Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Jens Bunge interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 63

Share episode

Jens Bunge joins me on episode 63.

Jens is a German chromatic player who started out playing the tremolo, before discovering Stevie Wonder. He then found Toots Thielemans and he started teaching himself jazz by ear and joined the local big band. He released his first album in 1991 with members of this band, and has since released a number of other albums of mostly original material, as well as guesting on albums by other artists. 

Jens has travelled extensively, particular in Asia, where he has tapped into the burgeoning chromatic harmonic scene there, and has been invited to play at numerous concerts and the Asian harmonica festivals. Jens is also appearing at the HarmonicaUK Chromatic Weekend June 18/19, 2022.


Links:

Website:
http://www.jensbunge.com

Discography:
https://jazzpages.de/bunge/discography-jens-bunge/

Soundcloud for more of Jens’ recordings:
https://soundcloud.com/jens-bunge

Hohner ‘Masters of the Harmonica’:
https://www.hohner.de/en/jens-bunge

HarmonicaUK Chromatic Weekend:
https://www.harmonica.uk/events/chromatic-weekend-2022


Videos:

The Getaway soundtrack: end credits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjydZbfUKXc

That Misty Red Beast played by Jens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvcBQRwJW1Y

Silent Dreams:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgacRD1bZxs

Tribute to Toots & Bill with Andreas Hertel trio:
https://youtu.be/I5U1rN_lBDY

2016 HarmonicaUK festival with Chris Collis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuGufOFu_vc


Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/

Support the show

SPEAKER_00:

Jens Bunger joins me on episode 63. Jens is a German chromatic player who started out playing the tremolo before discovering Stevie Wonder. He then found Toots Thielmans and he started teaching himself jazz by ear and joined the local big band. He released his first album in 1991 with members of this band and has since released a number of other albums of mostly original material as well as guesting on albums by other artists. Jens has travelled extensively, particularly in Asia, where he has tapped into the burgeoning chromatic scene there, and has been invited to play at numerous concerts and the Asian Harmonica Festivals. Jens is also appearing at the Harmonica UK Chromatic Weekend on June 18th and 19th, 2022. This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas. Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zeidel Harmonicus. Hello Jens Bunger and welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_04:

Thanks, Neil.

SPEAKER_00:

You are a German chromatic player, yeah?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, right. Yeah, chromatic only. But I start with the tremolo harmonica.

SPEAKER_00:

So do you still play the tremolo harmonica?

SPEAKER_04:

No. Actually, I got one as a gift from someone who gave up playing harmonica completely. I have it in a box. I opened it, tried a little bit, but I don't use it.

SPEAKER_00:

And so do you play any diatonic harmonica?

SPEAKER_04:

No. Actually, since I started playing the chromatic harmonica, I had to play a piece of music with an orchestra. It was street music by William Russell. For that, they asked me to play the diatonic harmonica, but I decided to play it exclusively on the chromatic harmonica. And then as a gift, they gave me a marine band. I tried it, but I'm not so comfortable with it. Sound production is quite different. So when I blow, I hear a lot of side noises. And so it's like a completely different world for me.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? You get quite a few people who only play the chromatic or diatonic and some people who play both. For you though, what would you say to promote the chromatic harmonica to diatonic players?

SPEAKER_04:

It's hard to convince the real diatonic harmonica players to switch to the chromatic harmonica. They don't know actually what to do with this button on the side. When I meet Howard Levy, I always tease him and he teases me. He asks me, why do you play the chromatic harmonica? I I ask him, why do you play the diatonic harmonica? I often compare the chromatic harmonica to a concert flute and the diatonic harmonica to a pan flute in which you have to produce the chromatic notes with your technique, but it's not there. It's not inbuilt like on the chromatic harmonica. And for a diatonic harmonica player, I think it's really a challenge as it was for me in the beginning to play the chromatic notes and knowing when to press the slider button and when to release it and also get familiar with the different patterns. In every key you have to play in a different pattern, exhale, inhale, use the slider or just don't use it. And I think it's really a completely different world.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, sure. Yeah. So you're from, I think, a place near Heidelberg.

SPEAKER_04:

That's right. It's southwestern Germany and it's not so far from the French border. It's about one hour and I'm in the Alsace region or to Strasbourg. It's about one hour, 30 minutes. We have a fast train now from Mannheim, which is 15, 20 minutes from my place to Paris. You are there in less than four hours.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I'm always very envious of people who live in sort of central Europe. It's great to get everywhere Right, yeah. What was the harmonica scene like as you were growing up? What got you into playing the harmonica? Actually, I

SPEAKER_04:

found an old harmonica, which my father owned, but I never heard him play. And it was in the cupboard, and I picked it up. I think I was 11 years old or so, and tried to play some easy folk music, children's songs, then Christmas songs.

SPEAKER_00:

This was on the tremolo, was it?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, that was the tremolo. Unsere Lieblinge is the name of this Hohner brand. Actually, that was my first instrument And it was a little bit out of tune. So I guess my father must have played on it. But as I said, I never heard him play. Within a few weeks, I was able to play quite decently on it. And then for Christmas, my parents gave me a new one, which was not so out of tune. That was the one which has the echo harp. It has a key of C on one side. And if you flip it around, it has the key of G. Yeah, I was able to play on this instrument. But I did not really have like a role model for that. Yeah, my father actually he comes from Hamburg so my grandpa was a sailor. I know that sailors at that time probably not today anymore they used to play the harmonica on sea so I played some shanties, sailor songs and then when our school was recruiting people for the school choir I registered for that because I liked singing but I also brought my harmonica and then when there were rehearsing one song I just picked up the harmonica surprising the teacher and played along with the choir and from then on I was hired as a harmonica player for the school choir whenever they had a performance oh great and this is still on the tremolo yeah that was on the tremolo yes I was able to play also this accompanying myself with a rhythm by the tongue I demonstrate here Something like that. I played this on the chromatic harmonica now with the octave technique.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. And before then, did you play any instruments before then?

SPEAKER_04:

No, actually it was also a Horner instrument. It's called Clarina. It was kind of the, which looks like a keyboard. The

SPEAKER_00:

melodica.

SPEAKER_04:

Melodica, yeah. And this was a cheaper model, Clarina with very colorful keys. This was actually the first instrument I got. And then I got a guitar from My grandpa, a book came with it so I could teach myself to play chords. So I was never able to really play melody lines on the guitar. Maybe Stairway to Heaven, of course, this intro. But I was more restricted to playing chords. And this really helped me to get a knowledge and feeling for harmonies, which also enabled me to quickly understand what's going on in jazz music when you improvise and yeah after the guitar the next instrument was the harmonica took me until i was 18 years old shortly before i graduated i heard stevie wonder on the radio with this song isn't she lovely with the harmonica solo

SPEAKER_00:

And is that what turned you on to the chromatic sound?

SPEAKER_04:

Right. And I did not know how do you call this instrument, which is able to play the chromatic notes, the half notes, as we say in Germany, Halbtöne. And so I went to a music shop and asked them, okay, I heard this song, Isn't She Lovely? And I cannot play it on my harmonica, which I have. And then the salesperson told me, oh, you mean a chromatic harmonica. And so I started with a cheap one, a chrometta. Yeah, it took me a couple of weeks to be able to play single note lines and not play two or three notes at the same time. So this was the first challenge.

SPEAKER_00:

And you were self-taught at this stage, were you?

SPEAKER_04:

Right, right. I'm not sure if they really had textbooks how to learn the chromatic harmonica at that time. But something happened a couple of years later when I participated in what they called World Harmonica Championships. The festival, which now is called the World Harmonica Festival. So it was more like a competition, like in a sports event. And I registered for that. They required me to play a test piece so that for the preliminary round that I could show that I'm able to play the chromatic harmonica. The test piece had octaves in it. And I did not know how can I play octaves. My mouth is so small. I cannot open it so much. And I I tried to play with two harmonicas at the same time, stacked beneath each other and shifted a little bit, but it did not work. And then I bought a small brochure in a music shop, which was like an introduction into playing the chromatic harmonica. And this was the first time I heard about or read about the difference between pucker style, which I played naturally, and tongue blocking, which enables you to play octaves.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think the challenge with the chromatic then We talked to a lot of diatonic players on here. There was lots of blues records to listen to. There wasn't so much chromatic harmonica. Like you say, very little material on how to play the chromatic back then.

SPEAKER_04:

Nowadays, I think there are more books on the market. So it's maybe easier for some beginners. Or they just watch YouTube videos. Nowadays, you watch the tutorials on the internet.

SPEAKER_00:

You were learning the chromatic by ear at this stage, were you?

SPEAKER_04:

Right, yeah. I bought an album vinyl at that time, Stevie Wonder's Greatest Hits. And I tried to just imitate what he played note by note and always restarting the record and scratching it by overusing it and always listening to the same part. Later, I just recorded it with a cassette tape recorder from the albums I bought. And then I had more possibilities. to replay it without damaging the LP.

SPEAKER_00:

The good old days before computers, eh?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah. And there was not really a way to slow down or to adjust it to the pitch because I realized my cassette tape players, also they broken after a while. And so I bought a new one and then I suddenly noticed, okay, why is this a quarter note deeper, lower in pitch than my harmonica? And so I bought one with the pitch control by Philips. And with that, I could record from the LP and then pitch down half an octave so slow it down at the same time and then re-recorded the slowed down version another half octave down and so I could follow what at that time I listened to Toots Tillmans already what he was playing in his improvisations but it sounded weird very low at least I got an idea okay which notes is he playing in these sometimes really fast improvisations Thank you. And nowadays you just buy the album or you stream it and download it. And then you use a software like Transcribe or whatever, Audacity, and you can slow it down without changing the pitch or you can adjust the pitch. Yeah, nowadays it's so easy.

SPEAKER_00:

So was there any particular Stevie Wonder song that grabbed you early on?

SPEAKER_04:

Isn't She Lovely, of course, because it's very melodic. But on Stevie's greatest hits, there were recordings from when he was 13, 14 years old. Fingertips.

UNKNOWN:

Fingertips.

SPEAKER_04:

Some of it was not very understandable for me at that time. And at that time, I was not familiar to the connection between harmonies and the melody instrument, what he is doing, what he was doing rhythmically. He was very prominent, but harmonically, I did not really get the connection, the context.

SPEAKER_00:

So you started getting into jazz. You mentioned you listened to Toots Tillmans, of course. Yes. I think you first heard him, I read, on... the Getaway movie soundtrack.

SPEAKER_04:

Right, yes. So I watched that movie actually in the year when I graduated. So I was 18 and a half years at that time. I already had played Stevie songs or just had tried to approach the chromatic harmonica. I played German pop songs along the radio in all keys, which was good because it was training my ear. It was training my ability to be flexible and using the harmonica like my own voice. I also started to play along with what was just played on the radio and was able to switch keys very quickly. So it trained my ear and it trained my mastering of the different keys on the chromatic harmonica. But then I watched this movie, The Getaway, and I was caught by the harmonica solos. And then in the end, in the credits, actually someone loaded it up to YouTube. So you can see, okay, harmonica, solos, guitar and whistling, Toots Tillmans. And a few days later, I went to a record shop and asked the staff about Toots Tillmans and they didn't know who is this and then they looked in a catalog at that time they didn't have the computer okay come with me into the jazz department and so the first Toots Tillmans LP I bought was one of these three live recordings which he made in Holland so this was my first exposure to jazz

SPEAKER_00:

Any Toots songs off those albums that you remember?

SPEAKER_04:

Film music like The Summer of 42, The Summer Nose, That Misty Red Beast, which I also have in my repertoire now for Toots Tillman's tribute because this year we celebrate his 100th birthday. The Summer of 42 Yeah, this was the, let's say, the more melodic songs, the film music, where he plays only... short solo very easy for me at that time to follow but then also a Brazilian song composed by another harmonica player Mauricio Einhorn this one was so fast and I did not really get what's happening there took me months to really analyze and understand at first he plays the theme melody and then he starts to play random notes which somehow are related to the harmonies which are played by the rhythm section yeah it took me about one or two years until I really understood okay there is a form in jazz like A A B A or whatever which repeats over and over again and the soloist he is improvising which means inventing new melodies related to these chord schemes that are underlying the solos

SPEAKER_00:

so in order to you know start learning jazz more seriously you're mainly a jazz chromatic player now yeah so did you you then start to study music and you know how did you get your head around playing jazz changes

SPEAKER_04:

my guitar playing helped me playing along with Jamie Aebersold's cassette tapes later on yeah CDs but I think this was in the 1990s I bought my first CD player in 1991 when I recorded my first CD so that I was able to listen to my own album later on I and which I still use a band in a box play alongs But at that time, I also just played chords on my guitar. So I had to use both hands. I let the sound ring for a while and quickly picked up my harmonica and just tried out, okay, which... notes sound good with this chord I played another chord okay which notes sound good with that chord and so this was a very slow approach but it also helped improve my harmonic understanding and so I didn't really study from theory books I was more a practical man who wanted to be able to listen and so ear training was always first priority for me and still is even when I teach my workshop Because I think music is more for the ears than for the eyes. Of course, reading music helps. I started to read music later because if you want to communicate with other musicians, if you want to write your own music, you have to be able to write music, to read music. I think I can just close my eyes, listen to chords, and then I can follow. This is how I started, as I said before. listening to radio songs, whatever style it was, and just playing along and trying to contribute with my notes to the overall sound or to the harmony.

SPEAKER_00:

So talking about your progression into playing with other people, you say you learned a lot from records and then jamming along with Ebersole backing tracks and all. I think you then started joining a big band over there in Germany, did you?

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, yeah. This big band was advertising their concert in our newspaper and also noted that they are searching for other musicians. And then I said, okay, I play the harmonica. Why not attend their concert? And after that, tell them, okay, I play the harmonica. Maybe you need a solo player. And at that time, I already had picked up the trumpet, which was my third or fourth instrument. And this was also a funny story. I bought an album by Quincy Jones because Toots Tillmans was on it, Smash. water jack that they play what's going on And in this song, Freddie Hubbard is playing the trumpet. And this inspired me to pick up the trumpet. And my neighbor on the other side of the street, he was a salesperson in a music shop. And so I got discount for a cheap trumpet or a cornet, to be precise. And so I also played the trumpet. And I told this band leader of the big band, okay, I play harmonica as a soloist, but I can also play trumpet and oh yeah we need trumpet players and so this is how I started playing the trumpet in the second position of this big band of our local music school played trumpets solos and harmonica solos

SPEAKER_00:

So how were you received as a chromatic player in a big band with all those noisy instruments?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, of course, the problem is you say noisy instruments. Yeah, trumpet is noisy too, which is also the reason why I gave up after a couple of years, because if you practice, everybody in the neighborhood will hear you. So usually when they had concerts, they had a good PA system. And for the rehearsals, the big band had to play softly which is also good training for them the band leader then made them clear okay you have to play soft when the soloist is not so loud But I think it's a good feeling if you really have a good PA system. I played here in my hometown at a festival, a street festival, roughly two weeks ago. And a professional radio station was doing the PA system. And this was such a great sound behind me. Really inspiring. The big band plays behind you.

SPEAKER_00:

You mentioned already that you released your first album in 1991, which is called Harmonicology. Right. How did you put this together? And then, you know, who did you make the album with? From that

SPEAKER_04:

big band. One of them was a piano player who studied jazz piano at the Swiss Bern School after. And so he had a small combo, like he on piano, a bass player, a drummer. And then he asked me if I can join. At first, it was more Dixieland and Switzerland. but then when he started studying in Bern it was mainstream jazz so we went to some jam sessions also and there I met Wolfgang Mayer who was a teacher for jazz music at a conservatory here in Mannheim we worked together and then the idea came up okay I have to somehow document my music also for myself not necessarily to make money because actually I never made money with releasing albums I knew it's like a name card to get into the business. This was a very expensive adventure for me. But yeah, he suggested Stefan Schmolk on the bass, Patrick Schimanski, a drummer. This was quite an interesting selection because these musicians were not really mainstream jazz musicians, but more into modern jazz and experimental jazz. And so we did the arrangements together. and they really were very creative in a way which I was not used to what someone can do with your songs. And this was quite an interesting experience, and especially for my first album, that it contained some free elements, not just mainstream jazz or swing music.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I noticed on the song for Viola that you're attacking the notes quite hard on that one.

UNKNOWN:

Viola guitar solo

SPEAKER_04:

yeah yeah at that time I also it was a learning process to record albums at that time I was so naive and unexperienced actually I was the band leader but I was not really in a leading function because I never learned to be a leader in a band this was my first experience and so I was quite happy that the band the musicians in that band themselves they were able to contribute and bring in their ideas and I was very easy going with them and say yeah yeah that's a good idea so i was not very critical which was good for the music but i should have been more critical about the technical situation in the studio because at that time i thought okay you go to the studio and the sound engineer he knows what to do of course he knows but they don't have so much experience with harmonica and especially not with chromatic harmonica and so they positioned a condenser microphone in front of me 10 centimeters distance and record it and I was not happy and I'm still not happy with the sound on this first of my albums because it's so thin At that time when I played live, I already had my Shure SM58 microphone in my hand. And as I had seen how Toots did it, so I had a really warm sound in my live playing. But then in the studio when I listened to the tracks, I thought, oh, what's going on here? My sound is so thin. We have a very good microphone. I think it was AKG or Neumann or Bayer or whatever. Very expensive. But it was not really my sound. My sound is warm and also there were a lot of side noises on the recordings. Only after a while I realized why that happened. The condenser mic, as good as it is, it's very sensitive and it picks up all the noises which usually are not recorded when I hold my microphone in my hand. And by holding it, I cup it, I isolate it against all the side noises like the slider, click, the air streaming out of my nostrils and all this was on the recording and they tried to remove it as good as it was possible with all technical tricks but still it was not my sound.

SPEAKER_00:

So and subsequent albums have you used a handheld microphone?

SPEAKER_04:

Yes and nowadays I'm more self-confident to tell recording engineers whom I don't know so sometimes I go to the same studio and they know already okay i bring my own microphone i also have a foam wrapped around the bowl so that it's a little bit softer in the sound yeah they know and they accept it but in other studios sometimes they really try to convince me oh this is a three thousand dollar microphone and it's so good it might be good for what they

SPEAKER_00:

usually record but it's not good for me and then in the 90s you you've you started doing what you've done lots of which is traveling and you went across to the USA. You recorded an album over there, yeah?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, somehow, yeah, one thing leads to another. Actually, I won in a lottery. This is how everything began. I won at that time was 5,000 German marks, which is 2,500 euro. I used part of the money to travel to Hong Kong. And I met a harmonica player there, chromatic harmonica player, Dave Packer, who was recording jingles for commercials. He played the chromatic harmonica and the piano in... jazz club he told me oh you're here in Asia you should also go to Singapore and a year later or so I went to Singapore on the way to Australia for just touristic purpose there I met some musicians in a hotel bar I met this band from Chicago Judy Roberts on piano and singing Greg Fishman on the saxophone couple of years later I went to Chicago for the first time in my life and I passed by the Intercontinental Hotel and saw a poster of this same singer and pianist. And in the evening, I went there. So she said, oh, you're here. How come? I said, yeah, just by chance, I saw your poster. She said, I know someone who is traveling to Germany tomorrow, a drummer, Rusty Jones. And he speaks German. I call him on the phone. And then I talked to this Rusty Jones, who was then three weeks later near my hometown playing with a German-American band. He had the idea, oh, yeah, let's play a couple of songs in this concert. And then he said, you must come to Chicago. We should record an album. Is this the Meet You in Chicago album? Right, Meet You in Chicago. And interestingly, the pianist is a German guy from not too far from Stuttgart, Thomas Gunter, as he calls him now. And he's based in Chicago now for good. So, yeah, together with him, I record this album, Meet You in Chicago and I had some guests playing on a couple of tunes two singers besides Judy Roberts another singer Jackie Allen and so this was an album in which I did not record only original songs as I did in the album before but also some jazz standards

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know if you can find

SPEAKER_01:

these

SPEAKER_04:

things

SPEAKER_02:

But my heart is riding on your wings.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, so on some of the earlier albums you did through the 90s, you did some original tracks. It's a Beautiful World in 1994. Soup Plus, is that one of yours? Yes,

SPEAKER_04:

Soup Plus actually is the name of a jazz club which doesn't exist anymore in Sydney. And there I met John Morrison, the brother of James Morrison, this famous trumpet and saxophonist. and play multi-instrumentalist. And his then wife on the bass, they were hosting a jam session. So I got some inspiration for this song, Soup Plus. Also on this album are original songs from different countries. Most of my albums were theme albums. So because nowadays you need some topic, otherwise nobody will notice that you released an album. So another one was made in Shanghai. Most of my other albums, they contain original songs because of the label managers. Of course, they want to earn money through royalties, which they can only do if you play your own songs. and not material, which is by other composers.

SPEAKER_00:

So in 96, you released With All My Heart, and you've got a tango letter on there. It's a tango tune, yeah?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Also something special about this, because I'm preparing now for my workshops next week at the Chromatic Weekend about effects. This is the only song where I use the octave playing, because I thought, okay, for the tango, it maybe conveys this feeling of playing a bandoneon. But I tried to play it just one, two hours before when I was writing my concept for this workshop. And I said, no, I can't play it anymore because usually I don't play octaves. Probably at that time I practiced wildly to be able to play it in the recording.

SPEAKER_00:

And tango music, is that something you were interested in? Obviously, Joe Powers is probably the most famous person playing.

SPEAKER_04:

Right. He specialized in this niche. I still play this song, Tango Letta, and when I look at my statement, I just got one for my royalties. This tango is the song which brings in the most money, which is around, I think it was 2 euro 13 cents for the last year, because this one is still played on the radio. The label manager at that time, I never recorded with the same label. I always had to change because the label was closed down or the label manager said oh nowadays we have a hard time releasing albums with originals but this one he wanted me to record a tango because at that time there was a tango wave coming from Finland interestingly to Europe he had a good sense for what's being played on the radio so he knew all the radio stations here in Germany and Austria and Switzerland and when a new release was on the market. He traveled with his albums from one radio station to the next. And he said, okay, you have a talk show every Saturday afternoon. This would be an ideal song, this tango. So he was making money with royalties because I was the composer and 40% go to him, 60% to me. So at that time when this tango was played more often than nowadays, this was really good money coming in. But nowadays, most radio stations They don't play jazz music or this kind of genre anymore.

SPEAKER_00:

And then you did a couple more albums as well. In 2004, you released a duo album. Is it Pas de Dieu? Yeah. So is that just you and one other musician?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I did this with my regular guitar player, Uli Wagner. So we played a couple of weeks ago. Nowadays, the business starts again slowly. And with this duo, I've been playing since... 1996 and so we also have this tango tango letter in our repertoire but because of copyright reasons because it was under the other label we could not use it there but we use it in our live concert and he's also a great composer and he uses different tunings on his guitars so he has a tenor guitar he used a eight string guitar yeah and we we did two really recordings with poetry. One was for a charity association and another one was for the same label actually which is very into this region with local products and so and we are a wine grown region and so the idea came up combine poetry with the topic of wine and so we composed music according to the character of wine.

UNKNOWN:

me me

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, so we did a sampler of the music for the international market because in 2004, I was invited to play in the Hong Kong Asia Pacific Harmonica Festival. Together with my guitar player, we were thinking of bringing some albums. And of course, they would not understand the German poetry. And so the label manager said, okay, let's do a sampler album with just the music, the best music of these two poetry

SPEAKER_00:

and jazz albums so so obviously you mentioned playing in asia quite a lot and you did an album in 2009 which is called shanghai blue which is recorded with asian musicians yeah

SPEAKER_04:

right

SPEAKER_00:

so

SPEAKER_04:

So my first trip to Shanghai was in 2004. And I went to a jazz club, JC club, suddenly someone behind me said, Halloween Spooner. So he called me by my name. And I turned around and I saw it was someone who hired me for a concert just a few weeks before in Germany. And he was working for BASF, the big chemical company, which is just 10 kilometers from my place. And he was working working there for this company in Shanghai. And what I experienced there, the jazz musicians, besides playing jazz standards, they also played Chinese music in a jazzy style, in jazzy arrangements. And so the idea came up to do the same, to arrange Chinese songs in a jazzy bossa nova way. At that time, I had just bought a house here, had to do a lot of renovation work. And And so for a while, I didn't have the money or the time to travel a lot. And so in 2008, I decided to do this recording with Chinese musicians, only the drummer and the bass player and the trumpet player and the saxophone player who is on one or two songs. They were American musicians, but the rest is a Chinese band, especially the singers.

SPEAKER_00:

so this was your last album was it in 2009 yet you haven't released one since then

SPEAKER_04:

That's right. Actually, I'm not sure if I ever will release another album because I think that the time of CDs is over. Not only the young people, also older people, let's say the targeted jazz audience. Nowadays, they are streaming. If you release something, maybe it's an EP or just a single on Spotify or Amazon Music or whatever. And I recorded recently four songs to Brazilian songs which I composed a couple of years ago and now a singer, a Brazilian singer. She's based in Germany. She wrote some lyrics and we record these two songs and two other songs, instrumentals. For one of them, Silent Dreams.

UNKNOWN:

Silent Dreams

SPEAKER_04:

Actually, it's on YouTube with a slideshow and I plan to film a video clip. This will happen in Malaysia in August. Because I don't have a real budget for this, to hire some professional film crews, I bought myself an iPhone 13 Pro and I'm practicing how to film myself with a tripod, with a camera dolly and whatever. And I will pack this in my suitcase, bring to a very nice hotel resort where I played for New Year's Eve three times. So I know the location and I already plan what scenes to shoot.

SPEAKER_00:

making a music video

SPEAKER_04:

right right and of course also this one is not really to make money from it it's just something you I give as a gift to the world to just make my music popular

SPEAKER_00:

and myself promote myself so you traveled a lot in Asia obviously you've been quite involved with the harmonica scene over there so you know you went to the I think you went to the Seoul Harmonica Festival in the early 2000s you've been to various others and you got to Asia a lot play yeah so the harmonica certainly the chromatic harmonica is very popular over there isn't it so right what's it like over in Asia the harmonica scene

SPEAKER_04:

yeah my first exposure to the harmonica scene in Asia was actually yeah I told about meeting Dave Packer who is a jazz musician who did jingles in Hong Kong he was not really networking with the harmonica scene there but in 2000 I plan to go to the harmonica summit in Minneapolis with Hendrik Merkens and other famous harmonica players but since I'm working as a teacher in Germany I have lots of holidays but not necessarily when I need them and at that time the festival was just two weeks before my summer holiday started and oh yeah sorry I can't make it and I was looking for alternatives and then I found another festival promoted in Seoul Korea the Asia Pacific Harmonica Festival and I send organization an email. And three days later, I got an invitation from them. Of course, they would not pay for my flight, but they would pay for the hotel, ask me to do a workshop and be a judge in the competitions. So I traveled there. This was my first meeting with the real harmonica scenes of Korea. At that time, they were not strong in the some of the Malaysian harmonica players, then they invited me to come to Malaysia. So I thought, yeah, I've never been to Malaysia before. I've been to Singapore, which is not so far from Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, or Kajang near Kuala Lumpur, where this harmonica scene was located. And so I got to know more and more of these people. And the Hong Kong people, they invited me to take part in the Hong Kong Asia Pacific Harmonica Festival in 2004. And the Taiwanese people, They invited me to come to the 2006 Asia-Pacific Harmonica Festival in Taipei. And so, yeah, one thing led to another. And yeah, now I know about this scene.

SPEAKER_00:

You've also, as well as your own albums, you play with various other people, haven't you, as well? You've done guest recordings on various albums. So with Andreas... Hertel. Andreas Hertel, yeah. So he's a German player, yeah?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah. Bye.

SPEAKER_04:

Right. He's a piano player who is also a great composer. And in the last three, four years, he's done also arranging for different instruments. And he had the idea, some of his older songs, they were still in the drawer. And he thought, okay, I have to release them. But I want to do it in very special arrangements. And he had the idea to pair me up with a trumpet flugelhorn player. I've done this before in my Shanghai Blue album, but only with my limited skills of arranging. His arrangements are more worked out, very interesting. During the first lockdowns because of the Corona pandemic, I could not travel to Asia in that year. And he said, oh, that's good. Now you are here in the summer holidays. I grab you and you record with me. I'm on 10 of 11 of the songs in this album.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, great. And you record it with some female singers. Et

SPEAKER_03:

dans un oise Ce cher visage Et dans un oise Ce cher visage De mon passé

SPEAKER_00:

So you've

SPEAKER_04:

also done some film music over there in Germany, yeah? wave file all over the world and I did this for him two or three times one collaboration was with an American singer who was in India for a tour and then he had the idea to record something for a Bollywood movie yeah this was also very interesting collaboration he said okay I sent you mp3 and you just play along record one or two versions send them to me but I cannot guarantee that we will use all of your recording. And as you might know, when they are shooting a movie, sometimes they have to change the scene, then I have to change the music. In the end, they only use three of my notes.

SPEAKER_00:

You're well paid for those,

SPEAKER_04:

yeah. He paid me 150 euros, so this is 50 euros per note.

SPEAKER_00:

You also wrote some articles for the Harmonica Educator, yeah?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, right. Richard Martin at that time, he reached out for me and asked me if I can take over the jazz column of this harmonica educator and he had Jamie Abersol doing every second edition this means two articles per year actually some of the material from this time I found it on one of my old computers and I rescued it and this is the basis for my workshops next week in the chromatic weekend

SPEAKER_00:

yeah so great so yes on June the 18th and 19th in Birmingham in the UK you're teaching at the Harmonica UK Chromatic Weekend. So that's going to be great. I'm going to be there myself. So looking forward to that. So yeah, what sort of stuff will you be covering in your workshops? Actually, I will do

SPEAKER_04:

two jazz workshops. One for beginners, which means not the hardcore jazz, but also maybe how to interpret songs in a jazzy way. Like let's say Frank Sinatra. He's not really a jazz singer as he never really sketched. But this is what I will cover in this jazz workshop number one. And the second one is for the more advanced players who also want to get more into how to improvise on the basis of chord progressions. Workshop three will be musicality, musical expression. What is it like articulation, how to start a note, how to accentuate notes, how to phrase, how to bring dynamics into the music and play at the same volume. from the beginning till end. Sunday, I have another two workshops, one about sound quality, how to produce a good sound or your sound. Actually, what is a good sound? You should be the judge. Okay, what is your ideal? How do you want to sound? And how do you achieve this goal? How can you play with different tone colors or effects like tremolo or vibrato? The fifth workshop will cover pressure How do you practice in an efficient way that you don't just get worn out and maybe lose the ambition for playing harmonica because your lips are bleeding? Which actually happened when I was so crazy to practice Donnelly for hours and then in the end I could not play for two days. So how to organize your practice so that you still have fun and make progress and can also monitor your practice? your progress.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, great. Yeah, so looking forward to that weekend. That brings me nicely on to a question I ask each time, Jens, which is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing? So actually, I always

SPEAKER_04:

say you should practice the songs you want to play, you want to be able to play. Practice slowly and increase the tempo. Increase the tempo day by day or week by week. Use a metronome or play-alongs like I use with Band in a Box where you can really monitor your progress and some Sometimes I even do two steps forward, one step back. Always consolidate what you already have reached. Sometimes I also say 10 minutes spent on the right stuff is better than half an hour. Also, maybe split up 10 minutes into two times five minutes. Don't lose the contact with the harmonica. That's important. And the harmonica is so easy to grab and always have with you so that there should be no excuse to not to practice.

SPEAKER_01:

¶¶

SPEAKER_00:

You've played all around the world. You've played concerts all around, lots of festivals. You played in Spa in St. Louis. You've also played in Harmonica UK in 2016 with Chris Collis, a resident pianist who will be there at the Chromatic Weekend. Yeah, looking forward to that. I know he's looking forward to playing with you. Yeah, so he's great to see. So we'll get on to talking about gear now. So you're a honoree endorser, yeah? You're on their home and masters of the harmonica on their website. I think it's Super 64 you're one of choice. I started with the Chrometta,

SPEAKER_04:

as I said before. It was a little bit limited i think it was the chrometta 14 which has three and a half octaves but yeah with this plastic mouthpiece and the the slider was thin and bent very easily and so then the next instrument was the super chromonica the 270 i had a lot of problems with notes uh reeds are blown out after a while especially the g in the third channel because at that time if you had a broken reed, you had to send in the harmonica. Then I realized, I think it was in the 1989 World Harmonica Championships in Trossingen, someone told me, oh no, you can send them into Horner factory, they will repair them. And then I switched to the Super 64 because at that time you could buy the reed plates. So when a reed was blown out, I just bought a new reed plate, which was also expensive. And then I switched to the CX-12. When this one came out, I thought, oh, wow, nice sound, very easy to bend with. But then I noticed the valves sticking. I wanted to blow a soft note and suddenly no sound. And then... this plopping sound and then the note comes out very loud. And also my guitar player, he composed songs where I needed to play in the lower octave. And so I switched back to the Super 64. Recently, I played a new Super 64 performance. I got it just in time before I went on a tour to Asia. All the musicians, the harmonica players, they wonder, oh, that's a very luxury instrument. Yeah, I think it has really advantages over the old instrument as for the reliability, especially with respect to the slider.

SPEAKER_00:

You like playing the 16-hole, yeah? Yeah. You're happy to move to that from the 12-hole?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I rarely go below the low B-flat, but it's good to have it, and now I'm used to the dimensions of the instrument. At first, when I switched from the 14-hole instrument to 12, or then from the 12-hole instrument to the 16. It was a little bit awkward to hold in my hands, but now I'm used to it.

SPEAKER_00:

So, obviously, you're a Horner and Dorsey, so you're playing their chromatics, but have you tried some of the other manufacturers recently, some of the newer ones?

SPEAKER_04:

I tried this Renaissance, which was built by Douglas Tate in the 1990s, I think, and then Seidel, they revived it around the year 2000, and I tried it, but I was not very happy with it. And it's a 12-hole instrument, very heavy. And I tried the Seidel with the steel reeds. Yeah, the response of the reeds was very good, very good. But the sound was too thin for my taste. And so this is the reason why I still stick to Horner because of the sound.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you like the sound. Yeah, I've got to say, I've got a Zeidler Symphony, which is a chromatic they've released recently, which it is really excellent. Yeah, you have to give it a try in Birmingham. So yeah, we just talked a little bit about equipment. So obviously, you mentioned when you're recording, you like to use a handheld microphone. So is that the trusty SM58 you use?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah. I also have this Fireball, this Audix Fireball, but it was not very convincing when I connected it to my amplifier. The amplifier I use is an Italian model, mock-based

SPEAKER_00:

So a bass amplifier is that?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, but they had an acoustic series and this is a Mark Acoustic. I had the AER Acoustic Cube 2 before. I think it's good for acoustic guitar, maybe for singers, but I think the emphasis was on the mids and especially the mid highs. And so I was not so convinced by the sound because it was also a little bit too sharp and not really so warm and mellow. And then a friend who is a bass player he also plays guitar sometimes and he connected me with another bass player whom I had met before in a big band and he was the promoter for Mark Bass here in Germany told me we have a series now for acoustic instruments Mark Acoustic this one is just half of the weight this AER weight like 14 kilograms and this one has 8 kilograms and so when I travel I think it's just easier to carry a lightweight. So I use this one and the sound is a little bit more mellow than

SPEAKER_00:

on the AER. Yeah, so because it's originally the bass amps, the Mark bass, does it emphasize the lower frequencies, do you think, better because of that? Yes,

SPEAKER_04:

yes. And together with the Shure SM58 and the foam wrapping around the microphone ball. So I

SPEAKER_00:

really think this goes together quite well. And the SM58, are you using just a standard one, not one of the ones with the volume? control

SPEAKER_04:

no they blow me away i'm i'm considering of uh yeah investing in one so far i'm happy with this uh regular standard sm58 with a switch so i can switch off when i'm

SPEAKER_00:

not playing and um you're using obviously then you say you're taking an amplifier most of the time so you prefer to have your own amp rather than playing through the pa if there is a pa

SPEAKER_04:

i use the pa But I make sure I ask the organizers before, okay, do you have the reverb? Usually it's no problem. I also, I bought a reverb device two or three years ago, but I never used it. But yeah, sometimes you go to a venue and then they tell you, yeah, we have everything and then the sound is not good. So I always have my microphone with me because I think this is the first thing I can do next to my Because I think that the player and the harmonica, they produce the sound. But then the microphone is the next means to convey your sound. Then nothing is in my control after that. So if it's a small club and I'm traveling by car, I bring my amplifier. So I still have a chance to change something if

SPEAKER_00:

PA is not good. Yeah, no, I agree. It's always good to have your own equipment, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04:

for other people I just send the raw file with no equalizing or no effects because those people who produce the music they want to have their sound and that's okay but when I play in a live situation I try to have a decent reverb on my microphone and I always tell them okay please reduce the mid highs and high highs so that the sound is a little bit warm yeah and do you have a reverb pedal no I don't have one I think if you use such effects you really have to know what to do and

SPEAKER_00:

when to do it yeah I mean it's good to have all this gear but it does make things more complicated doesn't it sometimes it's nice just to be simple just turn up your instrument your microphone like you say so yeah so great so final question then just about your future plans obviously you're traveling to the UK next week for the Chromatic Weekend anything else coming up

SPEAKER_04:

actually two concerts tribute to Toots Tillmans on 30th of this month and on 1st of July. I think in July, another concert in a church with Andreas Hertel in a duo setting. And then the next thing will be this trip to Asia with a

SPEAKER_00:

couple of concerts. So thanks so much for joining me today, Jens Bunger. And I look forward to carrying on this conversation in the Chromatic Weekend, the 18th and 19th of June in Birmingham, UK. Yeah. Thanks, Neil, for the interview. Thanks to Seidel for sponsoring the podcast. And be sure to check out the great range of harmonicas and products at www.zidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zidel Harmonicas. Many thanks to Peter Golding and Robert Sawyer for their donations to the podcast. Remember to please check out the website at harmonicahappyhour.com. And finally, it's over to Jens to play us out.

UNKNOWN:

.

SPEAKER_01:

Bye.