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.