Analog Impressions

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Ready for the Gig by Benoît Felten

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One Harp, Two Mics by Benoît Felten

(Originally published in 2004)

It’s not unusual for a band to evolve over fifteen years of existence. In fact, it’s usually vital for a band to evolve over such a long period of time if they don’t want to simply crash and burn. Through the changes, they loose some fans, find some new ones and hopefully keep a vision and develop a sound that remains coherent. For a couple of years after Bobby Sheehan’s death, I really thought that BT were done for, not because I felt that the bassist was irreplaceable (as some fans apparently did) but simply because they didn’t seem to know where they were going anymore.

There is no doubt that the Blues Traveler of today is not the Blues Traveler of yesterday. The jamband tendencies that were audible in the first few albums are mostly gone, and even though the new songs stretch longer in the recent live release What You and I Have Been Through, it’s still not the full-blown jamming of the nineties as exemplified in Live from the Fall. The quirky, youthful feel that transpired in the early days has also been toned down, although it’s not completely gone. To some of the early fans, these are signs that Blues Traveler itself has lost it. Until recently I would have had to agree with them. I wasn’t impressed by Bridge, although the circumstances around the album’s inception excused a lot, but more importantly, I was pretty much disappointed in What You and I Have Been Through, and live albums, to me, are the true measure of a band.

Truth Be Told, the latest Blues Traveler studio album has made me change my mind. It hasn’t dethroned my favourite BT studio album, Four, but it comes close, even though it’s very different in feel. Four to me, is the studio album in which BT has the most coherent sound. Before that, they were a bit too wild for coherence, and after that, they started experimenting with a new sound that never really got nailed down. Truth Be Told also has a strong, coherent sound, albeit very different.

There has always been a friendly, pop edge to Blues Traveler, and that’s still there. None of the songs are insanely out there and you could imagine hearing most of them, if not all of them on radio. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and unlike Bridge, Truth Be Told doesn’t sound like it was designed for radio airplay. Blues Traveler on this album are a confident funky rock band, and more importantly, they are a band again. They’re working together and you can feel it. New bassist Tad Kinchla and keyboard player Ben Wilson are now fully integrated in the sound, and they contribute to this new sound rather than perpetuate an old sound that wasn’t their own. Additionally, guitarist Chan Kinchla who was always a bit disconnected in my opinion seems more together with the band now.

The record starts with a couple of rockers including the excellent Eventually built on a catchy yet odd guitar riff. This is where Popper demonstrates that his harp playing has also evolved. It’s less rushed and manic, capable of more nuances. His solo here is very relaxed and ends with him repeating the first line of the chorus’ melody with a great upper end vibrato. Very powerful, but without the furiousness that previously seemed unavoidable. And this is another good surprise of this album. Popper seems to have resumed pushing the envelope as a harmonica player, and with this comes a greater musical maturity. Here and there he still lets it rip, but it’s now a lot more efficient, because it stands out.

Following eventually is a ballad called Sweet and Broken. Blues Traveler have often been guilty of leaning way too far in smooch territory when writing and playing ballads, but this one keeps enough of a rock edge not to sound too corny. Popper’s harp solo is light and pretty. Nice. My Blessed Pain, which follows, epitomises the funky rock sound I was talking about. The bass and guitar are definitely funk, but the choruses are slightly heavier, with more of a rock feel. Incidentally, Ben Wilson contributes very tasty piano accompaniment here, and the guitar and drums break over the third verse is the kind of thing that really wakes you up when listening to an album. Again, great stuff.

And that’s what most of the album is like. Good, solid, friendly rock, with quality lyrics and a tight band that knows what it’s doing and does it well. The sound they aim for is perhaps less crispy than it used to be (lots of guitar fuzz and similar effects on the harmonica) but it works well. Less individual soloing and more thought-out arrangements. So I would have liked a little more edge and maybe a little more jamming, but on the whole, I cannot but appreciate. Blues Traveler is a band again, and I hope they do good with this new lease on life.

They could start by touring Europe, at last. That’s be nice, I’d be able to see how this new sound stands live. Mind you, there’s a new DVD out as well. I might have to check that out. I’ll let you know !

(Originally published in 2004)

This review should have been written a long time ago : La Part du Diable was released in early 2002. However, I find myself glad I took so long to get down to it. La Part du Diable is an unusual record, especially on the harmonica scene, and lies outside my usual field of musical investigation. My appreciation of it has therefore evolved over time and repeated listening, and I’m not sure that my opinion upon first discovery would have been the same as today. Since Greg Szlapczynski just opened his new website at www.gregzlap.com, I decided that was a good opportunity to finally review this record.

Greg Szlapczynski has acquired a small notoriety on the French harmonica scene by taking over Jean-Jacques Milteau’s harmonica school in Paris. For those who don’t know him, he is a young diatonic player whose sound is sharp and precise, and whose musical aspirations are vast. His first release Ternaire Madness flirted with blues, jazz and country but stayed well within the realm of the acceptable for the often close minded blues afficionados. His second album, Gregtime, was a live recording of a similar vein. On both these albums, the astute listener would distinguish, through certain of Greg’s compositions, a will to break down the ‘harmonica=blues’ straightjacket, but neither went as far as Greg seemed to want to go, most likely for fear of alienating his usual public.

With La Part du Diable, Greg has crossed that particular threshold, and the record is all the better for it. Not only does it resolutely walk down the jazz road, it does so with a significant electro touch : samples, effects of other noises abound. Which is not to imply that there is no band: drums, bass, keyboards, guitar, vocals and harmonica flirt around the electronic samples, who end up being complementary rather than dominant.

Stylewise, Greg’s jazz owes more to popular music than bop canon. La Part du Diable features a jazz waltz, (Valse à 30 ans), a spanish-y jazz tango (La Boîte), and several sweet melodies that are given the jazz treatment through arrangement rather than theme. The role of guitarist Pierre Durand is crucial here, through clever chord substitutions and a few improvisations that make him sound like a cross between BB King and John McLaughlin.

If you’re like me, the word ‘sample’ probably gives you an itch, so I guess I should expand on that. This album is not a collage of samples like Us3, St Germain or Moby may have done (with uneven artistic success), but rather an interaction between the band playing and the samples. Several intros start as samples and seemlessly move into the band playing, a number of evocative solos are enhanced by background samples, etc. Much as it surprised me, I love it.

From a harmonica point of view, La Part du Diable is by far Greg’s best effort to date, a superb demonstration of his talent both as writer and player. His playing here is undoubtedly more mature than on his previous albums, and he shows his capacity both for fiery lyricism, like on the opener 1962, and this rare talent of integrating silence in the music, as on Serve you well.

The magical thing about Greg’s playing is that it all sounds so easy until you grab your own instrument and attempt to replicate it. Then you understand that his delicate phrases use all the resources of the diatonic, vibratos, bends, overblows, with such finesse and fluidity that it all sounds ‘natural’. As an illustration, Rue des Lions is a moving guitar / harmonica duet with a simple industrial rhythm in the backdrop. It’s beautiful, haunting, and an absolute bitch to play.

As I grow older, I tend to favour records by talented artists who play what they want to play as opposed to those who don’t (even if they end up playing music that is more stylistically close to what I’m used to enjoying). It took me a while to fully appreciate La Part du Diable,  but it’s now my favourite of Greg’s albums. I listen to it often and every time, discover little things that I hadn’t noticed until then. That’s how rich it is…

I realise also how much guts it must have required for Greg to risk confusing his usual public with no guarantee of finding another audience, and his merit is all the greater. Amidst a harmonica scene that remains very self centered and often rehashes the same references, it’s refreshing to hear a young artists taking these risks and go for something new. Thank you Greg, I can’t wait for the next release !

(Originally Posted in 2005)

I’m not a usual customer of Pat Metheny’s stuff. I’ve heard some of his records, and I recognise him as a talented and tasteful jazz guitarist, but nothing I heard really blew me away. Additionally, I’m in a phase in my musical explorations when I’m interested in structure over improvisation. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy listening to straight ahead jazz or blues, but endless looped improvisation over the same chord structure tends to put me to sleep these days…

Two things led me to purchase Pat Metheny’s latest release The Way Up: an interview I read in a French magazine which presented the record as a one-track 68 minute composition, and the presence on said record of harmonica player Grégoire Maret. And, in truth, this second motivation was incidental compared to the first.

I didn’t know quite what to expect, but I nabbed the record in the first few days after its release. I don’t regret it. It’s an odd piece of work, for sure, but it combines superb composition with wild improvisational moments and a general uplifting mood that felt strange at first, me being used to the rather sombre tone of all the progressive rock I tend to listen to these days, but is nonetheless very powerful. Despite the fact that there are four actual tracks on the CD, these are not songs, they are more like movements of a classical composition.

The CD opens on a lively interweave of keyboard and guitar  patterns punctuated by trumpet and harmonica riffs that sets a positive urban mood. This seamlessly blends into a quieter first “movement” structured by a recurring theme played at different moments of this long section by various instruments, with different harmonisations and varying intensity. There’s a long, hard, swinging section in the middle of this movement with a definite jazz-rock flavour. This gives much space to most musicians, especially Metheny himself to stretch their improvisational chops. The first “movement” ends on a driven, intense part that crashes down into a drum solo leading the way for the second “movement”.

The second “movement” emerges as the wild drumming subsides with quiet acoustic guitar and piano that pave the way for a very sweet guitar and harmonica theme. This mutates slowly into a more  improvisational section - especially a long muted trumpet solo with a tone and atmosphere reminiscent of Miles - which gradually picks up in intensity until all the instruments join in, the guitar heavily saturated, with a general feel more akin to heavy rock than anything else. In the aftermath of this very powerful moment, things quieten down and Grégoire Maret is given a free reign to improvise in his turn. Although it’s apparent from the harmonica’s contributions in the themes and more structured parts that Metheny approach in writing was based on sonority rather than capability, Maret gets a real chance to shine here.

This relatively loose section gradually gives way to a third and final “movement” that is much more chartered. Several interlocking themes, often played by the guitar and one of the other instruments, open the way to successive waves of progressively greater intensity that support these themes. Again, this generally joyful mood is omnipresent, and it’s hard not to feel the optimism that is clearly stated in the record’s title. After these intense moments, the record winds down towards a quiet, meditative ending. Lots of slow trickling notes on the piano, and for the first time, very simple, floating moments.

The Way Up is richly textured, in part due to the cast of musicians that Metheny has gathered : piano, guitar, drums, bass are the classic backbone of jazz and rock, but in addition we find harmonica, trumpet and voice with a touch of electronica. Of particular note is Antonio Sanchez’s  drumming, driving, insistent, subtle. The harmonica player in me expected perhaps a bigger role for Grégoire Maret, but in truth, the composition is such a collective effort that I can’t honestly say it would have been better if he’d been more present.

Although The Way Up is hard to describe (I guess I haven’t reviewed enough classical) it really is impressive. It takes guts for an artist in this day and age to go against the grain both musically, by writing a very structured piece that blends many influences, from classical to rock to jazz, but also  commercially by releasing an oeuvre that is by definition not easily accessible and will certainly get very little airplay because of it’s format. I’m glad Metheny went through with it though, because he and the stellar cast of musicians he has assembled bring forth something different that remains both accessible and uplifting.

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Hohner & Shure by Benoît Felten

(Originally posted in 2006)

I love it when I buy a new record, stick it in the CD player (or even better, in the car’s CD player) and as soon as the first few notes blast out, I’m already grinning and thinking ‘Yeaaah!’. Instant purchase gratification, a sensation that is simply too rare…

But there’s something even rarer and more pleasant, and that’s when I have the exact same feeing listening to a record I’ve owned for ages but hasn’t seen the colour of the laser beam for a long time. Yesterday morning I dug up James Cotton - Live at the Electric Lady. I got in the car, and as soon as Back at the Chicken Shack began, I was smiling like a lunatic. “Hell Yes!” Hard to handle the clutch while tapping my feet, but hey, who cares…

Cotton’s band on this record (recorded in 75 or 76, they don’t even know) is top notch both on groove and energy. It’s wilder than the controlled power of 60s Chicago blues, but also a lot less square than Muddy’s Hard Again and subsequent Blue Sky albums. This ‘modern’ sound and the extremely funky groove of the whole is largely due to the tone and amazing slapping of bassist Charles Calmese.

As soon as the record gets going, the magic happens. Back to the Chicken Shack, Jimmy Smith’s instrumental hit is lead by Little Bo’s tenor sax (and sans Cotton who learned from his elders the trick of making a star entrance after the first number). The funky bass is to die for, the sax picks up the first – and very long – solo, and then Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy comes in.

I  have to tell you that I went to see Matt Murphy live in Belgium some years back and I came back entirely unimpressed. The concert didn’t leave me with a great opinion of his musicality. So much so that when I discovered that it was him playing on Sonny Boy Williamson’s 1963 Storyville sessions I simply could not believe it. And here, on the first track of this James Cotton record, he rips in to these incredibly fluid jazzy lines that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Robben Ford record! Simply superb… I’m not sure that his years as a Blues Brothers helped him much to keep the spice in his playing…

Anyway, after this stunning introduction, Cotton joins the band with a huge sound and they start with a breakneck pace Off the Wall, so fast in fact that it’s a little too much. When the track stops after two minutes, Cotton says a few words and then jumps into Rocket 88, and for a couple of bars it sounds like the same track: same pace, same key… But that one works better; it’s more in the spirit of the original. The first solo is the tenor sax, and then guitar and harmonica join on a middle ‘theme’. It’s fast, alive and no longer than two and a half minutes.

Truth is, Cotton doesn’t really let the audience catch its breath. As soon as Rocket 88 ends, the band starts on a very fast Don’t Start me to Talking. Cotton isn’t exactly vocally subtle, he’s never been a great singer, but his growling, powerful voice is accurate, and he uses it nicely within the range of his capacity. Compared to some of his later albums, even before his voice deteriorated, Live at the Electric Lady is very nice in this respect.

Then comes a Georgia Swing that’s just a tad too messy to sound right, followed by the first Cotton original, One More Mile from 100% Cotton. One More Mile is structured as a blues, but uses a lot of rhythmic breaks. Very punchy, really interesting.

When that track ends, you think the time has come for a little breather. But no. Cotton rips into the wildest version of Got my Mojo Working I’ve been given to hear. It’s one of the rare versions I still enjoy, I’ve heard that one covered so much… The pressure comes down just a tad on How Can a Fool Go Wrong, a classic of diatonic blues players known for its characteristic first position riff, often quoted, never bested. I really like this track: Cotton demonstrates that the upper octave can be used for a lot more than effect.

This is followed by Blow Wind Blow, and still no rest. It’s the tenth track on the record and the pressure is still at the top. Compared to the version on 100% Cotton, this one is faster and more rugged. Not a masterpiece, but a good fit with the rest of the program, and Murphy’s solo really rips…

And then, at long last, you get to breathe a little. Cotton’s version of Little Walter’s Mean ol’ World is really sweet and Cotton, Bo and Murphy get to demonstrate another facet of their talent, more sentimental, more moving. A true pleasure.

The pace picks up again for the next two tracks, I don’t know which was later made famous by the Blues Brothers’ Briefcase Full of Blues (with Matt Murphy, for those who didn’t get it) and Murphy’s original Boogie Thing, an awesome track to light the fuse! Amazing punch, phat harp sound, and the whole band yelling the “It’s a boogie thing” leitmotiv.

From there, the concert winds down to a mellower end. A rather good cover of Stormy Monday, another of those blues chesnuts that can sound really trite. Not so here. The gig closes on a surprising but quite good version of ‘Fever’. On these last two, Cotton sings but doesn’t play harp. I’ve always thought the greatest soloists know when their instrument wouldn’t fit or bring any additional goodness. Cotton is a great soloist.

So what you get in the end is a rather conventional repertoire made incandescent by a veritable groove machine, and that makes listening to this live an electric experience indeed. Live at the Electric Lady is aptly named.

For quite a while now those who had been lucky enough to hear Just Your Fool, Carlos del Junco’s first solo album had been hoping for a new release. For my part, even though I liked the above mentioned live recording, I felt a little frustrated by the choice of repertoire, too conventional in perspective with Carlos’ capabilities . I was waiting for something more open musically, and with Big Boy, I wasn’t disappointed.

Carlos doesn’t really have much to prove technically: he has assimilated the most advanced playing techniques (overblows, bent octaves, counterpoint, etc.) under Howard Levy’s tutelage and beyond. Where Levy tends to tread the roads of a somewhat ‘cerebral’ jazz, del Junco focuses on more popular and accessible styles of music, amongst which blues, of course, but not limited to that. The great achievement of this album in my opinion is that Carlos manages  to blend the harmonica into musical styles where it is seldom if at all represented : ska, soul, and some hybrid mixes that are more difficult to categorise.

Blues is still featured on the album, and those who have heard Carlos’ style know that it is anything but conventional. The New Orleans flavoured “Junco Partner” and the jump blues classic “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate” are nice examples of that. There is also a nod to Sugar Blue with a cover of his solo “Another Man Done Gone” that blends into a breakneck pace train imitation. Anyone wanting to develop breathing techniques need simply work on duplicating that track. Good luck!

Carlos’ only foray into full jazz territory is a beautiful cover of Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz”, in which his acoustic sound shines. The arrangement is sober and the piece very beautiful. Beyond the theme itself, Carlos takes time to build his solo so that there’s a gradual shift in mood and intensity. Towards the end of “Jitterbug Waltz”, he displays a dizzying technique by quoting a piece by JS Bach with intertwined melodic lines played on each side of the mouth. I understand this used to be one of Howard Levy’s showstoppers when he played with Kenny Loggins. It’s really hard to believe that there’s only one harmonica being played there…

Another strong point of this recording is the fun that seeps through most of it. It’s obvious that Carlos and his musicians had the time of their lives and that’s  very pleasant to hear. The best illustration of this is “Heddon Tadpolly Spook”,  described in the liner notes as a quirky ska hybrid instrumental soundtrack for a Fellini film. It’s a real fun piece, upbeat and unusual.

There are three things I can think of that would perhaps stop me from giving this record top marks, were I actually grading my reviews. One is the occasional display of a technical showmanship that doesn’t serve the music. This is something I hear on many recordings of the most advanced players and although Carlos is by far not the  most guilty perpetrator, there are a couple of spots on the record where I can’t help but feel that it’s just too much.  On “Heaven’s where you’ll dwell”, for example, there’s a drum and harp break during which  Carlos plays a few bars in each of the twelve keys (on one diatonic of course). Well I sure can’t do it, but I still don’t think it sounds that good.

Another thing is that Carlos does have a number of mannerisms that are particularly evident in his improvisations. Recurring phrases, the same was to attack the vibrato, etc. This is really a minor gripe, but I guess I just hope that Carlos doesn’t rely too much on these, because although they define him as a player, they can end up making him sound a bit stale too.

Finally, but that’s really a comment that’s hard not to make on most records, there are a number of filler tracks here. Noy uninteresting by any means, but not that interesting either.

Despite these  minor criticisms, I really enjoy this album, and it has stood the test of time and repeated listenings.  I can only recommend it if you want to hear what one of the most innovative harp players of today is doing with a diatonic.

This review was originally posted on www.planetharmonica.com in early 2000. I have made slight amendments to this revised version, but on the whole, my opinion then matches my opinion now.

(First published in 2006)

Many blues harp player strive for an eldorado of the sound, a vintage aspect despite the modern techniques of playing and recording. Often these initiatives end up sounding like a washed-out copy, due mainly to the fact that it’s the spirit of the blues that made the pioneers sound good, not just the letter…

Steve Guyger studied direct from some of the masters; there is no doubt that this is where his heart lies, in the early post-war blues. But unlike others better known on the blues scene, he understands the spirit of the style, not just the theory of the playing. That is what makes his approach interesting, and in the end, that is why you can find pleasure in listening to his records time and again. I discovered Steve through his 1997 release Last Train to Dover, an excellent semi-acoustic album with Steve mostly backed by double bass and electric guitar - a very nice and warm album that I strongly recommend. Steve’s next effort was Past Life Blues, where he is surrounded by a slightly more classic line-up of drums, double bass and guitar.

As soon as I heard the first track, I Thought I Heard, I felt like I was amongst family: live in the studio recording, ear-catching harp sound, intimate instrumentation. Steve’s musicians, by the way, are really top notch. Guitarist Rich Yescalis, in particular, plays very fluid and inventive lines, which make his solos delightful.

Steve plays mostly amplified harp  (unlike on Last Train to Dover where he played essentially acoustic) with a really warm and classic sound. His harp playing is sparse, he lets his phrases breathe, his notes ring. He has a great grove and knows how to use amplification to color his sound (listening to this album, I was reminded of JJ’s comments on how Little Walter used amplification for more than being heard…) It’s interesting to note that although Guyger is firmly rooted in tradition his phrasing sound fresh. It isn’t pre-processed canned stuff but the result of well digested influences that have matured into a language of his own.

The choice of repertoire is well thought over. Steve moves from beat-driven pieces (in a relaxed kind of way) to first class rockers like We’re Gonna Ride on which he whips out his chro 64, and he’s a mean chro player too! A few slow blues (I Tried So Hard, very Muddy Waters, or the excellent acoustic Bricks in My Pillow). The end of the record brings us in a slightly unusual territory: Monkey on a Limb the one but last piece, is very jazzy which makes for a nice change and wakes the ear up.

If I had one criticism to make it would be that Steve Guyger’s voice isn’t always solid enough to pull the songs through. At times he lacks the power and precision to deliver the lyrics convincingly. It’s a shame, because I really believe that Steve is one of the top blues harp players on the scene today and really would deserve to be better known. That being said, I still warmly recommend the purchase of this album (and of the previous one). It’ll make you rediscover blues harmonica if other ‘predictable’ players had made you forget it.

This review is republished and slightly amended from the Planet Harmonica webzine. It was originally published in issue #2 in 2001.