Mike Stevens is Still Burning
I dropped by Mike Stevens’s website today, and heard a cut from his new duet album with Matt Andersen, “Piggyback.” The cut is called “Devil’s Bride,” and to say that Stevens burns a hole through the CD on this cut is putting it mildly. He’s…
Video of the Day 25 Novermber 2011: PT Gazell and Shine
This is a recent performance by PT Gazell with Shine in Barcelona. PT starts by playing the melody in his easygoing style, then ramps up the heat as he goes along. PT’s smoothly swinging approach to jazz on the diatonic harp is unlike anyone else’s,…
Record Review: PT Gazell, “2 Days Out”
“2 Days Out” is PT Gazell’s latest jazz record, and it’s a lot of fun to listen to. The music is traditional but subversive; the dozen pieces on the CD are mostly mid-tempo jazz standards, and the treatments would be familiar to any small ensemble…
Record Review: Filip Jers, “Spiro”
Spiro is the first commercial release by Swedish composer/arranger/harmonica player Filip Jers. It’s an ambitious project in many ways: in addition to composing, arranging, and performing all 13 pieces on diatonic, chromatic, and bass harmonicas, acoustic guitar, acordian, jaw harp, and a few other instruments,…
RIP Phoebe Snow
Phoebe Snow, a great singer and reportedly an admirable person as well, has died. She was not a friend of mine, nor even an acquaintance. But her music was wonderful, and I’m sad to see her go. Rob Paparozzi, one of the elite harp player/singers…
Video of the Day Feb 23 2011: Howard Levy interviews Bart Leczycki
A harmonica master who came of age in the 1970s interviews an up-and-coming master. The interview begins with Bart playing a little bit of Mozart on the diatonic harmonica with a killer vibrato. The duet on “Now’s the Time” that starts around 4 minutes in…
Check Out Clint Hoover on “East Side”
I acquired a copy of the latest CD featuring Clint Hoover, Reynold D. Philipsek’s “East Side”, at SPAH in August 2010, and had the chance to listen to it all the way through on a long drive last night. Here’s a quick summary of the…
In Praise of Jeff Newsom
Jeff Newsom is a fine harmonica player based in Driggs, Idaho. I met Jeff in August 2001 at the Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival, where he offered (with no prompting from me) to introduce me to Tony Furtado, with whose band Jeff and I ended up…
The Best Harp Player I Met at SPAH
… is a young Polish musician named Bartosz Leczycki. He played brilliant diatonic harmonica in lots of different styles, always very fresh and original, with very highly developed technique and harmonic conception, on a par with anyone I’ve heard. (I didn’t hear his chromatic playing,…
The Pro Page
Welcome to our Pro Page, where some of the best professional country, rock, jazz, blues, and classical harmonica players in the world tell you what records they listen to, what harmonicas they use, and the gear they use to perform and record. We inaugurated this…
