene..full house, has been attracting some solid house bands ( new each week) and Bay area harp players.

With Andy...he takes chances and you never know what you will get...( I like that). Hear him with David Barrett in his own works concerning his approach.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqd_uWLvpw4&feature=related

In my music collection
I have self made tapes of Andy Just with Robben Ford, Garth Webber, Chris Cain...and other more Jazz/rock / blues fussion guitar legends.
The guy keeps some amazing company. just check out the stable of guitarist http://www.bluerockit.com/home.shtml at Blue Rockit Records.

My Cousins and I grew up hearing him in the South Bay where there was a unique high energy harp scene for a time.
David Barrett could document it better than I, but my take on it was sort of a guitar-based licks ( as opposed to our favorite old school harp licks).
Some of the guys at that time actually played in unison with the guitar lead or broke off with some processing with their own guitar sounding solo.
Very creative, for sure.  Sometimes he chooses to match the guitar. 
Here is a sample I found on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fm1G2hySI4&feature=related

FYI ( non harp note) incredible John Cruz will be there  at the Club Fox Thurs. night at 8pm....Hawaiian music giant. ( not just Hawaiian)..in small setting.  great date.
He has his own style and great songwriting and voice...easy listening.

Let us celebrate oral dexterity.

Grant Walters






On Jan 19, 2011, at 12:06 PM, Marc Spilka wrote:

> I was at the Harmonical Blowoff in Santa Cruz last night.  My observation: I'm a big Andy Just fan but don't know if it was his best performance.  Last year with the Ford Blues Band he blew me away but was nothing out of the ordinary last night.  I had never seen Mark Hummel or heard a lot of his playing but he was impeccable.  He played a couple songs straight into the vocal mic and sounded great.  He closed with an electric version of a James Cotton instrumental (Creeper?) that tore the house down.  Billy Branch is the real deal when it comes to Chicago blues--very tasty playing.  Sugar Blue--I guess a lot of people love him or hate him.  It's obvious where John Popper and Jason Ricci got some inspiration.  For me, it gets to be a sonic bombardment---incredibly fast runs and licks, but he does it on every single solo.  When he would play a chorus and slow down, he has a killer tone, vibrato, and timing, but I wish he would do a lot more of that kind of playing.  On the other hand a goal of a musician is to develop your own voice and style and he sure has that.  Unfortunately had to leave after one Rod Piazza song so can't comment on his set.  One thing I did notice--every one of these guys can not only play the hell out of the harp, but are all very good singers. Just my two cents of what went down.
> 
> Marc Spilka
> Los Gatos, CA
> 
> Message: 8
> Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 06:10:09 -0800 (PST)
> From: martin oldsberg <martinoldsberg@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Harp-L] re: Harmonica Blowout Vids
> To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
> Message-ID: <965271.77803.qm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> 
> Roughly one minute in, in the video below Carlos del Junco changes harmonicas -- but he remains in E -- and does some fast riffing (which includes a Bach quote).
> Is this in 1 pos, E on an E harp? Or some special tuning?
> 
> Cheers,
> Martin
> 
> 
> 
>