Toots died in 2016 but he would have been 100 if he had lived until 2022. This year there was a series of events including concerts in Brussels and around the world to celebrate his life and music. You can see more on the event website – 100 years of Toots Thielemans .
I love his music and enjoyed his enthusiastic personality which came across in his interviews.
Here is a great edit from the many conversations he recorded over his long career as whistler, guitarist and one of the best harmonica players. The compilation was put together by a Belgian DJ, Nico Kanakaris, who goes by the name of BlueNotes (Facebook).
Here are some memories of Toots and his life broadcast in German by ‘Das Feature – Deutschlandfunk’ with contributions from harmonica players – Steven de Bruyn, Hendrik Meurkens, Yvonnick Prene, Gregoire Maret … – and many top jazz musicians. Download the music from their webspage – Der Weg der Mundharmonika – Toots Thielemans und der Atem der Melancholie
Here, Julian Joseph and Julian Jackson talk about Toots Thielemans in the Jazz Legends series broadcast by the BBC in the early 2000s. Julian Jackson is one of the top UK Jazz harmonica players and a session musician. He was been inspired by and had visited Toots. They play a number of recordings by Toots.
I met Tommy Morgan when I travelled to Denver in 2001 for my first visit to a SPAH convention. My friend Douglas Tate had just become President of SPAH and I was the new Chairman of Harmonica UK (then the NHL). Two proud Yorkshiremen guiding two great organisations.
Douglas and Tommy were friends as was evident from their workshops and concerts. I stayed in email contact with Tommy up to the end, finally through Tommy’s great friend Jon Kip.
Tommy’s long history and musical activities have been well chronicled in the obituaries listed below. He took up chromatic harmonica at school and was fortunate to have lessons from Jerry Adler, who later got him his first recording session. After spells with the U.S. Air Force band and tours on his own throughout the 1950s Tommy built up his musical skills from arrangers like Sammy Nestico and a Masters Degree from UCLA. He also added the chord and bass harmonicas to his armoury. Tommy’s site reading improved and he began to set up his own recording sessions.
The 1960s was the beginning of the Golden Age of film and TV themes and producers were looking for harmonica players. Tommy had the skills and would tackle anything. He became the “go-to” man for recording sessions, something he did for decades. Tommy said he had done over 900 film scores and 7000 recording sessions.
Phil Hopkins wrote this for me in 2010 when I was Editor of Harmonica World. He is a chromatic harmonica player when he is not the percussionist for London stage orchestras.
Here he is with Tommy Morgan in California in 2010.
The name of Tommy Morgan, Hollywood’s favourite harmonica player, is assured of a prominent place in any history of the instrument’s development. Morgan’s extraordinary career, during which he has racked up more than 7000 recording sessions for entertainment industry bluebloods such as The Beach Boys, The Carpenters, John Barry, Randy Newman, John Williams, Barbara Streisand and James Taylor, to name but a few, is still going strong – and recently passed a significant milestone. For September 2010 witnessed the 60th anniversary of Morgan’s session career, commencing with a recording for the Andrews Sisters in 1950 and recently seeing him booked in the studio for sessions for projects such as the film “Toy Story 3” and a new Barry Manilow album. And he still keeps busy with live classical engagements with the world-renowned LA Philharmonic.
I personally experienced the Tommy Morgan sound as a part of the soundtrack to my formative years as a youngster growing up in the 70s, even though at that stage I didn’t know the name of the man who was behind it. The mournful intro to “Rainy Days And Mondays”, the funk/C&W fusion of the Rockford Files theme, the spooky middle section of “Good Vibrations” (borrowed from my elder brother’s record collection) – all were manifestations of the master harmonicist at work in different disguises. But it was only when I heard John Barry’s orchestral album “The Beyondness Of Things” in 1998, with Morgan prominently credited for some gorgeous solos, that I connected the name of Tommy Morgan to the harmonica work which I had enjoyed for many years hitherto (via information on Morgan’s website). And for me as a harmonica student, Tommy’s sound on “Beyondness” soon became a reference work, a template of how the harmonica at its best could sound. Forget about whether it was chromatic or diatonic (actually mostly chromatic, with a little diatonic on “Dance With Reality”), this was an amazing harmonica sound, rich, full, controlled and completely attuned to the lush orchestrations which surrounded it.
What did it take, I wondered as the years passed, to develop a sound and a career to this level? Then in October 2010 I found myself passing through Tommy Morgan’s home city of Los Angeles and was lucky enough to find the man himself in town, graciously agreeing to spend a morning explaining to me and Harmonica World readers how it all came together.
“People call me a legend,” he says, settling into a chair in my hotel room – before modestly adding, “which means I’m old.” But I am soon to learn that this particular “legend” was erected on a bedrock of sheer old-fashioned graft. “When I was 26 I realised that I didn’t like my sound,” he explains. Although everyone else seemed satisfied with it – Morgan had already been a soloist with the US Airforce Band and had worked studio sessions along with guesting on the top-rated Ed Sullivan Show – he wanted to attain the sound he heard in his mind’s ear. “I had weaknesses. I hadn’t gone through the pedagogy that other instrumentalists go through to play in orchestras. So I started on the Rubank flute book. It’s still around. I spent several hours a day for 6 years, while also working dates. I started with the first page and didn’t skip any exercises, I played them all. I now have a stack of sight-reading two feet high. Then when I got to a level where I thought I was getting better, I would spend a week in A Major. Then a week in B Flat.”
I mention that I dislike A Major. It’s a sharp key and tricky for chromatic players. “You’ve got to like A Major,” Morgan cautions. “I just finished an album with Gregg Nestor the classical guitarist where every piece bar one is in a sharp key. I play in D as comfortably as I do in any key. I’m as prepared as anyone who’s been through a European Conservatoire. I stuck with the flute and oboe tutors. Clarinets get a little too arpeggiated.” He chuckles. “If you want to be humbled, go get a clarinet book.”
But how to get that big, rich sound? “I practised long tones. Just like wind players do at music college. The note has to be in tune, and the tone mustn’t waver. It’s not easy.” He spots a harmonica in my room and asks me to play a scale. “That’s good but you don’t play every note in tune.” He asks to borrow the instrument and plays a single G, hole number 3, which starts imperceptibly, builds to a crescendo and dies away. The pitch is perfect, the sound fills the room. Then he demonstrates a Bb scale at breakneck speed to show that, at age 77, the technique is as strong as ever.
I find Morgan direct, but not intimidating. He likes to communicate clearly, and he is generous with information. “When I was sixteen or seventeen I studied with Jerry Adler, Larry’s brother. Jerry was a superb ballad player, he opened my eyes to what could be done. It wasn’t so much totally improvised jazz solo as an interpretation. It was more like, here’s the tune….and second time around he’d add and subtract things. And now when I give a lesson I sit close to the student, and we play. The best way to learn from someone is close-up. Without equalization or effects.”
Morgan adds that the hours spent listening to playbacks in the studio have been essential in building his sound.
“Hearing your sound back in the studio is the best way of developing it. I have heard myself more than any other harmonica player. You don’t hear yourself when you play alone. Most students I have play introspectively. They don’t project, they play with their heads down and slump a little bit. If I were teaching you today we’d go into a corner with hard surfaces where the sound bounces back in your ear. When there was a lot of studio work I’d hear myself daily…you’d hear a solo back and change a little bit here. This sounds good…but this is a little better.”
Another key to the Tommy Morgan sound is the area where the sound is actually produced, the contact zone between player and instrument. Morgan favours the square hole found on the classic Hohner 270 chromatic. “There’s more area than the round hole,” he confides. “And there is nothing on the inside of my mouth that covers the square. When I’m tongue-blocking, which I mostly use for chromatic, the right side of my tongue is flat. When I’m giving a lesson we both face the mirror with mouthpieces and you’ll see on mine that there is nothing covering the edge.”
Did he consciously set out to flatten the right edge of his tongue?
“I played for so long not liking the sound that I gradually improved the embouchure. As I uncovered a bit more hole it became a more open sound. I get the full air passage. I proved you can make a square mouth.” He raises an eyebrow ironically. “I have lived the harmonica, believe me. I didn’t take anything for granted, and I have tried a lot of things. But I didn’t set out to make a square mouth. I set out to make a good tone.”
This, I realise, is at the core of what Morgan is about. A relentless and restless desire to make better music. And at this point it comes as no surprise to hear that serving the music is the end result, not showcasing the harmonica. When I mention how much I enjoyed a little bend Tommy played on a solo on the James Taylor album “October Road”, he smiles. “That worked for James’ album. And I never forgot whose album it was. I played that way to enhance James’ album, not to make me stand out. You’re listening and then fitting in – how do you fit in to the overall picture? That’s the main question.”
And the ability to fit into a musical score, whether classical or pop, labelled Morgan as a team-player, embraced by the Hollywood session world.
“It’s all about blending. I did seven years of the Waltons, playing with probably the finest woodwind section in the world. Flute, oboe and clarinet all have different vibrato and I matched my sound to theirs. I took a lot of care over tuning. When you blow the harmonica hard it goes a little flat. I developed a very pure sound where I don’t cut off too many vibrations [cycles per second] but I also beat the problem by carrying chromatics tuned to 441, 442, 443 and 444 kHz. My diatonics are blues and equal-tempered [one is better for chords, the other for individual melodies].”
In case this all sounds very cosy, it should be remembered that Morgan did not walk into a ready-made studio career. “When I started, the job didn’t exist in Hollywood. George Fields had done some good things in the studios, but to be able to play full-time did not exist as a possibility. Then I did a session for Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith said, “You read pretty well. I’m going to write you like a third clarinet. Instead of having two harmonica solos, we’ll have you come in and play nine cues.” And when people found I could read pretty well, they started to use me. On one occasion, a composer asked Eddy Manson to play a melody up a third. It didn’t work out, but I was there and because of my training I was able to do it. And after that one thing led to another.”
Morgan sees preparation as a vital component in his success. “I played piano when I was young, plus some guitar. When I got out of the service I could see the nightclub and theatre industry was dying. My folks suggested I go back to school, so I did. I was studying for my masters degree in music, writing up my thesis, when I started getting called for sessions. And that’s when I thought, “This is what I want to do. Recording.” And I’ve used my experience as an orchestrator to interpret, or interpolate, a part. Interpolation is when I try to work out the effect a composer is trying to get, and then try to improve it. Sometimes I won’t even tell him what I’ve done. As an example, if I got asked to play a trill from D# to E [difficult on chromatic], I’ll do it on an E harmonica. Then the trill sounds much better….it kind of floats more. But I never tell anybody what I’m doing. Another player will work with the same composer and say it’s impossible. Then the composer will say “Well, Morgan did it.” I carry 45 pounds of harmonicas, all the chromatics and diatonics. So I can do stuff that nobody else can because nobody else has figured out how to do it.” Morgan shrugs and smiles nonchalantly, seemingly at ease with divulging these tricks of the trade.
But working for John Barry didn’t require a huge stack of harmonicas, just the ability to convert Barry’s melodicism onto tape as purely as possible. Tommy is unstinting in his praise for Barry. “John can say more with a unison string line than most people can with a full orchestra. John has a melodic sense that is incredible and he writes great harmonica. Take “Dances With Wolves”…people say to me, I know your sound from “Dances”. And do you know how many cues I played for “Dances”? One. It’s so poignant, and so correctly used. I played a 2 minute 15 second cue and people remember my sound. Two takes. Twenty minutes. That was it. “That’s gorgeous”, said John. “You can go home.””
I ask about the tricky F to F octave leap from hole 2 (draw) to hole 6 (draw) on the “Dances” theme. Morgan explains the use of portamento, the classical violinist’s technique of leaning up to an expressivo high note. “It’s not quite a bend, you just lean up to and into the note,” Tommy explains, singing the phrase by way of explanation. But he is quick to add that technique, while important, is just the means of achieving musical communication and not an end in itself. He says, “I get asked “Which way do you practise C major? Which holes do you play going up, and which coming down? And I reply that I practise it every way. I worked on several different slide/hole combinations for a passage in “Ritual Fire Dance” before deciding on the best one. Which was not the easiest one to play – but was the one which sounded best. And my answer to every technical question is “What does it sound like?”
I realise that Tommy has sung several musical examples during our conversation. I quiz him on this. “I’ve been a choir director for 25 years [amongst his other achievements – Morgan is also a qualified glider pilot, a black-belt Hapiko Karate expert and has an accountancy qualification]. I pattern my playing on vocals,” he confides. “My vibrato is similar to a vocalist – I establish the sound and then add vibrato afterwards. If you can’t sing what you’re trying to do – and it doesn’t matter how good or bad your voice is – then you can’t play it. And whatever style of music you are playing, I would recommend you go to the source for your inspiration. If you want to play blues harp, don’t just listen to the players – although there are some amazing ones, like Howard Levy and Jason Ricci. Listen to BB King. And I would suggest to a jazz clarinettist to listen to Toots. As a friend of mine once said, Toots would have been a giant on any instrument he chose to play. But while I have studied the way oboe, flute and clarinet players produce a sound, I pattern my own sound on the human voice.”
Perhaps it is that very vocal quality of Tommy Morgan’s sound which explains why it has communicated its message so unerringly to so many people for so many years.
I ask Morgan to help me summarise his contribution (and by extension the harmonica’s) to the Hollywood industry in the 500-plus movies his playing has graced. “I was an extra dimension for composers,” he explains. “Another colour in the sound palette. I lived at the right time and I had the opportunity. But I worked for it.”
Morgan feels that his playing is best represented away from the commercial world, on his discs Classics Lite 1 and 2. “The weird thing is, you spend 20 minutes on something like the theme from “The Rockford Files” and you are judged on it for the rest of your life. But I think the Classics Lite albums represent the full range of my playing.”
I met up with some friends in Ealing, West London, last week for a post-Covid meeting of Vinyl Addicts Anonymous. After a nice lunch in the Kings Arms we wandered down to the Oxfam Charity Shop, which specialises in second hand music recordings and books. We wanted to test our ability to fight the temptation to buy more vinyl and failed miserably. My wife tries to enforce a strict “one out, one in“” policy but when I saw the new box full of records from a collector of traditional jazz (mainly British) my resistance crumbled. I resisted buying over 20 recordings including 78rpm discs by Bessie Smith and Mead Lux Lewis but could not resist 4 10″ LPs which were a part of my music education in the mid 1950s.
The first was “King Joe” (Columbia 33S 1065) by the King Oliver Band (1923) with a young Louis Armstrong on cornet. Great blues tunes like “Dippermouth Blues” but unfortunately not “Canal Street Blues“, the two sides of one of my early 78s.
Dippermouth Blues
The second was a solo piano recording by Jelly Roll Morton (1939) on Vogue L.D.E 080. One of the founders of jazz, he recorded many tracks by his band “Jelly Roll Morton and his Red Hot Peppers“. Here he shows the range of his own compositions including blues. He was ill when these recordings were made for the Library of Congress and he died two years later.
Mamie’s Blues
Josh White was thought by serious blues collectors to be unauthentic but his more sophisticated vocal and guitar style was more appreciated by mainstream British listeners. This collection “Josh White – Ballads and Blues” (Brunswick LA 8562) was recorded in 1949 and released in Britain in 1952 also features a track with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee.
Sometimes
The final 10″ LP was “New Orleans Joys” by the new Chris Barber Jazz Band, with Pat Halcox on trumpet. It was issued in 1954 and it contains two tracks by the Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group – Rock Island Line and John Henry. Lonnie was the band’s banjo player and they played during the band’s concerts. Trad Jazz had taken off and the Skiffle boom was about to start.
Chimes Blues
This is where harmonica starts to come into my story. You can read more about this in my blog about Cyril Davies
Whilst there is a lot of information on the use of the harmonica in Scottish and Irish Traditional music, little has been written about its use in England. This reflects the lower profile of traditional music in England and the relative isolation of most of the harmonica/mouth organ players. Musicians usually use tremolo or diatonic harmonicas. Here is a brief summary of what we could find. More details will follow about specific players from England. This is work in progress.
This review was written by Roger Trobridge with the help of Katie Howson. Thanks also to Jane Bird and others for their input.
Northumberland shares a border and many cultural links with Scotland, especially musical ones. It’s mainly rural location in the North of England has helped it to retain its musical traditions when other regions have struggled to do so.
The Northumberland Moothie Tradition
Will Atkinson (1908-2003) from Northumberland is the best known English traditional harmonica player. Will came from a musical family and was a shepherd for most of his life. He played mouthorgan and melodeon as a child before moving to the accordion and playing in a local group. Later in his life he returned to the tremolo harmonica. Will knew and played with many of the musicians like Jimmy Shand at musical festivals in the Scottish Borders. His repertoire included a very large number of local and Scottish tunes and he was renowned for precision of his playing. There are several CDs of him playing solo or with The Shepherds (Joe Hutton and Willie Taylor).
Ernie Gordon (The Geordie Jock) from Alnwick was a friend of Will’s and spent a lot of time with him, learning many of Will’s tunes. He is a fine musician who also plays the pipes and drums as well as music from countries like Greece where he lived for a few years. Ernie has been a big supporter of HarmonicaUK for 20 years which has help to raise the profile of the moothie. He has recorded one CD. You can see many videos of Ernie Gordon and Will Atkinson here.
Roy Hugman is another Geordie moothie player from Morpeth, who has promoted music from Northumberland and taught tremolo for HarmonicaUK is . He plays locally with his band and has an active YouTube and Facebook page.
Jimmy Little is a prominent moothie player from the Alnwick area who has released a couple of CDs.
Jimmy Hunter was recorded by collector Peter Kennedy in 1954 at his home at Haydon Bridge, Northumberland, England, when Kennedy was working for the BBC’s Folk Music & Dialect Recording Scheme.
Other Geordie moothie players include Anita James and Rob Say.
Other Regional Traditional Players
Some other areas, particularly East Anglia and the West Country also held onto their traditional music, including harmonica players. Here are some who have been picked up by collectors and local clubs.
Jim Small (1913-n.d.) Learned to play from his father and played for folkdancing at school as a teenager, growing up near the Mendips in Somerset. He was involved in national radio broadcasts from 1938 to the mid 1950s, playing mostly folk dance music, and was then rediscovered by the revivalists of English traditional music in the 1970s. He was featured on a cassette / CD on Peter Kennedy’s Folktrax label, which sadly, no longer exists.
Alfie Butler was a Gloucestershire gypsy who played harmonica as well as piano accordion.
Bill Elsom and Jasper Smith were Travellers recorded in southern England; the latter can be heard on the CD “My Father’s the King of the Gypsies” on the Topic label.
Peter Roud, from Hampshire, was the subject of an article in EDS Spring 2011. He made a few recordings which are held by his family.
Sam Bond, again in Hampshire, played polkas, step dances, marches, singalong tunes etc, and recorded a cassette on the Forest Tracks label.
Stan Seaman was, a Hampshire melodeon player who also plays harmonica who made some recordings.
Dave Williams (1934-1997) was a harmonica, melodeon and banjo player in the New Forest area, who performed with Stan Seaman on many occasions, and was part of the Forest Tracks record label which recorded both Stan and Sam Bond.
Two more Hampshire players, Jimmy Dixon and Ron Whatmore can be heard on the Topic CD: “Rig-A-Jig-Jig – Dance Music of the South of England”.
John Cole played chromatic with a few of the folk song and skiffle groups in the London area in the 1950s before moving to Spain.
Bill Train of Teignmouth recorded a selection of old song tunes, polkas hornpipes and a nice jig.
The musical and dance traditions from the Dartmoor area have been well documented through the twentieth century.
Jack Rice (1915-1994) and Les Rice (1912-1996), cousins from Chagford, Dartmoor, played harmonica, concertina and accordion in the pubs, and for dancing. There is a CD of their playing available, called “Merrymaking” on Veteran (VT144CD).
The county of Suffolk has been well covered by folk music collectors throughout the course of the 20th century and just a cursory scan of the sources produces: Albert Smith, Tom Thurston, Harry Fleet, Charlie Philpots, Fred Pearce and George Ling in the coastal village: some of these can be read about on the “Sing Say and Play” pages on the Musical Traditions website – https://www.mustrad.org.uk/ssp . In Mid Suffolk there are even more names to be found including George Wade, Glyn Griffiths, Clemmie Pearson, Tom Williams, Lubbidy Rice, Jack Pearson, Bill Smith and Reg Pyett, who are all featured on the double CD “Many A Good Horseman” on the Veteran label. Others including fiddler Fred Whiting, melodeon players Walter Read and Fred List were known to play the harmonica as well. Most of these men played in the their local pubs on a Saturday night and for outings with darts and quoits teams, and their repertoire would include sing-a-long songs as well as hornpipes and polkas for stepdancing.
Harold Covill (1910-1993) from March in Cambridgeshire started by playing his father’s mouthorgan and played all his life for local entertainments and dances. In later life he featured on Topic Records’ 1974 LP “English Country Music from East Anglia”. He also taught children through a local youth club.
Jack Hyde played for Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers (now Oxfordshire, but then Berkshire). There are tracks of him on two CDs on the Topic label: “You Lazy Lot of Boneshakers” and “Rig-A-Jig-Jig – Dance Music of the South of England”.
Players In English Ceilidh Bands etc.
Martin Brinsford (b. 1947) started playing drums in 1962 and then discovered traditional English dance and music and took up playing tremolo harmonica. He was a founder member of Old Swan Band, England’s premier country dance band, and Brass Monkey with Martin Carthy and John Kirkpatrick. He has played in many other bands and recording sessions He plays a wide range of music drawn from around the world as well as England. currently plays vintage Québécois dance music with The Pigeon Swing. He has played at HarmonicaUK festivals. You can read more here.
Terry Potter (b. 1935) is another tremolo player who has been active since the 1960s with the modern tradition musicians like Ashley Hutchings (‘The Compleat Dancing Master‘, ‘Kicking Up The Sawdust‘) as well as playing with the Etchingham Steam Band, Potters Wheel and his family group, Cousins and Sons. You can read more here.
John Tams (b.1949) is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, composer and actor. He is known locally in Derbyshire for his work with the Derbyshire Volunteers, but is known worldwide as the driving force behind such hugely influential groups such as Home Service and the Albion Band and also for his creative input into productions such as “War Horse” and “Lark Rise to Candleford” at the National Theatre, and for composing TV and film music including “Sharpe”.
Katie Howson (b.1956) is known mainly for playing the English melodeon/ diatonic accordion but has in fact played tremolo harmonica for nearly as long. A member of several English ceilidh bands, including PolkaWorks, whose 2014 CD “Borrowed Shoes” features her harmonica playing.
Chris Taylor (b.1946) from Kent, played in the Oyster Ceilidh Band, Gas Mark V and Polkabilly. Gas Mark V released a number of recordings featuring his harmonica playing.
Simon Booth (b.1955) from Lancashire, plays tremolo harmonica and recorded with the Ran Tan Band.
Barry Parkes (b.1952) from Cheshire, plays tremolo harmonica and recorded with Dr Sunshine’s Pavement Show, All Blacked Up and The Ironmasters.
Des Miller whilst living in Norfolk played and recorded with the Old Hat Concert Party and Rig-a-Jig, both bands specialising in localised repertoire.
Jaime Gill was featured in “Harmonica World” playing his large Hohner “683” double sider with the Clog Morris Band. He plays in “The Bicton Inn” in Exmouth.
Steve Harrison played mouth organ (and melodeon) in a couple of barn dance bands around Halifax (Yorkshire) and occasionally further afield. He was a member of HarmonicaUK and played tremolo and later, diatonic, until his death in 2018.
Eddie Upton took up harmonica more seriously in the 1970s. He played and recorded with The Pump and Pluck Band and toured Internationally. He set up Folk South West in 1992 and he appeared at a HarmonicaUK festival.
Ted Crum (1947-2020) from Coventry played blues style harp to accompany folk songs with Somerville Gentlemen’s Band, and driving dance music with “rock ceilidh band” Peeping Tom and jazz-influenced Steamchicken.
Jon Fletcher plays diatonic, chromatic and tremolo harmonicas and is a guitarist and singer, performing both solo and with the band Magpie Lane.
Keith Holloway plays tremolo harmonica, although he better known as a melodeon and bass player in bands iincluding Random, The Old Chapel Band & Bosun Higgs.
The New Generation
Traditional music never stands still and young musicians will always find a way to keep it fresh and relevant for the new generation. Two in particular are very talented, original International performers who include traditional music in their compositions and performances, but in very different ways.
Will Pound comes from a folk music family and he has worked with other musicians like Dan Walsh (banjo) to develop his own style and repertoire. He has been nominated for the BBC Folk Awards ‘Musician of the Year’ and has released six varied CDs. You can find out more about him here and on his website.
Phillip Henry is one of the UK’s top guitarists as well as a harmonica player who has developed his own style of beatboxing and diatonic harmonica playing. He has been nominated for Instrumentalist of the Year in the FATEA Awards and has released several CDs alone and with collaborators like Hannah Martin (Edgelarks). You can read more about Phillip here and on his website.
Sean Spicer and Simon Joy are two younger players who are continuing in the tradition. Sean played in the National Youth Folk Ensemble and at Twickfolk and Simon looks after traditional music within HarmonicaUK.
Jane Bird plays diatonic and tremolo harmonicas, mainly in sessions. She also plays anglo concertina and is probably more widely known as a dance caller and event organiser.
Scottish Traditional Harmonica Players
Nigel Gatherer has a list of Scottish traditional recordings and musicians including moothie players
Dave Hynes has assembled a large gallery of images of Irish traditional harmonica players, as well as a list of the All Ireland Champions and BDs and DVDs of harmonica music.Additional Information
Additional Information
Will Atkinson – 3 CDs (2 were LPs) have been released – Mouth Organ (Solo), Harthorpe Burn (Joe Hutton, Willy Taylor and Will Atkinson), An Audience with the Shepherds (Joe Hutton, Willy Taylor and Will Atkinson). Will also plays on several CDs of Northumberland Traditional music. Here is a video from a concert at Morpeth Town Hall.
Martin Brinsford – He has recorded one CD under his own name, Next Slide Please (Keith Ryan with Gareth Kiddier) and he is present on several recordings with Brass Monkey. He has several videos on YouTube from the HarmonicaUK festivals.
Ernie Gordon – He has a privately recorded CD, The Geordie Jock and several YouTube videos including this Tribute to Will Atkinson from an HarmonicaUK concert in 2003. You can see many other videos of Ernie Gordon and Will on my Vimeo site.
Art M. Daane was born in Rotterdam, Holland, in 1934 and he died in Eindhoven, Holland on 23 January, 2021. He was 87. He had lived a full life with his family and he will be missed by the world wide harmonica community for the work he did to document the artists and music he loved. He produced an exceptional archive which he shared with other collectors.
Art started out playing chromatic harmonica but he moved to bass harmonica after hearing the 5 Hotchas. He played with many harmonica groups.
In the 1951 he moved to South Africa to work as a butcher. Art met a chromatic player, Vincent van Rooyen, and in 1954 they formed The Relda Trio. Art moved back to Holland in 1961. He continued to play, even during his six year stay in New Zealand.
In 1989 Art went to the Word Harmonica Festival in Trossingen, Germany where he was reunited with Vincent von Rooyen and many other harmonica friends. On his return to Helmond he started the Catstown Harmonica Club.
Art loved to teach and promote the harmonica and the people who play it. He spent a lot of time doing research and writing articles about them. With support from his friends he established a Harmonica Museum in The Netherlands, in 1999. Part of the collection is the “Harmonica Hall of Fame” collected by Art and ex-Harmonica Rascal Lou Delin. After the opening, Art restarted The Relda Trio again but this time with Art on chord.
Unfortunately his deep involvement in harmonica organisations like the IHO, led to visits to South Africa and various European countries to promote the harmonica and a visit to Singapore and Malaysia, so he resigned from the trio in March 2002. More visits to South Africa followed to set up a harmonica school and he reformed the original Relda Trio from the 50’s with Vincent van Rooyen to record one of Vincent’s own compositions “Wineland Seties” for Art’s CD project in Holland. This project is a compilation of Dutch harmonica players 1947-2002.
Art emigrated to South Africa in 2004 where he met up with an old friend Johann Kok and they performed as the Helderberg Harmonica Duo until Johann’s death in 2008.
Art moved to Florida, USA in 2017, but in November 2020 he returned home to Holland. He had been ill for many years and he died from complications caused by covid in Jan 2021.
I have been involved with the National Harmonica League (UK) – now HarmonicaUK – as Chairman, Archivist and Editor of its magazine, Harmonica World, for around 20 years. I first met Art in 2000 in Bournemouth and we stayed in contact until his death.
We had many common interests in chromatic players like Ronald Chesney and Art’s fellow countryman, Max Geldray as well as the well known European, Asian and American soloists and harmonica groups.
Art was in contact with many other collectors of harmonica music, including two from England, John Bryan and Brian Holland, who probably had the largest collection of information about the members of the Borrah Minevitch Rascals and many other groups. Following the death of John and Brian these collections came to me – Roger Trobridge
Max Geldray was born Max van Gelder in Amsterdam in 1916. It was not until 1932 that he first saw a chromatic harmonica; the shop owner offered it to him when he was taking refuge from a torrential rainstorm in his shop. By 1934 Max had become a star on national radio and on two occasions he was asked to change his name. Max van Gelder was too Dutch. After listening to the Borrah Minevitch Harmonica Rascals and watching them on the screen, it occurred to him that harmonica bands would be the thing of the future.
The Bands. In those days harmonica players were far from, and yet he found seven other harmonica players of his own age. When they found an agent they were soon told that a name had to be found the “Max van Gelder Harmonica Band” was too amatuerish, and too Dutch. They soon became “Mac Geldray and his Mouth-Accordeon Band”. Max gave in but re-named himself Max at a later occasion. The showbusiness didn’t pay very well and four members quit the band and returned to a more seriously way of life. The remaining four, Henk Lodema, Geert van Driesten, Rob Lodema and Max himself began taking it more serious and were engaged to tour Great Britain. Tom Moss, a very popular English comedian, was in Amsterdam for a few weeks seeking entertainers for his vaudeville show. He renamed their act. They became “The Hollander Boys”. Their tour was a success, but after returning to the Continent again, they could not find work. Max had taken a fancy to travelling, and made plans to go to Brussels to see if he could get any bookings. The other three weren’t as enthusiastic as he, and told him to go by himself.
The Jazzplayer. Brussels wasn’t actually waiting for a Dutch harmonica player, and after a couple of weeks Max started to get desperate for work. It was at the “Le Boeuf sur la Toit” that Max was allowed to play a piece with the house orchestra. At the end of the song the public broke down the house, and he was offered a job as a Jazz Harmonica Player, which lasted over a year. A boyhood friend, Johnny Fresco, came to see Max at the “Bull on the Roof” the English translation of “Le Boeuf sur la Toit”. Johnny had formed a successful danceband, and offered him a job with his band in a dance palace in The Hague. It was the first time that he played in front of a Dutch audience, and this was also the first time he ever performed in front of his father, who seemed happy to see his son on stage. Because of the warm family atmosphere, the time in The Hague was very memorable to Max but he was pleased to hear from Johnny that he had another engagement in Ostend, Belgium. This would be a nice working holiday and an investment in his future as the Ostend Casino was just across the road from where they were playing. The Casino was the place where aristocracy, industrialists and other rich people of Europe came gambling. The Casino also hosted great artist like Coleman Hawkins, Teddy Stauffer from Switzerland, Jo Bouillon from France and Ambrose and his orchestra from England. It wasn’t the fame Max was looking for but the players in the groups. He was learning so much so fast that he felt like a real jazzman. Non of the musicians ever looked down on him because he played the harmonica and became good friends.
The Paris Connection. It was during his stay in Ostend that Max met Ray Ventura. Ray told him that whenever he would come to Paris he would set him up with a place to live. Ray kept his promise and Max became a full member of the “Ray Ventura Orchestra” untill the second world war broke out. It was early in 1938 when Max met Django Reinhardt at the “Hot Club de France”, Django had already heard about Max. There were about six musicians playing some light melodic jazz and after about 15 minutes Max was asked to join in. The friendship with Django lasted till early 1940 when Max fled to England. He was jewish and didn’t like the idea of falling into the hands of the Nazis. The fact that Holland was a neutral country made it easier for him to leave.
The Soldier. The vessel that took him across the channel docked in Liverpool but it wasn’t untill The 20th of September of that year that he was introduced to the Royal Dutch Army Brigade “Prinses Irene”, and was send off to camp. By 1942 Max had become very popular by the people at the BBC, and Max’s harmonica was on radio very often in wartime Britain. It was on Princess Elizabeth’s sixteenth birthday that Max and his friend, pianist Ben de Koning, were part of the entertainment to the Princess’s party. At no lesser place than Windsor Castle. Max was wounded during the landing at Normandy, 4 months later he set foot again in Brussel, but had to wait untill May 1945 to go Amsterdam where he was unable to find his family. Sadly, both his parents and younger sister had been killed by the Nazis. Having nothing to stay in Amsterdam for he went back to Ray Ventura for two years before returning to England.
The Goons. Max [The Conk] was a member of the Goons from start to finish. The show was first called “Crazy People” in May 1951 and re- named “The Goon Show” in November 1952. The end came on the 28th of January 1960. During those years he acclaimed International recognition. He was invited by the Austrlian Broadcasting authorities to appear on a Nation-wide television show in 1961, On his way back to England he made a stop- over in Hawaii and Los Angeles where he looked up his old friend Johnny Fresco and some other musicians he had known in Europe, most of them had become studio musicians. This wasn’t what he was looking for and returned to England.
The change in his life. He had only be back in England a few days when he had another job offer, this time as an entertainer on board the Queen Elizabeth. Four crossings later Max decided to pack his bags and take a one-way ticket to Los Angeles, not because it was the place to be for a musician, but because of old friends. His first booking was in Reno, Nevada, where he had some marvellous opportunities, working with Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Shore, Billy Daniels and many more others. He didn’t feel at ease in Reno though and went back to L.A., where he landed a job in a local bar as a harmonica player. He was longing to settle down permenantly and met Suzan, a small, gentle and pretty mother of three just at the right time. She was divorced, just like him. It was only a matter of weeks before he proposed to her, and soon after the five of them moved into a small bungalow in the San Fernando Valley. Max got a steady job in a department store as a clothing salesman. Two years later Philip was born; he was a gift from heaven for Max and Susan, and adored by the other kids. Two years after they moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where Max worked for the the “Christian Science Monitor” as a regional sales supervisor. They missed the warmth of California and decided to return there. While in the midst of planning their move back to L.A., a letter from England arrived. They were going on a short trip to England first.
The very last Goon Show. During all the years that he had been away from England, Max had kept contact with Peter, Spike and Harry and often saw Peter when he was in Hollywood. The Goons had never lost track of each other. The reason for the Goon Show reunion was the fact that the B.B.C radio was to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Max, Susan and Philip arrived just one day before the production in London. Everyone had arrived except Wally Stott, the musical arranger from the beginning who declined for personal reasons.
The Final Chapter. After returning home from England it would take another seven years before they returned to L.A. Max and his family often visited Palm Springs where Susan’s relatives lived. By April 1973 her father became ill and they decided to move to Palm Springs to take care of her dad. Max had found himself a job in the “Trinidad Bar”, hardly a name for a place that featured jazz. One evening he was approached by a man who introduced himself as Doctor Hirshleifer. He told him that he was a jazz fan, and that he had founded the “Stroke Center” in Palm Springs. He asked Max to volunteer to put up a show for the patients, and this he did just one week later. Max returned every week, much to the pleasure of the patients. They formed a group and called themselves “The Blow Hards”. A wonderful co-operation that lasted nine years! The combination of taking care of her father and their son Timmy, who tragically died after being very ill for a year, took their toll of Suzan who eventually was treated at the “Betty Ford Center” in Rancho Mirage, California. Max immediately volunteered his services, and after a short period of volunteer work he joined the staff full time. Considering the hand of cards dealt him by fate. He is a truly remarkable man, and an example to us all. Let’s take a few minutes silence to pay homage to this great man.
Max and Art at the 1995 Dutch Harmonica Festival
When he visited me in September 1995, for the Dutch Harmonica Festival in Rotterdam, he was still working full time.
Early 1996 Max was advised by his physician to stop working. At the age of 80 he still found it difficult not to go to the Betty Ford Center daily.
Max was still playing in 2002, but 2002 had not been a good year as it slowed him down quite a bit. But he’s on the mend.But as of November, at least, all the maladies had been cured and Max was just trying to regain his former strength, something that doesn’t happen quickly at his stage of life.
Max’s son in law, Dr. Roger Blomquist, recorded a new jazz album; Jazz for Charity. This jazz album features Max, and each of the following tracks Roger played the same song on the alto saxophone.
Max lives in scenic splendor on the edge of a golf course in Palm Springs, enjoying the company of his wife of over forty years, Susan, and entertained by two delightfully frisky small dogs, Ruth Ann and Ebby. Max turned 87 on February 12, 2003, and still plays gigs at jazz clubs around his home town Palm Springs. Max played Hering 12 hole harmonicas exclusively.
Listen to Max playing Crazy Rhythm during an episode of The Goon Show
You can listen to Max and other players of his vintage on “Harmonica Swing“
Max passed away on 2 October 2004.
He will be sadly missed by his family and friends.
“Max and Susan Geldray at their home in Palm Springs with Ruth Ann, the newest member of the Geldray household.”
This concert was recorded by someone and a CD-R of the concert was found in the archive I got from John Bryan.
This was the second annual convention of the independent National Harmonica League run at that time by John Walton. He had taken it over from Hohner in 1981 and it was run by a committee of members.
The concert was a part of a day long event in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in Stratford-upon-Avon, the home of William Shakespeare.
Jim was accompanied by Harold Rich (piano) and Richard Wright (guitar). One of Jim’s pupils, World Champion Ivan Richards, joined Jim to play the Mozart Double Flute Concerto.
Jim Hughes “Live at Stratford-upon-Avon, 1983”
01, STAR EYES, 00:00 02, SERENATA FOR A VEILED LADY , 02:48 03, BULGARIAN WEDDING DANCE , 06:13 04. SPRING CAN HANG YOU UP THE MOST , 9:45 05, GIRL WITH THE FLAXEN HAIR, 13:25 06, FIREBRAND, 15:25 07, MOZART FLUTE DUO (with Ivan Richards), 19:56 08, GERSHWIN PRELUDE , 22:45 09, CAPRICE-CRADLE SONG by Gordon Jacob , 28:57 10, BACH GOES TO TOWN ,PRELUDE AND FUGUE by J. S. Bach, 33:54 11, MOON RIVER, 37:43 12, SERENADE FOR UNACCOMPANIED HARMONICA , 40:55 13, CONCERTO FOR HARPSICHORD by J. S. Bach, 44:00 14, MARCH HARE,49:06
I originally published this article in Harmonica World in June 2006. I think it is worth including it here. Dror wrote:
I have been a member of the Adler Trio since we formed it in 1963.
Here is a little bit of history and the background that led to the recording of my new CD, The Classical Project. A unique 8 year activity in which full symphonic works were recorded by myself playing all the parts on harmonica.
I have been a recording freak ever since professional tape recorders became affordable. The Adler Trio’s first LP record was recorded on a British made ‘Brenell’. Other LPs were recorded using Swiss ‘Revox’ recorders. At the end of the tape recorder era we owned an 8 track Tascam machine with DBX noise reduction system, on which we recorded our last vinyl record of Israeli music.
Next came hard disk recording, which revolutionised the recording industry and made it affordable for anyone to achieve recordings of unprecedented quality. When I first started recording on a computer it was not possible to handle more than about 6 separate tracks of music and yet the feeling was like leaping from the Stone Age to the Space Age. The pristine sound, the editing possibilities and the ease of work were amazing. After gaining reasonable control of the computer recording I started an experiment – the experiment that led to the Classical Project.
Since I can play chord, lead and bass harmonicas, I decided to record a classical piece that I loved – all by myself – playing the different harmonicas on different tracks. That was in 1997.
The piece was taken from Khachaturian’s ‘Spartacus’ Variations of Aegina-Bacchanal.
The score I had was for two pianos, out of which I made an arrangement for two chromatics, chords and bass. In some cases the bass role was separated to two different tracks.
I was so excited by the results that I decided to record another piece, and this time, a more ambitious one – Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance March Op. 39 No.1’. For this I went to the Tel Aviv Music Academy and got the orchestral score from which I made an arrangement for about 8 different roles. For trombones and french horns I used several tracks of bass harmonicas. I also used Hohner special effects chromatic harmonicas and any other type of harmonicas to get different ‘colours’ of sound.
After completing the second piece I knew that I would not rest until I had completed a full CD. As time went by, the computers got more powerful and the software smarter and I got more ambitious. The last piece recorded was the most ambitious one: again, from Khachaturian’s Spartacus – Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia (This was used as soundtrack of the British TV series ‘The Onedin Line’). Here I recorded all the different roles of the original orchestral score. This is a short extract to show what I achieved.
I did the same with the full ‘Dance of the hours’ by Ponchieli. These are the two most demanding works in this project. The fact that I was able to record each role in it in short phrases or musical sentences made the whole thing possible. Here is how I did it.
I learned the phrase on the Lead, bass or chords and recorded it by loop recording, playing it again and again until I got a good take, and then on to the next phrase. The auto punch-in function of the computer enabled seamless continuity. I always started with the lead role. Each role was recorded on a different track. For all the treble instruments I used chromatics – Hohner 270 and Suzuki Magic Garden. For a piece of ballet music from Faust I even played the harp arpeggios on chromatic. For violas, bassoons, contrabasses, horns, etc., I used standard Suzuki bass harmonicas and the Tombo Contrabass harmonica. Chords were played by my unique slide chord, developed by me and built for me by Suzuki.
In order to play the score as written I sometimes had to retune my harmonicas to produce the correct trills or passages. I tuned a bass harmonica so that impossible passages would be on one deck only, and in a row, to allow them to be to be played as written. In fact, this project can be compared to the movie making process where small segments become a one full length creation. There were many times when I almost decided to quit, but when I listened again to what I had already done, I could not help going back to it. It was finally completed in October 2005.
For further information and copies of the CD, contact Dror Adler email: droradler3@gmail.com
Captain Reilly was a conductor and taught trumpet at The Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall, London. Immediately after WW1, he moved to Canada to become the bandmaster of the 153rd Wellington Battalion Band that was stationed in Guelph. His son, Tommy Reilly, was born there in 1919. He set up a jazz and concert band for the military and then he took charge of the Elgin County Military band. In the late 1920s, James Reilly moved to the Elmdale Public School in St Thomas, Ontario. He was very successful and his orchestra, accordion and harmonica bands won many prizes –more here.
In the early 1930s, Captain Reilly wrote to Dr Meyer, who was head of Hohner (UK), asking if he could bring the Elmdale School harmonica band to play concerts in England. Unfortunately this was not possible.
Later, when Dr Meyer and Charles Millard were discussing setting up an organisation for harmonica players in the UK, which became “Harmonica Song Band League”, they realised that they needed a good musician who could write the necessary tutors, arrangements for bands, and supervise the training of groups which were being formed by Mr. Millard. They approached Captain Reilly about their plans for forming the National Harmonica Song Band League (HSB) and it was agreed that he was the man who could develop the musical side of it. History proved them right.
Capt. Reilly returned to the UK with his family and helped to get the new Hohner organisation going. He helped to arrange the music published by Francis Day & Hunter, he wrote the HSB Tutors, and arranged new pieces for the growing number of harmonica bands in the UK. Initially tremolo based bands but later chromatic harmonica bands. See end.
His son, Tommy Reilly, started playing harmonicaprofessionally aged 16 years.
When the British College of Accordionists (BCA) was started soon afterwards, he took a lively interest in this it too, building on his experience teaching the accordion in Canada. He also took on the training of the Junior Band of the B.C A. which very soon reached a remarkably high standard under his conductorship.
Captain James also wrote several highly successful elementary pieces like “Windsor March,” “Searchlight Tattoo.” etc., which found a ready sale amongst the many elementary bands springing up throughout the country.
When the B.C.A. set up examinations, they opened a number of Examination Centres, and Captain Reilly was appointed as one of the College Examiners, a role he carried out for many years.
After WW2, Captain Reilly was also appointed Sales Manager of the Hohner Musk Department. He persuaded a number of new composers to write for the accordion and the harmonica, and built up the largest Accordion and Harmonica Music Catalogue in this country.
As the popularity of the harmonica and accordion grew, he was much in demand as an adjudicator for Music Festivals all over the country. He also contributed a lot to the smooth running of the competition section of the annual “Accordion Day” festival.
In the early 1950s he started a Harmonica Staff Band for the Hohner Organisation He developed this into a successful orchestral group which gave many successful demonstrations and concerts.
Captain Reilly retired from Hohner in 1954, when he was a Vice President of the National Harmonica League (formerly the HSB). He died a year later.
He was probably responsible for teaching the majority of the harmonica players in the UK over his time with the HSB/NHL through the many tutors he wrote, the guidance he provided and the music he published.
This is based on an appreciation by Dr. O. Meyer, the MD of Hohner (UK), when Captain Reilly retired in 1955.
