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From: "Myq Uill"
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 1998 05:06:13 PDT
Subject: [none]

>Was Jerry part of SPAH or was he just around? Sounds like you had a
great
>time, I look forward to coming some year. Dave Barrett

Dave,

Jerry was just around, along with Steve Guyger, Mike Stevens, Richard
Hunter, and other super players. Kim Wilson was the headline blues
performer, and Curtis Salgado was also featured. At one point Kim and
Curtis were on stage, and they called up Steve Guyger and Jerry. Jerry
was sitting just in front of me in the audience and I overheard him tell
his wife a couple of time "They're throwing me to the lions!" Yep, even
Jerry was nervous!

You may not know of Steve Guyger who's out of Philadelphia. MONSTER
Chicago Blues guy. HUGE tone, both singing and playing. Plays with a
guitarist Rich Yescala (who wasn't at SPAH), who has played with some of
the legends including, I think I'm remembering this right, Big Walter
Horton. Rich had some great stories at the Buckeye Harmonica Festival
(similar to SPAH but not quite as big) this past April.

Mike Stevens is the best bluegrass harp player anywhere, and among the
best diatonic players there ever has been. He has pushed the envelope
way past the humanly possible...

Richard Hunter is a master of solo harmonica, special tunings (he uses 6
different tunings), counterpoint, and composition for the diatonic.

Also there were a half dozen of the very best overblow players, all of
whom have studied with Howard Levy.. guys like Carlos delJunco, Larry
"Iceman" Eisenberg (who won your first blues blowoff at the Masterclass
with Paul deLay's band), Sandy Weltman, Chris Michalek, George Brooks,
and Allen Holmes. These guys can all play blues well (not quite the
monster status), but really shine in jazz, where you need the full
chromatic capability of the overblows. They get good tone out of the
overblows, as well as vibrato and even being able to bend the overblow
notes, which requires a lot of control.

Winslow had his "band" together for some tunes by Django Reinheart and
Duke Ellington. Amazing! Arranged so the harmonicas take horn parts.
Winslow has the guys play lines in different positions, using overblows,
and uses the different timbre to give the feel of different types of
horn. The guys were playing acoustic into cups (like coffee cups) to
give mute-type effects. Joe Filisko played through what looked like the
cone from an antique no-electricity-or-electronics record player. Very
kewl. Oh, the band was Winslow, Joe, Richard Sleigh (a former tech
apprentice of Joe's, now doing GREAT work on his own), Chris Michalek,
Allen Holmes, Dennis Gruenling, and Iceman. That's a lot of talent! and
it shows. Everyone is allowed to shine in Winslow's brilliant
arrangements. This is unique stuff, nothing like it has ever been done
before with harmonica. It's an honor to just be there and experience
the leading edge of where the harmonica is going.

Dennis Gruenling, if you don't know, is a young lion of Chicago Blues,
one of the top experts in mics and amplified play. Dennis is totally
into George "Harmonica" Smith and even passed out handouts of a
biographical write-up he's done on George. He did a blues-chromatic
number at Saturday Night's blues jam, having not slept in 36 hours
(sleep is in short supply at SPAH..) and just tore it up!! Unbelievably
great.

Shoot man, now I've blown it. Talk about a couple guys, I feel like I'm
short changing the others, which I surely don't want to do. Rob
Papparozzi is an amazing (yes, there ARE a LOT of AMAZING players who
were there) player and singer, with a resume as long as your arm. Rob
gets in there with the jazz guys and more than holds his own--without
using overblows! I'm not even going to try to get into the chromatic
jazz players, standards players, or classical players, but they are
every bit as outstanding in their genres as the blues players are in
theirs. Robert Bonfiglio, Douglas Tate, Stan Harper, Joe Martin, Pete
Pederson, Ron Kalina... whew! These are the very best.

Dave, you really need to go to a SPAH, or BHF festival. You'll meet so
many wonderful people. SPAH is the locus of harmonica, both the "old"
and the new directions. As one of the great young players you need to
be involved. Bring some of these guys back to San Jose for your
Masterclass and get the mix going. Joe Filisko is an excellent
teacher/clinician, as is Dennis, Iceman and a number of others. See if
you can get Gary Smith and Andy Just to a SPAH too.. the mix goes both
ways.. I can just see Andy and Peter Madcat Ruth sitting around talking
about effects... and the synergy they'd have there. A little cross
fertilization will have catalytic effects I predict, pushing everyone to
higher levels.

Anyway, I've rambled on too long. Great hearing from you.

MyQuill

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