LD Miller, Brendan Powers, Christelle Berthon, and 15 yr old Jay Gaunt. LD beat boxes while playing at the same time. This is some of the best harp jamming you will ever see or hear - It took place at 3 in the morning during the 2009 SPAH convention in Sacramento Ca
This surely is what harp playing is all about and something to aspire to. Fantastic. You can see they are all thoroughly enjoying the occasion. ----------
Marvelous. This kind of scene plays itself out over and over and over at SPAH. Hallway jams with the likes of Brendan, Jason, Jimi Lee, Steve Baker, and many, many more. Charlie Musselwhite, Mark Hummel, Rob Paparozzi, Andy Just, Steve Baker on stage, AT ONCE, etc. An amazing week.
Nest year's SPAH will be in Minneapois. Do not miss another SPAH - make your plans to come, NOW!
Dutch - I hope you have more videos and will post them! ---------- /Greg
well not as cool as cali but at least its closer to me. ill be going for sure next year...i hope. imma try my best to go. if im still workin by then ill go.
Last Edited by on Aug 16, 2009 4:37 PM
sounds to me like Jay is playing in 3rd position on a B harp. Key of Db minor...
at 4:11 he is definitely bending an octave. He's sustaining the the five draw and bending the two draw down a hole step then he drops down to the 1-4 draw octave.
Greg conveniently fails to mention the lyrical jam around the firepit where my delicate ears and sensibilities were shocked by the likes of both himself and Harmonica Jon. I cannot be party to disturbing subjection like that.
It's just fortunate that I was three quarters in the bourbon bag. I barely knew what I was blowing, but it did take the edge off my offense.
On a patio. Just outside the bar.....on the other side of the glass from the jazz jam. We had to listen to all that craaaazy jazz noise from both the push-buttoners and Buddha and his little ten-hole fistwhistle. He did manage to cut through and grab Steve Baker's attention, though.
This is great, L.D. has added the harmonica beatbox idea to his arsenal. I have seen players do it on you tube but none can play worth a damn. This really for the first time strikes me as a new direction. Brendan's exquisite playing representing the direction the harp has taken with the exploration of positions and L.D. with the high octane Charlie Mccoy on speed /Popper/ Sugar blue direction, but underpinned with the beatbox rock solid rhythm anchoring it down. An extension of what Sonny Terry did but opening it up to a new generation. Very nice.
I got a newsletter from Richard Sleigh today with this clip from SPAH--apparently, Rick Estrin sat down in front of Richard's laptop and recorded it there--not really a jam--but another clip from SPAHland. . .
oh really??? Very interesting. The notes line up nicely for all of his 2nd position riffs. Because of that I just assumed it was an altered tuning of an F# harp.
