Musical Ramblings

Maïté #9

St Aignan - Saturday Night (Part Two)

I am a little bit ashamed of only finding the energy to write this six months after the event. This is my final post on the last night of the 2005 St Aignan Festival. I have vivid memories of that night, though, so I hope it makes up for the lost ones...

As you probably know if you've read my previous posts on the subject, the final concert was Bill Barrett, acommpanied by Patrick on drums, Jean-Michel on guitar and Sébastien on the Hammond B-3. I had managed to organise two rehearsals for them, plus some time to run through the repertoire once more on the afternoon before the concert.

The concert took a little while to pick up. Partly, I think, it was because they were all a little tense, plus the idea of following Howard Levy can't have made it easy. Partly also, I think it was due to a below par sound balance. The guitar in particular was way too low, and even Bill was a little low in the mix. I and several others went repeatedly to the sound people to mention the issues, but they didn't manage to fix it.

Still, things fell in place after a while. Bill had chosen an accessible repertoire and sang a lot more than he does on his records. Bill has a nice barytone voice that comes across very nicely with a warm backing, which was certainly the case here. I remember they played a really great version of Fever, as well as somme Junior Wells and Kenny Burrel covers. Some blues, some soul, some jazz, some funk, basically.

The band grooved really nicely, and about two thirds into the gig, Bill invited Howard over to play a few standards. I think they played Song for my Father, Well you Needn't and perhaps a third tune as well. It was nice to hear Bill and Howard pushing each other, although it was friendly competition. Howard's style tends more towards fast and fluid lines whereas Bill goes for more unhinged and broken phrases. All in all they complemented each other nicely, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to have been thrilled to see them both up there. Howard even kicked Sébastien off his stool at one point to take a long B-3 chorus, and although it was perhaps not very considerate, the audience loved it.

A little later, Bill invited Jean-Jacques for another couple of tunes. I think they played a Bo Diddley. JJ's sharp and zen-like playing made a nice contrast with Howard's busy approach previously, and the whole sounded very different. Patrick, Sébastien and Jean-Michel seemed to enjoy themselves backing these guys, although Jean-Michel was practically barred from taking any solos, being so low in the mix.

Finally, Bill called Steven de Bruyn over for yet another couple of tunes. At times I felt like Steven's style was perhaps the one that fitted the best with Bill's. They have a similar way of twisting the expected while remaining essentially accessible. It's not a matter of doing something odd for the sake of doing something odd, but rather of looking at classic approaches in a different way. Anyway, I know they really hit it off both personally and musically, and I suspect that if these two get the opportunity to record together one day, they will.

All in all it was a great ending to an amazing festival. The fact of seeing all these great players on stage backed by excellent musicians, breaking the boundaries between the genres was an absolute treat. As far as Bill's gig was concerned, I was slightly frustrated that he didn't play more of his own compositions and perhaps dare to startle the audience a little bit more, but the quality of the music, the atmosphere and the groove more than made up for it.

I headed back to Paris the following morning with Bill and Marie and we had ample time to "debrief", as it were. I think they really had a great time, and as for me it was definetely the best harmonica festival I've been to bar none. The cherry on the cake was learning a few days later that it had been financially sound as well and that all those who volunteer their time and energy to the organisation of the event were more than willing to carry on.

So I guess I'll be back there next year and I hope the quality is as good as it was this year!

RIP Chris Jones

I learned yesterday that Chris Jones had passed away on September 13th following a sudden lung cancer. It's terrible news, and I imagine it must be shattering for Steve Baker. Steve and Chris released four albums together, and Chris also released many solo records...

Everybody's Crying Mercy is one of my favourite acoustic records. It features Chris' subtle guitar style and beautiful voice (as well as Steve's tough and sharp harp playing, of course) but also showcased excellent songwriting, something that is not as widely spread as instrumental excellence.

After I heard this sad news, I realised that Steve and Chris had released a live album that I don't own and that they had just finished recording a new studio album when Chris fell ill. I will be acquiring both these records as soon as possible, and you should do so too, first because I don't doubt that they make for great listening, but also because, like many musicians, Chris didn't have any health insurance, and the costs of his illness has been financially heavy for those around him.

If you want to help more substantially, you can check out both of the labels that he recorded for, http://www.acoustic-music.de/ and http://www.stockfisch-records.de/.

Le Jazz et la Java (1st and 4th position)

Le Jazz et la Java is a famous song by late singer Claude Nougaro. Nougaro has always been a great lover of both Jazz and Chanson Française, and this song playfully describes how he is constantly torn between the two. For those of my readers who read French,  here are the lyrics:

Chorus:
Quand le jazz est, quand le jazz est là
La java s'en, la java s'en va
Il y a de l'orage dans l'air, il y a de l'eau dans le gaz
Entre le jazz et la java

Chaque jour un peu plus y'a le jazz qui s'installe
Alors la rage au coeur la java se fait la malle
Ses petites fesses en bataille sous sa jupe fendue
Elle écrase sa gauloise et s'en va dans la rue

Chorus

Quand j'écoute béat un solo de batterie
Voilà la java qui râle au nom de la patrie
Mais quand je crie bravo à l'accordéoniste
C'est le jazz qui m'engueule  me traitant de raciste

Chorus

Pour moi jazz et java c'est du pareil au même
Je me saoule à la Bastille et m' noircis à Harlem
Pour moi jazz et java dans le fond c'est tout comme
Le jazz dit "come on" la java dit "go home"

Chorus

Jazz et java copains ça doit pouvoir se faire
Pour qu'il en soit ainsi tiens je partage en frère
Je donne au jazz mes pieds pour marquer son tempo
Et je donne à la java mes mains pour le bas de son dos
Et je donne à la java mes mains pour le bas de son dos

The chorus is in C major and the verses in C minor. Obviously, it's tricky not to switch harp in these circumstances. There is a playable combination in 3rd position, I think, which allows to play both parts reasonably well, but I think it lays a lot more beautifully in 1st and 4th respectively, because they allow a chording which brings it closer to an accordion effect, something that's very much in line with the tune since it's a 3/4 java to begin with.

The tabs are below, but if anyone is interested in sampling Nougaro and hearing this specific tune I have found a compilation of his stuff available on amazon which features Le Jazz et la Java. It's entitled Nougaro, and looking at the track listing I'd say it's a good sampling of his stuff. Über-faithful reader Marc Molino has found a link to a Youtube version of the original. Ignore the terribly sixties video clip, and enjoy and learn the original music !

One year...

Yesterday I drove down to Chateauvieux (near St Aignan) for our annual harmonica seminar. If you go back to the very first post of this blog, you will see that I talked at length about last year's seminar. This therefore marks the anniversary of Harmonica Ramblings.

Yesterday I traveled along with Sébastien Charlier, who I had asked to join us for the day in order to provide experienced players with more advanced advice and directions than I was able to give. It went well and I think the 7 or 8 advanced players we had were very pleased with this bicephalic teaching. In a way, I'd say I was more easily able to relate with their issues in progressing, whereas he was able to give them a wider perspective as to where to go if they were really serious about pushing forward.

We started working on Le Jazz et la Java, a tune by late French singer Claude Nougaro. It has two parts, the first in C major and the second in C minor. The tune allowed us to work on precision and 3/4 rhythm as well as address the issue of harp switching vs. finding an ideal harp suited to a whole piece.

Then we worked on Misty, using Jerry Portnoy's version as a basis. This allowed us to work on accuracy in bending as well as articulation. One topic that was covered in detail was how not to sound blues when playing jazz.

The next subject of the course was playing fast. We used a backing track of a swing blues, trying to play on various subdivisions of the beat. Sébastien then explained how working on scales allowed to build fluency and therefore helped in playing fast, and we also showed some 'tricks' akin to the John Popper/ Sugar Blue schools of playing.

I then showed the students how to think outside the box of second position by trying to play tunes they heard on the radio or on non-blues CDs. For this I used the themes from Gershwin's An American in Paris and Rhapsody in Blue respectively. I'll try and post these here soon.

Finally, Sébastien showed us a really cool Kabyl scale ni C# that is both an excellent exercice for bending and sounds absolutely wicked.

Jim McBride had recently sent me one of his Bottle o' Blues mics so I also set up a trial session. There was jazz guitarist there, and many students gave the mic a try. I tried it too and liked it a lot, but I'll be telling you about it in more detail soon.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to stay for the evening concert which featured the Kevin Texas Band, a fun and energetic blues-rock outfit. On the way back we had lively discussions with Sébastien, Thomas Laurent (the chromatic teacher who was also an artist at the last St Aignan festival) and one of the students about what it meant to be a musician. Empassioned and interesting reflexions, let me tell you.

All in all, it was a nice day. I should get some photos of it in a few days, hopefully. I am conforted in the view that what I prefer to share about the harmonica is the passion that I feel for the instrument, and never is this more true than when I teach...

Maïté #8

Maïté #7

Maïté #6

Maïté #5

I-mic invasion

I received five more i-mic photos in the last few weeks, including another two by swede Jan Gulbrandsen who now has five entries in the gallery. You could do worse than check out the last two, very nice and polished. Aaron Rubenking's harpophone (seen here) is also a pretty amazing feat of home engineering.

Keep 'em coming, people!