Other web Sites
Harmonica Blues  Harmonica Amps
Harmonica Links Harmonica Pages
• Archives Home
• Years
 · 1992
 · 1993
 · 1994
 · 1995
 · 1996
 · 1997 		 · 1998
 · 1999
 · 2000
 · 2001
 · 2002
 · 2003
 
Web HarpL
Ebay Searches:
Amps:
Microphones:
Effects:
Harmonicas and Gear:
Harmonica Music and Instruction:

 

 

Harp-L Archives

[Previous Message] [Next Message]
[Previous in Thread] [Next in Thread]
[Start of Thread] [End of Thread]

Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2001 12:39:07 -0700
From: Ken Deifik
Subject: Re: improv vs repeating solos

> Blues is about expression. Expression is of the moment, and for the
> moment. The moment is always different, so the song should likewise
> be different each time we do it.
>
> All the old time blues artists I've ever gigged with (John Lee
> Hooker, Big Jay McNeely, Josh White Sr, etc.) or known have held this
> view of blues.
>
> William Clarke chewed out guitarist Alex Shulz *on stage* for playing
> the same solo three days in a row.

Not that I disagree with you, but many of the jazz soloists of the
pre-bebop era developed a solo and then stuck with it. This is true of the
Ellington band, for instance, and Duke never chewed them out even once for
doing it. However, a good listen to the gig transcriptions shows that
these geniuses could play the same solo in aparently infinitely many
ways. (They also improvised solo. They did both.)

Though I generally prefer to improvise melodies when I'm soloing (while,
hopefully, delivering a good feeling) on a few of the vonBrellas pieces I
have highly set harp solos that varies only on the level of rhythmic
feeling (not rhythm). It's what's appropriate in those spots. What I found
was that in the same way that you might develop a nice, locked harp part
for the background ensemble and then stick with it, sometimes that's the
thing that works with the solo, too. My solos of that ilk tend to use very
few notes in especially compelling patterns. When you hit on something
that works bigtime you sometimes tend to use it again to see if it knocks
the audience back the same way a second time and more.

I truly love bonking the audience over with improvised material, slow,
medium and 200 MPH. However, the first time the audience hears me play in
a show I ALWAYS play very, very simply, with figures that are calculated to
get their attention. With the vonBrellas, I just play guitar on the first
few tunes and then I load on the harp rack, and in the tune that follows I
have a very simple, very set 12 bar solo. To people who haven't heard us
before they think, well, what more can a guy do with a harp if he's also
playing guitar? But then after the singer returns for a final verse and
chorus we have an ending in which I improvise whatever the hell makes me
feel right and the feeling of surprise (and hopefully pleasure) flows right
back at me from the seats.

All that being said, it's so cool when you are PLAYING solo, and you have
no responsibility to the other musicians vis-a-vis arrangements, to go
wherever you damn well please. I love hearing those Robert Johnson
outtakes where everything is both substantially different and recognizeably
similar to the published recordings, where it's clear that even the lyrics
were highly improvised. That kind of looseness is ecstatic.

The Motown musicians and producers had a novel solution to all this. They
were all jazz freaks and LOVED the feeling of improvised solos, but solos
that went here and there were not really appropriate to the style of
music. I believe the soloists were often told to try to keep their solos
to one or two notes, and to improvise rhythmically so that the fresh
feeling was there. (If I remember correctly, Get Ready by the Temptations
has a one-note sax solo that never stops rocking.)

I realize that the original post was about blues, I do not hear huge walls
of difference between Ellington, Robert Johnson, Motown, and Charley Parker
(who seems to have NEVER repeated a solo).

K