PT Gazzell's "The Loft Sessions"

My first exposure to the harmonica playing of PT Gazell was via his 1978 LP “Pace Yourself” and his recordings with country legend Johnny Paycheck. At that time PT was part of an emerging and very small tribe of diatonic players inspired by Charlie McCoy who were focused not on blues harp but on unlocking the melodic potential of their instrument.

I finally met PT at the SPAH (Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica) convention in St. Louis in 2018 and was in the audience when he played a remarkable set at that festival. I left town with two PT Gazell CDs—“2 Days Out” (released in 2011) and “Madness To The Method” (released in 2016)—in my luggage, and they became instant favorites and part of my steady musical listening rotation back home in Portland.

PT let me know recently that he has released a new recording—“The Loft Sessions”—and for the past few days I have been devouring this fresh collection of stellar jazz, and I feel compelled to help spread the news about this remarkable musician.

Notice I didn’t say “remarkable harmonica player.” I’ve been playing the harmonica for almost fifty years. I wrote a book on the history of the instrument, and I know the work of the players of the past and the present in all genres. It’s almost impossible for me, therefore, to listen to a harmonica recording and not hear it as the work of a mouth organist and to stop myself from measuring it against the existing harmonica catalogue—a sadly narrow perspective that is admittedly unfair to the most talented of those players.

But from the first, I didn’t react to PT Gazell’s recordings that way. I just heard music—really fine music—and not someone pushing the boundaries of his instrument. So when I sat down to write about him I tried to think through why I have this response to his recordings.

First and foremost, PT Gazell is a masterful technician who has confronted and defeated those harmonica-centric limitations—the tendency to sound thin and harsh, the difficulty of achieving a consistent tonality across all the holes, the complexity involved in hitting bent notes on pitch, the struggle inherent in unleashing complex melodies from a diatonic instrument.

Gazell also has the intelligence, good taste, and musicality to steer clear of the shortcomings of most diatonic harmonica players—the lack of good breathing technique and tone, the cluelessness about phrasing and legato, the inability to play against chord sequences more complex than the I-IV-V, and a pathological fear of ballads.

For some reason, there is a Western prejudice that equates playing fast with virtuosity. Like most misperceptions, there is some truth behind it. We’ve all been rendered appropriately slack-jawed by musicians who can play complex music at blazing tempos. But more commonly what we get is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Most musicians will tell you that it is the ballad that separates the great musicians from the rest of the stampeding herd of shredders—that listening to musicians playing at slow tempos reveals the most about their musicality. Gazell became famous in the 1970s for his ability to play bluegrass numbers at insane speeds with incredible precision, but he’s always loved ballads, and on his jazz recordings there are as many of those as there are up-tempo numbers. This not only gives him the opportunity to show the full range of his technical mastery, but it gives the us listeners a more varied and enjoyable listening experience.

Gazell eschews the heavy vibrato used by many harmonicists in favor of a light heartbeat pulse. He puts his harmonica front and center. He takes the time to demonstrate his mastery of the melody before launching into his always surprising improvisations. There is a lifetime’s worth of complex bending happening on his records, but Gazell’s legato phrasing is always even and seamless. PT use of slurring is much more restrained than that of the blues harpists, but there is a unique decay to his notes, and it’s the clarity of his playing that enables him to meld so well with his accompanists. Gazell’s playing is gutsy and fearless, but never forced and always relaxed. Like only a handful of others, he proves that the diatonic harmonica is a great vehicle for jazz.

PT Gazell plays valved diatonics of his own design manufactured by Seydel. I have no personal experience playing his “Gazell method” harps, so I can’t speak to the challenging technical accomplishments he is pulling off within that system or how they help him to do what he does. But that’s the point. PT’s music just sounds like music, not like someone pushing the boundaries on his instrument.

“The Loft Sessions, “Method To The Madness,” and “2 Days Out” are all small-group jazz recordings featuring outstanding musicians who Gazell allows to share his stage. The three records are distinguished from each other by the deployment of different featured instruments—the lap steel on “Madness To The Method,” the trombone and flugelhorn on “2 Days Out”—but Gazell clearly loves the small-combo format, and it loves him back.

These three Gazell recordings are all beautifully recorded, which is another key aspect of his success. They were recorded years apart with different musicians in different studios, but the performances are all superbly captured, the mixes are stellar, and there is a remarkable consistency in the overall sound of these recordings. The absence of effects and post-production trickery is so refreshing that it’s compelling. All the instruments are recorded naturally, including Gazell’s. What you get on these recordings is something that is, weirdly, rarely heard on the studio efforts of other diatonic harmonica players: the unadorned acoustic sound of a diatonic harmonica sound without processing, amplification or effects beyond a very subtle trace of reverb and delay.

PT lives in a musical neighborhood populated by bluesy swing numbers, jazz standards and ballads. I spend a lot time in that same zone, and no doubt PT’s inexhaustible enthusiasm for Harry “Sweets” Edison and Ben Webster makes me predisposed to like him. And he keeps these collections interesting by covering tunes by the likes of Stevie Wonder, the Beatles, and Bill Monroe as well.

“The Loft Sessions” is Gazell’s brand-new release, a killer jazz record from an all-star drummerless combo: PT on harmonica, Marek Rejhon on guitar, and Jimmy Sullivan and Roger Spencer on bass. The tunes are impeccably chosen and evenly split between swing numbers (three of which were originally recorded by Gazell’s heroes Edison and Webster) and ballads. The swing tunes (“Taste On The Place,” “Used To Be Basie,” “Candy,” and “Studio Call”) are all perfect vehicles for Gazell’s ultraconfident mastery of that familiar but challenging idiom, his complete command of macro- and microbends, his unerring but always relaxed rhythm, and the incredible evenness of his tone up and down his ten-hole instrument. The ballads on this record are particularly gorgeous and grounded in his beautiful phrasing and wistful tone. Rejhon is a truly great guitarist, and Gazell is smart to share the solo spaces throughout with him, and their work on Oliver Nelson’s ballad “Stolen Moments” is a real highlight. “Val’s Lament” by Johnny Hodges is a great bluesy ballad perfect suited for PT’s style and proclivities, and “Angel Eyes” features some beautiful microbends and high-note wizardry from him.

“Madness To The Method” dates from 2016 and here PT is supported by Pat Bergeson on guitar, Roger Spencer on bass, Rob Ickes on lap steel, Chris Brown on drums and percussion. Ickes is a monster, and the pairing of harmonica and lap steel—two instruments that live in the cracks—on tunes like “Kitty,” “A Smooth One,” and “I’m Confessin’”—is brilliant. Gazell steps up to the mic and sings two Louis Jordan classic barroom rousers—"Boogie Woogie Plate” and “Reet Peet and Gone”—and on the latter Ickes’ steel takes PT back to his country roots. The group takes Rogers and Hart’s “This Can’t Be Love” at the perfect swing tempo and lots of effortless slipping and sliding ensues. Gazell and Bergeson duet exquisitely on Benny Golson’s soulful ballad “I Remember Clifford.” This tune is a test for any player, but Gazell nails it with his seamless bending technique. This CD includes features three other ballads—the Duke’s langorous “All Too Soon” with some marvelous guitar from Bergeson and a sweet cadenza from PT, the pop classic “If I Had You” with more great steel work and PT perfectly navigating the sinuous chords and melody, and the album’s perfect closer, a luminous version of Lennon and McCartney’s “Here There and Everywhere” on which Gazell overdubs his harmonicas in unison an octave below.

“2 Days Out” was released in 2011. It’s another small-group jazz effort with guitarist Andy Reiss, bassist Danny O’Lannerghty, pianists Jeff Steinberg and Bruce Dudley, and drummer Chris Brown supporting PT. Gazell adds a musical twist to this album’s sound in the form of trombonist Roy Agee and flugelhorn ace George Tidwell. The doubling of the muted trombone and the harmonica on tunes like Ray Noble’s “The Very Thought Of You” and the Beatles’ “Fixing A Hole” results in a blend so complimentary that you’re left wondering why such an improbable pairing isn’t used more often. Predictably, the album is replete with standout swing shuffles, including “There Is No Greater Love,” “Out Of Nowhere” (featuring Reiss on guitar and some amazing chromatic runs against the chords from Gazell), “Did You Call Her Today” (piano perfection from Dudley), and “The Best Things In Life Are Free” (featuring sweet unison work and solo sharing between PT’s harmonica and Tidwell’s fat flugelhorn). For this record, Gazell’s ballad selections are Rogers and Hart’s “My Romance,” which is ended by another impossibly pretty PT cadenza, the Gershwin’s “Our Love Is Here To Stay,” featuring the piano of Jeff Steinberg, and Stevie Wonder’s “Lately,” on which PT fluently delivers a melody that would be out of reach for most diatonic players. “2 Days Out” also features two really strong blues numbers—“Sweets” Edison’s “Pussy Willow,” on which harmonica and trombone pair up on the head, and “K.M. Blues,” delivered at a blistering tempo and distinguished by Reiss’ guitar work and PT doubling himself at times both in octave and harmony. Gazell ends this great CD with one of my all-time favorite bluegrass numbers, Bill Monroe’s haunting, minor-key “Lonesome Midnight Waltz” with an unforgettable, lonesome melody.

If you’re familiar with “2 Days Out” and “Madness To The Method,” you don’t need me to tell you to rush out and buy PT Gazell’s latest release, “The Loft Sessions.” And if you’re somehow not familiar with PT’s music, purchasing his latest compilation will certainly compel you to buy the earlier two. These three collections definitely represent a cohesive trio of jazz recordings featuring a legitimate harmonica master in a small-group setting with the mouth organ right up front. If you’re a diatonic harmonica player new to jazz, melodic playing, ballads, swing, and standards, you need to check out the template and example that Gazell has set out for doing more than justice to those styles.

To order PT Gazell’s new project “The Loft Sessions” as well as his other releases—“Method To The Madness:” and “2 Days Out”—click on this link: http://www.ptgazell.com/recordings.html.

For more about PT’s career and his special line of “Gazell method” valved diatonic harmonicas, check out his web site at www.ptgazell.com.

DeFord Bailey (1899-1982)

One gray afternoon in November, 1977, I parked my car at a street corner on Edgehill Road in a black neighborhood in Nashville. The man I was looking for had managed a shoeshine stand on that corner as recently as six years before, but now there was no sign of it. I walked into a nearby drugstore that had obviously been there for years and asked the pharmacist behind the counter if he might know where I could find DeFord Bailey. He obligingly pointed out a high-rise apartment building across the street.

I walked into a lobby furnished with chairs filled with old men and women reading newspapers and conversing quietly and found Bailey’s name and apartment number listed in a tenant directory on the wall. A few minutes later, I was knocking on the door of number 30, which swung open to reveal a tiny, white-haired black man, impeccably turned out in a white brocaded shirt, sharply creased pants, and gleaming patent-leather shoes. I stammered out an introduction and, stretching the truth only a little, said that I was a harmonica player who had traveled across the country just to meet the man who had recorded “Ice Water Blues.” Smiling, Bailey welcomed me in a quiet voice, stepped aside, and ushered me into his apartment, a small place filled with photographs and train memorabilia in which time seemed suspended sometime between the world wars.

We talked about his songs and DeFord produced a tape recorder containing a cassette of his old recordings. I had heard that Bailey would play his harmonica only on a cash basis, so I placed a twenty-dollar bill on a nearby side table as discreetly as I could and told him how much it would mean to me to hear the sound of his mouth organ in person.

“I play the banjo, you know,” he responded, and produced a five-string from somewhere and began fingerpicking it left-handed. After a time I steered the conversation back to the harmonica again.

“I play the guitar, too,” he volunteered, and in a minute he was cradling a guitar and picking out a melody in a subdued, tuneful style reminiscent of Mississippi John Hurt’s.

I decided to force the issue by pulling out a Marine Band and attempting my own version of my host’s “Ice Water Blues.” I stewed in my embarrassment as he pondered my playing. “You got some of that in there pretty good,” he finally said. “Keep practicing, son—keep practicing. I’ve been playing the harmonica for seventy-five years. You know I must know something.”

Bailey carefully opened a box containing a Marine Band in the key of G, confiding that the A and the G models were the best for his songs but that he could get by with a Bb if he had to. He cradled the harmonica in his right hand, brought it to his mouth, and for the next few minutes his remarkable playing filled the small room.

We listened to the tape of Bailey’s old recordings and discussed the finer technical points of harmonica playing. After a lesson from DeFord on how to play the bones properly, I asked him if I could have a picture taken with him. He agreed, but saying that he would like to change his clothes, he politely excused himself and disappeared behind a curtain that divided the single room into a parlor and a bedroom. A few minutes later he reappeared, this time in a black frock coat, string tie, and a Stetson hat that looked as if it were enjoying its first trip out of the box. He posed with me, we shook hands, I tried to tell him what his records meant to me, and then I was walking down a stairwell, trying to imagine Bailey as a young man in the WSM studios, perched on a Coca-Cola crate in front of a microphone, harmonica in hand, waiting for George Hay’s introduction.

At the close of the NBC “Music Appreciation Hour” on the night of December 11, 1927, host Walter Damrosch commented stiffly that “while most artists realize that there is no place in the classics for realism, I am going to break one of my rules and present a composition by a young composer from Iowa. This young man has sent us his latest number, which depicts the onrush of a locomotive.”

After the stirring orchestral train imitation was finished, those listening to the network broadcast over Nashville’s WSM heard George Hay follow Damrosch’s lead. Promising his audience “nothing but realism, down-to-earth for the earthy,” he called on DeFord Bailey, “The Harmonica Wizard,” to perform his train piece, “Pan American Blues.” After Bailey’s artificial steam had dissipated, Hay reminded listeners that “for the past hour we have been listening to music taken largely from the Grand Opera, but from now on we will present the Grand Ole Opry.”

DeFord Bailey, despite his undeniable genius, was an unlikely candidate to become the most popular of the many fine  harmonica players in the early days of country music. He was a quiet man, a tiny hunchback barely four feet ten inches tall. And he was black.

Bailey was born on his parents’ farm near Bellwood, Tennessee. “Everybody in my family played music,” he told Bengt Olsson. His mother and his aunt both played the guitar, his brother was a banjoist, and his father and grandfather were fine fiddlers. Bailey claimed that one of his uncles was the best black banjoist he had ever heard. Two of DeFord’s uncles played the harmonica; one, Albert, had quite a local reputation. DeFord remembered his family as being known as “the best musicians since slavery times.”

Bailey’s physical shortcomings were the result of a bout with polio at the age of three. Bedridden for a year, he spent his convalescence trying to unravel the mysteries of the harmonica and mandolin. “I tried to learn more about my harp from other people when I was a boy,” Bailey told David Morton, “but I didn’t learn very much…I was in a different class.” Bailey told me that as a child he was so obsessed with perfecting a train imitation that he would spend whole days sitting under a nearby railroad trestle, studying the shuddering roar of passing locomotives. He later became justly famous for his harmonica train pieces, which were so accurate that a railroad engineer once visited WSM studios for the express purpose of congratulating the mouth organist on his achievement and to suggest a few subtle corrections to DeFord’s whistle pattern for crossings.

Bailey’s physical problems, the racial climate of his day, and his talent for music all helped to give him an introverted, dreamy character. “I’ve always been like a child,” he told Bengt Olsson. “I have a very vivid imagination. I think like a child and I feel like a child. People say I drive them crazy after a while.” Bailey confided to David Morton that his schooling was sketchy. “I didn’t study nothing else but my harp.” When the white family for whom he did chores moved to Nashville in 1918, DeFord went with them.

His solitary personality notwithstanding, Bailey sought the musical spotlight. Preposterously, he teamed up with mirror image of himself—another diminutive, crippled African American harmonica player named Bob Lee—and together they played around Nashville. Bailey also worked as an elevator operator, playing his harmonica between stops for passengers, one of whom encouraged him to make his first radio appearance as a contestant in a contest sponsored by WDAD. A description of the competition in the Nashville Tennessean reported that “the first prize in the French Harp contest was one by J. T. Bland who played ‘Lost John.’ The second prize was won by DeFord Bailey, a negro boy, who played “It Ain’t Gonna Rain No Mo’.”

Dr. Humphrey Bate brought Bailey to an Opry broadcast, introducing him to Hay as “the dangdest harmonica player who ever lived” and convincing the announcer to put DeFord on the air that same night. Bailey was made an Opry regular in 1926 and within a year became the most popular member of its cast with his own regular fifteen-minute segment.

There is no hard evidence that the Opry tried to keep DeFord’s race a secret from the Opry audience. Bailey rarely spoke during his broadcasts, but this may have been in keeping with DeFord’s essentially shy nature, and he did sing occasionally on the air. While Bailey was the only black regular on the Opry, other African American gospel singers, guitarists, and blues performers appeared on the program. Whatever notions the Opry audience had about DeFord’s background, they responded enthusiastically to his performances; his fan mail was sizeable. According to Charles Wolfe, “it wasn’t at all uncommon for DeFord to appear for two or even three sets in a single Saturday night show.” Opry scholar Richard Petersen has documented that in 1928 Bailey performed almost twice as often on the Opry as any other performer.

In 1927, Bailey traveled to Atlanta and cut two sides for Columbia that were never issued. Two weeks later, Bailey was on a train for New York, where he recorded eight tunes in two sessions for the Brunswick label. On October 2, 1928, Bailey was the focus of the first recording session held in Nashville, during which he cut eight sides for Victor.

At the time, record companies had a practice of issuing blues recordings—then aimed solely at black audiences—as “race” records; recordings of white country music performers were sold as “hillbilly” discs. Bailey’s race, his status as a star of the Grand Ole Opry, and the fact that his purely instrumental music reflected the overlapping musical repertoires of blacks and whites in the Tennessee hill country (Bailey himself always contended that he played “black hillbilly music”) enabled Victor to release his recordings in both series. DeFord Bailey had become the first crossover star in country music.

As Paul Oliver’s research has shown, the material that Bailey recorded was not especially original. “Old Hen Cackle” was a traditional fiddle tune, “John Henry” was a well-known favorite of both blacks and whites, “Ice Water Blues” was based on a tune called “The Preacher and the Bear,” and “Davidson County Blues” was a rewriting of the piano showcase “Cow Cow Blues.” Bailey’s recordings, however, do not reveal the full extent of his range, which included blues, pop, sacred, and jazz numbers as well as traditional tunes.

What they do give us is solid evidence of his genius. His tone is unfailingly beautiful and astonishingly full, and his numbers are strongly melodic and cleverly conceived. What puts Bailey squarely in the ranks of the greatest of harmonica players is his polyrhythmic brilliance, which has never been equaled. In tunes like “Ice Water Blues” (a popular record that was released three times), Bailey effortlessly juxtaposes a melody line against two or three rhythmically distinct cadences that somehow dovetail seamlessly. Bailey once tried to describe to David Morton what distinguished his style from that of other players: “My timing is different from theirs….I got a double sound. I can’t play single. It doesn’t sound good to me….I add time to vacant space.” He took great pride in the clarity of his playing, and he liked to inject something unique (he called it “throwing in a little judo”) into each of his pieces.

Bailey often headlined touring package shows featuring Opry stars that drew large audiences. “When I first came to town, he was one of the top stars and was much in demand for personal appearances,” Roy Acuff admitted. “I carried him on my band. I wasn’t known and he drew a crowd….He helped me get where I am.”

“Rabon and I used DeFord on a lot of our personal appearances,” wrote Alton Delmore of the Delmore Brothers. “[He] was a pioneer in the field of playing the harmonica. When we joined the Opry we saw a lot of DeFord and he was a real friendly fellow and we liked him very much. So did the rest of the entertainers on the Opry….We all thought just as much of DeFord as we did our white friends. He was a little fellow who commanded our admiration and respect.”

On the road, Bailey was no longer sheltered by the faceless anonymity offered by radio. He usually could not eat at the same restaurants as his Opry colleagues. Although he suffered some indignities at the hands of his fellow performers on these road trips (on one tour DeFord was wheeled onstage at each performance in an oversize baby buggy), many of them were particularly solicitous of his welfare. When he toured with Uncle Dave Macon, Macon would often claim that Bailey was his valet so that the harmonicist could room with him. Most of the time, however, Bailey had to scour black neighborhoods in each town for lodging. As Bill Monroe told Jim Rooney, “We’d walk the streets together, two, three o-clock in the morning, nobody out, in the roughest parts of town we’d be down there getting him a place to stay….Then he would get in the room and lock the door and stay there until I went to get him the next day .” Bailey slept with a pistol under his head while on these tours.

A trend toward modernization at the Opry led to the steady reduction of Bailey’s airtime, which by 1935 had shrunk to five minutes. By the early 1940s he was called on to play only if time permitted. Bailey’s close friend David Morton feels that Bailey was the victim of a publishing battle between ASCAP, which published most of his repertoire, and BMI. WSM had invested in BMI and pressured its cast of regulars to write new songs that would be published in the BMI catalog.

Bailey was finally given his notice by Hay in 1941. In a souvenir pamphlet published four years later, Hay commented on the end of Bailey’s Opry career: “That brings us to DeFord Bailey, a little crippled colored boy who was a bright feature of our show for about fifteen years. Like some members of his race and other races DeFord was lazy. He knew about a dozen numbers, which he put on the air and recorded for a major company, but he refused to learn more, even though his reward was great. He was our mascot and is still loved by the entire company. We gave him a whole year’s notice to learn some new tunes. But he would not. When we were forced to give him his final notice, DeFord said, without mailice: “I knowed it wuz comin’, Judge, I knowed it wuz comin’.” Bailey himself, however, was steadfastly bitter about his firing, claiming that he never got paid more than five dollars for an Opry performance and that his treatment had not been on a par with that received by other performers.

Bailey had stared a shoeshine parlor with an uncle in 1931, and he went to work there after leaving the Opry. When his parlor became a casualty of a 1971 urban renewal program, he moved into a nearby housing project for the elderly. He steadfastly resisted offers from the Newport Folk Festival, for album projects alone and with folksinger Pete Seeger, for network television appearances, and for a cameo appearance in the Burt Reynolds film W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings. When the Opry called, however, Bailey still answered; he stole the show at an Old Timer’s Night at the old Ryman Auditorium in 1974 and played at the new Opryland complex on his seventy-fifth birthday. He would occasionally talk about recording again, but never did.

In 1982 Bailey spent several weeks in the cardiac care unit of Nashville’s Baptist Hospital for treatment of heart disease. Shortly after his release, on July 2, Bailey was rushed to the hospital’s emergency room, where he was pronounced dead on arrival from kidney failure and heart congestion.

The Hohner Company formally petitioned the Country Music Hall of Fame to induct Bailey. Minnie Pearl and Alcyone Beasley, Humphrey Bates’ daughter, urged his selection, but Roy Acuff told the New York Times that Bailey did not deserve a place in the Hall of Fame, saying that the harmonica player’s contributions had done nothing to further country music.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of Daniel Morton, June 23, 1983 was declared DeFord Bailey Day in Nashville. A striking granite headstone, engraved with a diatonic harmonica and the words “Harmonica Wizard,” was unveiled in a ceremony at Nashville’s Greenwood Cemetery. Roy Acuff, Bill Monroe, and Herman Crook were among the crowd. Acuff was still smarting from the criticism he had received over his comments concerning Bailey’s qualifications for the Country Music Hall of Fame. “If his name is ever put on the ballot,” he told reporters, “he will have a vote from Roy Acuff.”

Bailey would have enjoyed the occasion. The Crook Brothers played two of his favorite breakdowns, “Sugar in the Gourd” and “Grey Eagle.” Bill Monroe performed Bailey’s “Evening Prayer Blues” on the mandolin, and James Talley contributed a version of “John Henry.” After the headstone was unveiled, Herman Crook brought the observance to a close with a solo harmonica rendition of “Amazing Grace.” Some of those in attendance then drove to the Country Music Hall of Fame, where several Bailey artifacts—three hats, some shoes, a folding can chair, and two of his megaphones—were donated to the Country Music Museum.

DeFord Bailey was finally inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2005.

The previous is an excerpt from my book, “Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers.”

Five hundred harmonica players in one hotel

I spent last week in St. Louis at the annual convention of SPAH--the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica, an organization that has been around since 1962. I started attending SPAH conventions in the 1990s, when I was working on my harmonica book. Until last week I hadn't been to SPAH convention in many years. I considered it almost every year, but other priorities always seemed to interfere.

Attending a SPAH convention is a unique experience, to say the least. Living for five days in a hotel filled with harmaniacs can seem at times like you're living in the world's largest aviary. This is an event at which people can talk passionately for hours about the best way to gap a harmonica reed, whether tongue blocking is a superior approach to puckering, or who recorded the first overblow.

It's also an event filled with hundreds of incredibly fine and supportive people and the most astonishing collection of harmonica talent you'll ever see or hear in one place. The convention includes tons of jamming, vendors displaying all the many advances to the instrument, and formal performances by the top players. The photo collage shows some of the musical highlights: a session featuring Will Scarlett, Cheryl Arena (who did the blues harp proud all week), Joe Filisko, Johnny Long, and Buzz Krantz; a predictably killer set by the legendary Charlie McCoy; Chris Bauer and PT Gazell showing brilliantly how the chromatic and diatonic harmonicas are both great jazz instruments; Rob Paprozzi wowing the convention with Howard Levy backing him on piano; Tom Stryker’s fabulous harmonica big band; and Howards Levy and Susan Sauter sending the attendees home with their jaw-dropping performance of Bartok, Bach, and Vivaldi. Richard Sleigh and James Conway also gave a remarkable show, as did Filip Jers.

I had a ball. The best thing about being a musician--by far--is the people you meet. It was SO much fun to hook up with so many old friends, including the amazing Joe Filisko, Buzz Krantz, Kirk Jelly Roll Johnson (who was awarded a no-brainer, well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award on Saturday night), Winslow Yerxa, Richard Sleigh, Michael Rubin, Howard Levy, Rob Paparozzi, Peter “Madcat” Ruth, Kyle Rowland, and any others. I also finally got the chance to meet many new friends and harmonica heroes, including Brendan Power, PT Gazell, James Conway, Paul Messinger, Charlie Barath, and Deak Harp. And I saw the bright future of the instrument in the music of all the outstanding young players, some of whom are years away from voting age.

A special thanks to Tom Albanese and Ron Rosco Selly, even though they were at times corrupting influences (what really happened on Thursday night, anyway?), and everyone at SPAH for going above and beyond in making SPAH 2018 a great experience for yours truly.

BluesHarmonica.com

On a recent trip to the Bay Area, I had the pleasure of finally meeting David Barrett, a great harmonica player who is the genius behind BluesHarmonica.com, a phenomenal resource for players of the world's finest instrument. Had the honor of sitting down with David for a filmed discussion about the harp. Tons of fun. Here's a snippet that David posted to YouTube today.

Join me for a segment of my interview with blues harmonica player Kim Field. In this video he shares his thoughts about Little Walter, John Lee Williamson and Amplified Playing in general. To watch the entire interview (almost two hours in length), become a subscribed member of BluesHarmonica.com

Fifty Cents and a Box Top

Just finished reading "50 Cents And A Box Top," the new memoir by legendary harmonica ace Charlie McCoy. Charlie recounts his amazing personal journey from young blues freak and rockabilly singer to a completely unique harmonica stylist to one of the most in-demand session players in the history of popular music to best-selling recording artist to international music star to member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. What a ride! My favorite chapters were the ones about the thousands of sessions Charlie did behind folks like Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn, Bob Dylan, and Paul Simon. (There's a jaw-dropping anecdote about a Leonard Cohen session that confirmed all my personal suspicions about that artist.) Harmonica players will especially appreciate the appendix with complete details of the harmonica model, key, and, in some cases, special tunings that Charlie used on his own stunning instrumental recordings. Charlie is one of the great musical geniuses of our time and one of the nicest guys in the business. If you have any interest in music, you will love this book.

30th annual waterfront blues festival

Thrilled to be part of the 30th annual Waterfront Blues Festival this July 4th in my new home of Portland. I'll be playing and singing in Bill Rhoades' 16th Annual Harmonica Blowoff, along with heavy harpers Mark DuFresne, Hank Shreve, Mike Moothart, and Mr. Rhoades himself. Many thanks to Bill and Peter Dammann for the opportunity. We play just before the huge fireworks spectacular, which is only appropriate. Excited about seeing many great shows at the West Coast's premier blues festival, including the Paul deLay tribute and the return of the always amazing Curtis Salgado.

Walter Horton

Today is the birthday of Walter Horton, one of the musicians who had the biggest influence on me. Walter grew up in Horn Lake, Mississippi and by the time he was a teenager he had moved a few miles north to Memphis. His childhood friend, bluesman Johnny Shines, told writer Peter Guralnick about meeting Horton when they were both youngsters in Mississippi:

“Walter would be sitting on the porch, blowing in tin cans, you know, he’d blow in tin cans, and he’d get sounds out of these things. You see, this harmonica blowing is really a mark for Walter, it’s not something he picked up—he was born to do it. And he’s gonna do that. I believe he’d crack tomorrow with a harp in his hand and he’d keep it in his hand. And probably you could never take that harp away from him.”

If you ever heard Horton blow the harp, you would have no problem believing that he could get music out of a tin can. Walter had a unique, very melodic approach to the blues harp that showed the strong influence of the amazing collection of great jug band harmonica players like Noah Lewis and Will Shade who were active in Memphis in the ‘20s and ‘30s. Walter claimed to have recorded with the Memphis Jug Band when he was nine years old; he definitely backed Little Buddy Doyle on that singer’s 1939 recordings. He worked outside of music through most of the 1940s, but in 1952 legendary producer Sam Phillips recorded several sides for Sun Records with Horton. One of them, “Easy,” is a bona fide blues harp masterpiece.

Horton moved to Chicago not long after and quickly became top harp man in a city loaded with harmonica players. Horton made many brilliant recordings of his own and contributed stellar harmonica work to sessions with Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines, Otis Rush, Jimmy Rogers, Sunnyland Slim, Otis Spann, and Robert Nighthawk, among others.

When I was going to college in NYC, I hitchhiked up to Boston several times to see Horton play at Joe’s Place, where he was backed up by Johnny Nicholas and his great band. Those shows were a total revelation to me—Horton’s sound was huge and gorgeous, and he greatly expanded my notion of what was possible on the harmonica. I also able to spend time with Walter at his table between sets. Walter was by nature a shy person, but after a few drinks he would let out with all kinds of outrageous statements. He gave me his address in Chicago and told me the amazing experience that would be mine if I ever showed up for a lesson. “I got a motherf----n’ x-ray machine, man, and I will slap that f----r up against my face and you will see EVERYTHING.” I did a show with him at the Rainbow Tavern in Seattle and he invited me to join him onstage for his last set, which no doubt will always stand as my most amazing musical experience. Walter was really something else.

James Cotton

I was seventeen the night I walked up the ramps at Eagles Auditorium in downtown Seattle to catch the James Cotton Blues Band. This was the (justifiably) legendary early Cotton band, with Luther Tucker on guitar, Francis Clay on drums, Alberto Gianquinto on piano, and Bobby Anderson on bass. I had been playing the trumpet in school bands for seven years, but in terms of live music, I was green, with a pair of fresh ears that were wide open. Looking back, I can’t believe how lucky I was to walk into that show at such a tender age when I was in no way prepared for the experience.

Cotton was only in his mid-thirties then, but he already had done a lifetime of gigs. Born in Tunica, Mississippi, Cotton moved in with Rice (Sonny Boy Williamson) Miller at the age of nine (!), and he inherited Miller’s band six years later when Miller moved to Chicago. He spent a half dozen years as part of the thriving Memphis blues scene, along with Howlin’ Wolf, Bobby Bland, Junior Parker and B.B. King, and he made his first recordings there for Sun Records. Then came a twelve-year stint with Muddy Waters. Cotton developed into not only a master harp player, but a truly great singer and showman as well. He was the whole package.

The night I saw him, Cotton had just recently formed his own band and gone out on his own. The young James was a fountain of energy onstage, pacing relentlessly back and forth throughout the entire set. Cotton somehow pulled off “The Creeper,” his complex, tour de force harp instrumental, while doing somersaults. He was the first performer I saw do the sixty-foot-cord stunt, and when he walked right past me popping that harp in and out of his mouth, I was a goner.
That showmanship and physicality ensured that I would never forget that Eagles show, but it was Cotton’s harp sound that changed my life. I had never heard amplified harp before. My trumpet playing had made me a confirmed wind-instrument player, and I did know a few things about tone, breath control, and phrasing, but I had never heard a sound like the one Cotton got out of those Marine Bands. In the middle of the show Cotton stepped on the reverb pedal and served up an impossibly deep slow blues in the echo chamber, a number he recorded as “Blues In My Sleep.” It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard in my young life. It made me literally weak in the knees, and it left me determined to get on the trail to track it down. I went to the music store the next day and bought a C Marine Band, and I’ve been trying, for the most part fruitlessly, to figure out Cotton’s magical sound ever since.

I got to see him many, many times in a multitude of settings, cities, and venues. I got to open for him on a few occasions, and I was able to spend some time in his presence and to hear some of his stories. Such a privilege. I once opened for him at the Backstage in Seattle. I was excited not only because I was on the bill with me hero, but because Luther Tucker had rejoined James this tour of the West Coast. I got to hear them recreate some of that magic that whipped me so badly that night at Eagles Auditorium. That night, talking in the “dressing room” between sets I asked James if he’d do me a favor and let me get a photo of the two of us. Cotton was relaxing on a couch, and he good naturedly said “Sure, but I ain’t gettin’ up off of this damn sofa to do it.” So I slid in next to him and made myself comfortable, too.

A few years back tapes of a live gig in Montreal by the same Cotton band I heard that night at Eagles were issued on a pair of CDs. I love those recordings because when I put them on I’m instantly right back there, listening with fresh ears. In a few minutes, after I get some dinner, I’ll be settling down in another couch to listen to them again. Thanks for the energy, the soulfulness, and that beautiful sound, James.