Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 18:37:52 +0100 From: "Brendan Power" Subject: A Great New Talent: ERIC CHAFER
It is very rarely that one hears someone with a fully developed original style on harmonica who comes along and blows away all your preconceptions, but it happened for me and many others in Limoges, France this week when we heard the astounding ERIC CHAFER.
He has developed a new style on diatonic by totally mastering this tuning:
Blow: C E G# C E G# C E G# C Draw: Eb G B Eb G B Eb G B Eb
I'm sure Pat has a name for it. Eric uses the low C at the bottom.
As you can see, it allows full chromatic playing on the diatonic with 4 notes in each hole, including two bends. Eric has got this difficult feat down to the extent that Howard Levy has mastered the overblow style - and in my opinion it sounds sweeter, as there is none of that characteristic thin overblow tone. His articulation and control of pitch are astonishing, and the way the octaves are closely spaced allows him to do runs that cover a huge range in the blink of an eye.
As his tuning departs so radically from the Richter one we're used to on the diatonic, it also means that his phrasing is very original, so you hear stuff that you've never heard before on any type of harmonica.
Eric is not just a harp player: he is a kind of Rabelaisian figure, an intellectual who looks like a fisherman, stockily built with a full beard and a very casual approach to life. He is a true natural, brilliant also on stand-up bass and a writer and theoriser as well. A real character. He comes from a village in the south of France, in the Pyrenees.
So far he is very little recorded, just a duo CD out with his excellent playing partner, guitarist and singer/composer Francis Ferrie. This has about 4 cuts of Eric's harp playing; for the rest he plays bass guitar. Benoit Felten and I are trying to convince Eric to get a recording done soon that really features the harmonica, as undoubtedly many others would be as impressed as we were.
Eric doesn't have email, but you can contact him through Francis if you want to buy the CD: francis.ferr~anadoo.fr
Bear in mind that neither of them speaks much English, so keep messages short and simple.
