Musical Ramblings

Lords of Drumming

Anyone who's into jazz has heard of Buddy Rich, but few have seen him. When he's dueling with the Muppets' very own Animal, it's even more impressive!

The "new" suzuki models: Pure Harp

Late last year, Suzuki released two new diatonic models, the Pure Harp and the Fire Breath. The guys who distribute Suzuki in France kindly lent me one of each in St Aignan in May, so I've had a couple of months to play around with them and thought I'd give you my feedback.

Let's start with the Pure Harp.

As you can see from the photo here, the Pure Harp is a wooden bodied harp with wood covers as well. As far as I know, the Pure Harp is the first commercial model ever to feature wooden covers. The model Suzuki lent me was a Bb that I had a chance to use in a gig just the day after they gave it to me and that I've played with a lot since.

First of all, the look and feel. I find the all-wood thing quite beautiful in a classy way. It's distinctive, the wood is smooth, yet feels unvarnished (I don't know what varnishes they use, but they don't give it an excessively glossy look). The Pure Harp is quite compact and feels heavy in the hands, which I quite like. Overall, a pleasant instrument to carry and play around with. Incidentally, before I had one in my hands I was quite worried about how sturdy the covers would be, but it turns out they are smoothly integrated into the body, everything is tight, nothing sticks out and nothing can break (or bend).

The first minutes of playing the Pure Harp were quite blissful. The response on this beast is quite astounding for a stock harp, and I've only had similar (or better) responding instruments when I got them customised. The reeds vibrate with minutes amount of breath which allows for a great dynamic range, and most surprising of all, the overblows were all smooth and within easy reach with no tweaking at all. Even overblow 1 came out relatively easily. I wasn't so lucky with the overdraws, but I suspect that's more due to the fact that I've never bothered to practice the technique than to the harp setup.

The Pure Harp's sound is quite beautiful, round and rich. It's not as bright as the sound from all-metal harps like Meisterklasses, but that's what you'd expect. At the very beginning I felt it was a little too muted for my tastes (I tend to play with mostly pre-MS Meisterklasses) but it's grown on me and now not only do I like the sound, I like the fact that it's a different colour in timbre from my usual harp of choice.

Overall, I'm very impressed with this harp and although it's quite expensive (I've seen prices ranging from $90 to $120), I think it's very much worth ot for the serious player. It's probably not the best choice if you're looking for projection and brightness, but it sounds perfect to me for acoustic work and more generally if you play melodically and rochness of sound is important to you.

There are two drawbacks that I've noticed over time. The first one is that the nature of the covers means they stay wet for a shorter time compared to metal covers. What this means is that sometimes, when you play part of a melody in solo focused on the lower end of the  harp, if you suddenly decide to make a fast run going up, your lips are going to stay stuck in the middle register. Rehumidifying the covers with saliva is needed a little more often than with metal covers, and it takes some getting used to. This probably means it's also not the best harp if you want to play Popper- or Blue-esque riffs. The second drawback is that there's some amount of lateral vibration on sustained bends. When you bend and keep a note, especially on holes 2 and 3, after a short while (about 1 or 2 seconds, I'd say), an annoying whine emerges. It doesn't hinder the sustainability of the note, it just makes it unpleasant. I imagine this could be fixed using nail varnish or similar tricks, but at the end of the day, it's probably my major negative point about this otherwise excellent instrument.

Overall, I'm very impressed with Suzuki on this product. Based on their previous models (promasters, etc.) I had of them the image of competent followers, and while the overdrive was innovative, it was also pointless in my opinion. With the Pure Harp, they demonstrate their ability to release a pro-standard instrument while innovating. If you can afford it, I'd recommend picking one up if only for the pleasure of playing it.

I'll review the Fire Breath in the coming days.

While Suzuki did lend me the instruments for this review, I want to add that they did not give them to me. Once the reviews are done, I will return the instruments to them (although I may ask them to purchase this Bb Pure Harp). Just to point out that this is a neutral review.

Steuart Liebig and the Mentones

Bill Barrett regularly sends me records he plays on. One of the most odd yet interesting things he sent me in the last couple of years is the two records he did with Steuart Liebig's Mentones, Locustland and Nowhere Calling. The Mentones are an odd jazz outfit. These days, jazz tends to be about harmony, but the mentones feature no harmony instrument: drums, bass, harmonica and sax is the outfit. That makes for a strange music where groove is predominant and harmonic exploration is more or less without boundaries. It's not music for the faint of heart, but once in a while it is nice to push one's own enevlope and listen to something a little challenging. I prefer Nowhere Calling to Locustland, I find it more coherent and accessible - despite remaining challenging.

Anyway, Steuart has just opened a Myspace where you can listen to their stuff: find it here.

Harmonica and Ukulele

Maybe this is what inspired Peter Madcat Ruth ?

Ladies and gentlemen, Roy Smeck!

Feel Good Funk

Just read this on the Delta Groove newsletter:

Jason Ricci and New Blood will be taking time off from their busy touring schedule this month to record their ground breaking Eclecto Groove Records debut. The album will be produced by Grammy Award winning producer John Porter and will feature the current lineup of New Blood consisting of Shawn Starski on guitar, Tod "Buck Weed" Edmunds on bass and "Spooky" Ron Sutton on drums. Front and center will be Jason Ricci's explosive harmonica work showcasing a wide array of diverse and eclectic influences. Some of Jason's favorite harp players include Howard Levy, Dennis Gruenling, Little Walter, Pat Ramsey, Carlos Del Junco, James Cotton, Paul deLay, Lee Oskar and William Clarke. Look for Jason Ricci and New Blood's debut release coming this Fall.