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From: Glenn Weiser
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 21:04:07 -0400
Subject: A phone call from Jery Portnoy

Well, harpl-l-ers, I just got off the phone with Jerry Portnoy.
But before I tell you about it, does any one remember the old Persian
parable of the the three blind men and the elephant? When asked what an
elephant was like, the first one said "An elephant is like a column".
The second said "An eleplant is like a large piece of heavy cloth". The
third said "An eleplant is like a big spike."
As it turns out, each man had touched one part of the elephant-the leg,
the ear, and a tusk-, but none knew the whole creature.
So it seems to be with Chicago blues harp technigue. Just how they
played is our elephant, and we, dear friends, are the blind.
The phone rang and Portnoy's voice, deep and laconic, was on the other
end. He did in fact remember me ("You looked like a hippie, right? Yeah.
I remember the fiddle tunes").
I asked him what Little Walter's technique was, and he said that LW
sometimes bent puckered, and sometimes bent T-blocked. LW couldn't have
t-blocked the whole time, he said, or he would not have been able to
play such complex lines. He felt that BW made greater use of TB bending,
which was why he was more basic than LW. But he stressed that none of
the old Chicago players ever broke down the their playing techniques
when they taught, and that no one was sure of the exact methods. He said
he hung out for hours learning from Walter Horton, who would never say
more than "You do like this", and just blow a line for him to copy (this
tallies with what Madcat Ruth told me about BW). Portnoy did explain
that puckering had a more treble-laden tone, aned tongue blocking had
more of a bass quality. That, I suppose, is our only clue as to when
which technique was used.
And Le Riff? Absolutely a 6-9 octave. He had our A harps out, and he
blew Le Riff over the phone."Does that sound like it?", he said. And
dammit, it did. Starting the run t-blocked on the left side (the single
note) made the 6-9 easy to play
I explained that some you say it's a 3-6, or a single 6.
"They're wrong."
The amp theory?-forget it.
Aren't you simply delighted?

"He who says does not know.
He who knows does not say."
- -Lao Tzu

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