[Harp-L] Re: Howard Levy's fault etc... Harp-L Digest, Vol 102, Issue 11

[Richard Hammersley <rhhammersley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The antidote to overblowing - who has heard Sonny Boy Williamson jamming with Rahsaan Roland Kirk? I accidentally found these tracks recently. Roland Kirk live in Copenhagen I think.

Playing jazz AND playing jazz on the harmonica. Two separate problems. To be a great improviser requires excellent chops and a great jazz sensibility. Very few harmonica players have reached that. Too many of the youtube videos etc. have impressive chops, but the results ain't great jazz that I would listen to more than once, or even all the way through the track. I don't think you can play great jazz to a backing track, or without everyone in the band being great. I don't think you can learn jazz without improvising with other musicians.

Overblowing offers one route to playing all the notes on a diatonic - valving is another. The XB-40 has potential I feel too, although the technique to do reliably, at speed, is close to as difficult as overblows I think. When I listen to an overblower I want to dig (to use Tony Glover's word what I first learned with) the music, not the technique. When I listen to jazz on the harmonica I don't want it to feel like dogs dancing - amazing, because it is dogs doing it - but like jazz. Very few players have the overblow skills and the jazz feel. Ones I have heard that do:
Howard Levy
Carlos del Junco - although he doesn't aspire to jazz that much blues obviously crosses over
the late Chris Michalek
Jelly Roll Johnson (if we count him as an overblower, he is good at jazz anway and I think he can overblow when he feels like it). 
Flip Jers
Tinus Koorn
I think Sam Friedman has potential too, but I haven't heard him playing with a band, so it is hard to tell. Same goes for the veteran Richard Hunter, although he wrote Jazz Harp I haven't heard him playing with top notch jazzers. 

There will, of course, be more.