Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Filip Jers interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 32

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Filip can be described as the complete harmonica player, being adept on the diatonic, chromatic and bass harmonicas, as well as being able to play numerous other instruments.
He started out on diatonic, with a love of the blues before submerging himself into the overblow style of play pioneered by Howard Levy.
Filip is the first harmonica player in the 300 year history of Sweden’s Royal Academy of Music to be accepted to study there. It is here he explored the range of possibilities of the chromatic harmonica as a jazz instrument.
Still only 34 years old, Filip already has a great catalogue of albums to his name, with releases focused on jazz, Swedish folk, blues and pop, and fusions between them made to great effect.
He loves to teach the harmonica and has just launched a new online resource to share his deep knowledge of both diatonic and chromatic. 

Select the Chapter Markers tab above to select different sections of the podcast (website version only).

Links:
Filip's website:
http://www.filipjers.com/

Filip's new teaching site:
http://www.patreon.com/filipjersharmonica

Filip's Facebook page:
http://facebook.com/filipjersmusic

Filip's Instagram page:
http://instagram.com/filipjersharmonica


Videos:
Filip's YouTube channel:
http://youtube.com/filipjersmusic

Duet with self on Someday My Prince Will Come:
https://youtu.be/23pQMP7UNLU

Workshop: How to structure practise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8loZS9fvl4


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:

Philip Jers joins me on episode 32 of the podcast. Philip can be described as the complete harmonica player, being adept on the diatonic, chromatic and bass harmonicas, as well as being able to play numerous other instruments. He started out on diatonic with a love of the blues before submerging himself into the overblow style of play, pioneered by Howard Levy. Philip is the first harmonica player in the 300-year history of Sweden's Royal Academy of Music to be accepted to study there. It is here he explored the range of possibilities of the chromatic harmonica as a jazz instrument. Still only 34 years old, Philip has a great catalogue of albums to his name, with releases focused on jazz, Swedish folk, blues and pop, and fusions between them made to great effect. He loves to teach the harmonica and has just launched a new online resource to share his deep knowledge of both the diatonic and chromatic harmonica.

UNKNOWN:

Bye.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello, Philip Jers, and welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much. Talking to you from Sweden. Are you in Stockholm in Sweden?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, I am in a very snowy and cold and nice Stockholm.

SPEAKER_00:

How did you start playing harmonica in Stockholm?

SPEAKER_03:

I didn't start in Stockholm, actually. I'm from the south of Sweden, on the southest part, born in a small village called Hör, close to Malmö, which is close to Copenhagen, almost Denmark. But I started playing harmonica down there 20 years ago, this year, in 2001. And I moved to Stockholm in 2006. Right. And

SPEAKER_00:

did you move to Stockholm because the music seems better?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, it was because of my studies. I was turning 20 years old and I had got accepted at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and the Royal College of Music in Malmö, southern part of Sweden. And then I moved to the capital of Sweden and it feels great. I love this city. It's really a cool music city with so many different kinds of music scenes all over.

SPEAKER_00:

Great. And I believe on the course that you took, Were you the first harmonica player to be taken on that course?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, I was the first harmonica player ever there. I mean, and that school started like 300 years ago. So it was kind of funny in a way that I was the first. I took a musician education, jazz musician education, and I did it five years. So I have both bachelor and master's of fine arts in music performance.

SPEAKER_00:

Usually on these sorts of courses, you need to have a second instrument. What was your second instrument on the course?

SPEAKER_03:

I had piano first, and then I had a bit of guitar than a bit of accordion but harmonica was my main instrument first and the funny thing was i i was not allowed to apply first i remember sending in the papers because you couldn't like check harmonica in the list of instrument you played but i wrote it like i play harmonica and then they called me uh two weeks later and said oh we don't have a teacher that can give you exams and things and then i said it's nothing strange it's just notes i mean they are the same here in in the western world so put me among jazz saxophones and then then I will come and do the test. And they was, okay, but we have never had harmonica. Can this work? And I said, yes, it will work. It's the same. I mean, it's just music. And then it worked. So I got in, but I had to fight a bit to get in to the music college because they were not used to it. Of course, there are not so many in the world that have studied harmonica on a high academic music level.

SPEAKER_00:

You're in the rare club of being a properly qualified harmonica players. Exactly. Educated. Great to have you on. So, and we'll get into that. And I think that really does show in you're playing and i think you know a lot of people who are playing and maybe a lot of the harmonica players don't read music you know whilst we're on the topic then what do you think that brings to your playing

SPEAKER_03:

yeah the good thing when i was in the royal academy of music was that they they treated me just as a musician and then they just cured a lot of music on me and i had to handle it so i learned all the tools of being a musician so i never really thought that i'm i'm just a harmonica player i was just thinking this is music i should be able to play this i was a very bad reader or i didn't read music music so much before I started I like crash coursed on it six months before the test when I was in my teenage years because I was really playing just from the air in the beginning yeah I learned how to read very good and also I mean the most important thing to interact and to work with other musicians all the decisions you make and all the things you should listen for and how to work with dynamics and phrasing and it was so lovely and it was so funny to study at that music school I did five years and then I got into the teacher's program as well but I felt like I should try to live life as a freelance musician and it has worked 10 years no worries

SPEAKER_02:

so

SPEAKER_00:

So going back a little bit to your younger days. So I know from reading about you, you play various instruments. You mentioned already piano, guitar, accordion. You've also played some bass, some saxophone, some flute, mandolin. So what instrument did you start off with when you were younger? At what point did you pick up the harmonica?

SPEAKER_03:

I started on cello when I was seven or eight, classical cello. But I wasn't so into it. But I played every week and it was fun, but not my main passion. but then when I was 13 I got a guitar from my father and then it was wow music is the coolest thing in the world because I had seen a classmate in high school that played played guitar and sang and I was like wow this is music wow and then i got a guitar and we henrik is his name we started playing together and then i was 13 and then at 14 i got my first harmonica for my grandmother because we listened me and henrik would listen a lot to 60s music to a lot of blues and kind of folk pop things of that era and there is a lot of harmonica in that music and also to be mentioned by my father also played guitar and harmonica he was not a musician by profession but he was a very happy amateur and and played lots of music at home and also a real music lover had like 10,000 vinyls and I was brought up in a musical home in that way and also my mother she played a little bit of piano but her father was a jazz musician and forest worker I think you call it that.

SPEAKER_00:

Great and so this first harmonica you got at the age of 14 what type of harmonica was that? That was a

SPEAKER_03:

diatonic in C and it was a Horner blues harp the MS version To

SPEAKER_00:

make it clear to everyone, you play various types of harmonica, with the diatonic and chromatic harmonica being kind of equally spaced, so... you started off as a diatonic player yes you then so how did you how did your progression go on the harmonica did you start picking up the chromatic when you start getting more into jazz what happened there

SPEAKER_03:

no i was actually i started on diatonic and then pretty early on i heard a concert with mark breitfelder a fantastic german harmonica player who played blues but with lots of modern techniques meaning he used overblows and overdraws and stuff and i heard him when i had played harmonica for like one year so i was like oh i bought all cds and Then I sat at home and learned how to overblow and overdraw. And then I could get all the chromatic notes. And then I also found Howard Levy's recordings and I got totally... Totally fanatic about his playing. And I really loved it and still love it. So I was really into playing jazz on the diatonic at first. To overblow, what do you say? Overbend all the notes that aren't there. I did that for, I think it was maybe four years or something. Because I bought my first chromatic when I was at the World Harmonica Festival in Trossingen in Germany. Which was 2005. Then I bought my first chromatic. So that came when I was like, yeah, started on the chromatic at 18 maybe or something.

SPEAKER_00:

What made you decide that the harmonica is your main instrument? Having played several instruments, like you said, cello, guitar, you know, you play some piano, you play accordion still now. So yeah, what made you settle on the harmonica as your main instrument? It's

SPEAKER_03:

the

SPEAKER_00:

sound

SPEAKER_03:

of the harmonica that it just touches me so much. I love the sound and the feel that you're so close to the notes. This is interesting to say, because I don't know if I would have chosen harmonica if I wouldn't have heard Howard Lee when I was that young because when I heard him I kind of realized wow all of this is possible this is amazing and that made me stick to the harmonica because I was playing lots of guitar as well and what should I choose what instrument is the coolest and then I also when I found Toots Thielemann harmonica is the thing that was also when I was in that age 18 19 I played lots of accordion as well and actually when I finished high school I was planning to become an accordion teacher and I applied one year to study accordion. And I did that for six months. But then I went to the World Harmonica Festival in Germany and competed. They have this kind of thing every fourth year where there is a big competition. And then I won in diatonic jazz and blues, two golds. And then I felt, ah, I am a harmonica player. I have to try to educate myself on harmonica to make it my first instrument to see if it's possible. So I decided on that. And then I applied for the, as I told you earlier on the the Royal College of Music. So it took a few years actually, starting on harmonica at 14. And then I decided really when I was 19 that this is my main instrument. This is what I should play.

SPEAKER_00:

So the victory in the World Harmonica Championship in Trossingen was the real stepping stone, as you say. That was in 2005. So you were about 18, 19 years old then you decided to make the harmonica your thing. Yes. Yeah. So how was that? As you say, you were quite young then. You went along and you won the jazz and blues category, separate categories, yeah? Yeah, so you were quite young to do that. So yeah, how did that go?

SPEAKER_03:

It went well. I didn't think so much about it. I was, because I had visited Trossingen two years earlier with my Swedish harmonica friend, Dick Kruberg. He's in his seventies now. He was actually one of my first harmonica teachers and also a great customizer. But me and Dick Kruberg, we were in Trossingen, I think that was 2003. And then we went, it was this masterclass week. I studied and met the whole gang. It was like Joe Felisco, Brandon Power, Steve Baker, Carlos Del Jonco, so many great players there. And then I I remember Steve Baker told me, oh, you should come back to the World Harmonica Festival in two years. And then I really had like a goal to practice for. Then I practiced for that and then I went down again and then I won. It felt amazing. But I also felt like competing in music is like it is. But that day I was the best who entered those categories in the competition. And I have not been competing since. I stopped competing when I was on the top. Then I realized you can make those goals for yourself. They don't have to be in our competition. But it was good to do that thing that young, I think, because I really decided, yeah, this is my thing.

SPEAKER_00:

And that helped me. So you did your course, you started your jazz course five years from the age of 18. I mean, from there now you play, we're talking about your albums shortly. You play a whole range of genres. You play jazz, you play blues, you play folk and world music, pop and classical as well. So a whole range of genres that really shows through in your music. Did that develop after you finished your course? Were you working that through there as well?

SPEAKER_03:

Most of the things happened when I was in the College of Music because I met so many fans. fantastic musicians and music lovers. And I met people from the Folk Music Academy. And that's how I kind of started playing folk music. I had lessons with a classical flute teacher. He played classical flute and I played chromatic harmonica. And then I got into classical. And then also Stockholm has always been very, I mean, it's a pop music city. I mean, if you know ABBA, there has always been lots of pop music produced in Stockholm, Sweden. So there are studios everywhere. So I have always been doing studio sessions. I started with that when I was in the school as well. So the school was really like gigantic network that I created. And I'm so happy that I was able to do that.

SPEAKER_00:

We'll get on a little bit then to your recording. So it looks like the first time you really started getting out playing was with this Stockholm Lisboa project. Is that right? Yes. Yeah. So this is a Swedish Portuguese music kind of a collective where you're playing music from Sweden and Portugal. Yeah. So how did that come about? It definitely produces some really interesting stuff. Bye.

UNKNOWN:

Bye.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, the Mandola player, Simon Stolzbeth, he saw me in an ad for hearing harmonicas. I was playing hearing harmonicas back then. And then he just called me. Oh, I also played a harmonica. Can you show me? And then we met. Yeah, he had that band already. And then after two weeks, I was in that band. And it was a fantastic band. I'm not in it right now. But it was Nordic Mandola, which is a string instrument. I played harmonica. And then there is a Portuguese violin player and Portuguese fadista, which is vocal style from Portugal. So it's a mixture of Swedish folk music and Portuguese vocal music, you could say. Or Fadoist folk music as well. We blended our musical traditions together and we had so much fun during those years.

SPEAKER_00:

I think, is it your first album you were on, which is the Diagonal CD, which was released in 2009. This won a German Record Critics Award. It's a great album. I've been listening to it thinking this is great, you know, and it's such a beautiful setting for the harmonica and it's different you know and it's almost got a medieval sound to it some of this music as well with that that female singer has kind of got that vibe was that your first album released album

SPEAKER_03:

yeah my first full-length album the one where i was a part of the whole cd process yes

SPEAKER_00:

and on this one already you've got some bass harmonica being

SPEAKER_03:

used and also playing harmonica in this i mean the harmonica has a place in in swedish folk music but it's it's not that common in portugal there are some tremolo and octave harmonica players in portugal but there is not so many and they play folk music but in this fado style they had never had harmonica before so i kind of had to find a way of how to play and i kind of tried to mix the the chromatic style that i had with the kind of more folky and bluesy diatonic sound and then the bass harp just came as a blessing that i oh i have a bass harp as well and why shouldn't i this is the perfect band for it yeah i was really kind of sore at after the first tours with that band in the mouth it took really on the on the armature to play play all that stuff but yeah we had amazing time we toured a lot in Europe and we were also in in Asia and Canada and stuff and toured so yeah it's and it's it's out now so people can listen to it I'm really happy for that

SPEAKER_00:

yeah no it's a great music and a great start for you so you know you won the you won the harmonica championships when you were young and then your first sort of main full-length album you won an award for and we're touring so yeah you got off to a great start and uh i believe just before that as well you met two steelmans yeah

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I met him at gigs in Sweden. He was playing in Sweden around that time. He has always been in Sweden a lot since the 60s, and he speaks a bit of Swedish as well. And I knew the arranger that made the gigs. Oh, no, you have to meet Toots. And I was so nervous, but he took me backstage, and then I sat and played and talked with Toots for hours. And then he came two years later, and then I got backstage again, and then we talked and played. Yeah, it was really amazing to meet him and to talk with him and play with him. I realize that now when he's gone. It's like, wow. It's like playing the saxophone and meeting John Coltrane. It's on the same level. I mean, Tootsie's the one for jazz harmonica. There is no doubt.

SPEAKER_00:

Any words of wisdom did he give to you that you could share

SPEAKER_03:

yeah you have to cut your mustache so it doesn't get too long because it gets up in the harmonica but he also said things uh jazz theory things on on diminished scales and and altered scales kind of these things and then he also but he also said a very good thing that he tries to solo in a way that he writes a poem on a very small piece of paper and that is very beautiful words i think you shouldn't you yeah don't play too much and try to say much with with less that's things i always think about and

SPEAKER_00:

and did you also form your um your quartet at this stage uh which you later you later went on to record an album but yeah were you so you touring with your own quartet from what sort of 2008 time as well

SPEAKER_03:

yeah around that time i think it was 2008 when we first jammed together in the jazz halls and it started as a project kind of school project but then it really became a band because we had so much fun they are all amazing musicians from their generation in that band guitar bass and drums and harmonica

SPEAKER_00:

and then in 2011 you did your debut solo album Spyro yes which has got lots of great harp on a go for a couple of the songs but is it right that you recorded all the instruments on

SPEAKER_03:

the album yes I did I had that music in my head and I just had to get it out I heard all those songs and all the things and I okay now I have to do it so I played all all kinds of harmonicas on it and then also guitar and jaw harp and an accordion and recorded all the music and mixed the whole cd it was that kind of gigantic project that many people do after their 40s but i did it when i was 25 so

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, it's fantastic. Quite often, you know, when you hear that somebody's recorded a home album, and I do some recording at home, yeah, and, you know, I keep thinking to myself, I should get some proper songs, you know, put together kind of like an album like you have. But it's a big task, yeah? I mean, I have a full-time job, so it's a bit time-wise. So how long did it take you to do it? It took two years,

SPEAKER_03:

I think, from the first idea until I had it. But I actually recorded it. It was released in May 2011, and I recorded everything in January 2011. in my student room in Stockholm but you know to write the songs to practice the instruments and to really yeah to really make good music that took lots of preparation but I'm so happy I did it and I'm it's 10 years now so somewhere I might do a step two let's see

SPEAKER_00:

it'd be great you know again you know when you listen to a kind of home produced album you sort of think oh you know the quality might not be quite up there with you know maybe when there's a studio and other musicians but it's great you know it sounds really great all of it and the Of course, there's lots of harmonica on there and lots of different harmonicas on there. So as a harmonica fan, it's a real pleasure to listen to. It's quite experimental in places as well. Some of the songs, you get some effects on the harmonica and stuff. It's kind of experimental sounds on some of them, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I mean, it's sounds that were in my head and I had to get them out. And to be honest, I have not heard many of them before. I mean, not on any other harmonica CD. And I felt there is like some songs that is really free improvisation and very strange double stops and all these things but it's kind of I mean if you put it in a genre maybe jazz 1960s free jazz or Ned Coleman style I was listening to that at that time I mean and I tried to play like him almost that music was inside me and it had to come out

SPEAKER_00:

and the song the basement for example that's that's quite a composition and oh yeah I think you're playing bass harp you're playing diatonic and chromatic and I think you're playing a jaw harp

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

yeah that's a very strange yeah i i kind of imagine you know like the x files and then that that molder is going down in the bass and it's like what is this sound and or some kind of tom wait song that is super creepy and really yeah something different than a beautiful jazz ballad

SPEAKER_00:

kind of yeah and then there's the there's the blues tooth 2002 which is with an accordion yeah and it's got a kind of almost like kind of folky is it kind of swedish folk kind of blues and again it's got this great kind of feel about it so

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_03:

and that's the, I mean, playing accordion where the reed is very stable. And then I play a diatonic where you can go around with the pitch of the reed a lot. So those worlds meet on that song.

SPEAKER_00:

And of course, Toose did an album with an accordion player, didn't he, with a chromatic, where the sound's quite similar between the chromatic and the accordion, isn't it? But you were playing diatonic on that one,

SPEAKER_03:

yeah? Yeah, exactly. But there are a song also with accordion, and chromatic

SPEAKER_00:

yeah so yeah really interesting i'll put some clips on people to hear and then there'll be uh people can find it on spotify of course on the playlist for the podcast so and then the the next one on the on the list is uh is it the akamed album yeah it means join us it's dubbed as a folk jazz trio that's a really good album i really enjoyed that one so

SPEAKER_03:

For me, I'm also very proud of it. It was actually recorded almost directly after I released Spyro. That band had our rehearsal room in a cellar, and we recorded the whole CD there on a few summer nights ourselves. And then the bass player and me mixed that whole CD. It's really kind of a mixture of folk songs from the UK, some of them, and some from Sweden, and then some original ones. Then we just improvise on it. We kind of treat the traditional songs as jazz songs. We kind of use the form and the melody, but then we improvise on the form and the melody. And then we add chords and kind of make it our own versions. Yeah, we played a lot with that band for like two, three years. And then it kind of, every band has its time. That band is on hold right now. We are good friends, but yeah, you don't have time for everything. And I also, I switch a lot between chromatic and diatonic on that one, almost every song.

SPEAKER_00:

Nice mixture of songs there. You've got the Ackermann, and then you've got Crowley's Reel, which is an Irish song. That one I learned from Brendan Power's Irish book.

UNKNOWN:

.

SPEAKER_00:

And then he did another album with the Stockholm Lisboa Project. Yes. Before then recording the first album with the Philip Jers Quartet. So this is more of a straight up sort of jazz album.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

That album was my original songs, my jazz songs. And we also recorded two standards, Sophisticated Lady and It's Only a Paper Moon, but then only my own song. I love that CD as well. I mean, it's, yeah, it's a time in life that is documented in music. I think the ensemble is playing really good on that. It's great jazz playing among the musicians.

SPEAKER_00:

I think, you know, looking through, you've got a lot of output, a lot of albums out there with different bands, as we've already talked about now. And you talked about sort of documenting a time that you say these bands don't always last very long do they maybe just a few years but you capture you know that time and that music don't you so it's great to get those down i mean is that something you've been really committed to to think yeah let's get an album done

SPEAKER_03:

both yes and no we didn't think that we should record now because we might quit in a few years but we back in those days you had to kind of record an album to get gigs to to get booked to kind of become a band that's strange because now 2021 it's like it's better to have a good YouTube clip than to have a full length album at least in my situation and that's kind of strange and it's not always like that but I'm working to live with that but yeah I'm so happy that we did those full length CDs and I mean that format will never disappear the full length CD like 40 to 50 minutes of music because that's the old form of the sonata that the composer like I think Haydn was the one that said this is If you write music for 40 to 50 minutes, we call it a sonata. And then everyone did that, Mozart, Beethoven, etc. And that's the same length of a CD. And that has stayed with musicians for a long, long time. It's kind of interesting if you think on it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's interesting as you say that, you know, social media, YouTube clips, short clips, Spotify, you know, that sort of thing, streaming music, Amazon music, Apple music, etc. That's sort of overtaken it, isn't it? So is it kind of, it's a lot of effort to record an album. Yeah, you know, you need to... you need to commit a lot of time and effort to it. So it's going to kind of be replaced, but you think the album is going to live on. I think it's needed still, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it is. I mean, it will live on. But if you want to sell it and go plus minus zero or on a plus, then you have to tour a lot and sell the CDs at gigs. You sell CDs on gigs, but you don't sell them so much. I don't sell CDs online anymore because people consume from streaming services. And I do that myself.

SPEAKER_00:

But it is a problem, isn't it? Because as people stream more, then you're not going to sell CDs yet. And at the end of the day, are you even people even going to have CD players to play CDs on in a few years time? So because Everything will be straight.

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly. I mean, now the cars don't even have CD players anymore. The thing is, if you make a CD, then you kind of commit yourself to get together with a bunch of people or with yourself and really make a project. And that is a good artistic goal to always have. Yeah, as I said, your time in life or the songs you play or in the style you play or in the style you want to play, that that can kind of become a goal. But now for us, it's a CD or it's a recording. So that will not disappear.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so moving on, Sean, your range again. So you did New Scandinavian Harmonica Volume 1 in 2014, where you're playing with a Finnish harmonica player. Yeah, his

SPEAKER_03:

Joko Kyyhelle.

SPEAKER_00:

This is just two harmonicas on the album, yeah? No other instruments?

SPEAKER_03:

No other instruments, just many different harmonicas. We only play traditional Scandinavian folk music on that album. And as I said, the harmonica has a tradition in Swedish folk music and in Finnish folk music as well. And we met First, we got a grant to kind of explore our traditions from the Swedish state and the Finnish state. And then it was so fun. So a year later, we recorded it as a CD.

UNKNOWN:

So

SPEAKER_03:

And we have been playing pretty many school concerts and showing the harmonicas to kids and stuff, me and Joko. And we also played around folk music festivals in Scandinavia. And I mean, that CD is interesting for me because I really play mainly melodies on that album. I mean, I improvise as well and make a solo, but mainly working on other textures and ways of playing. It's a big contrast, that one, to the song Basement from my Spyro CD. And that Joko is such an amazing player because he plays so strong and so traditional in a very good way. I really like his playing. Me and Joko, we don't have the same touch, but I think that's good.

SPEAKER_00:

And it's interesting here you accompany each other. It's all the way through the album, isn't it? And you've got the kind of chord stuff going on on one harmonica while one of you plays over it. It works quite well. So I guess you did that partly with different sorts of harmonicas as well on there.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and we had some retuned harmonicas with Blu-Tack on whole free draw. So I could get a fifth if I inhale one and three on the diatonics. Yeah, that album, I'm also very proud of it. It's an interesting one.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, definitely interesting. And then another interesting one the year after, a great output, you're really putting out these albums, is your next quartet album, which is the second album. It's called Philip Joe's Quartet Plays Swedish Folk. So I'm going to ask you about this Swedish folk, Philip, because this is not the sort of folk music I'm used to listening to. It's almost got that kind of 70s Butterfield kind of long track sort of feeling about it. So yeah, what about that one?

SPEAKER_03:

It is only traditional Swedish folk music on that CD. The two tunes are like from 70 years old to 200 years old and they are mostly played on a fiddle or free fiddles or something or they are sang but we make our own jazz versions of the songs and often you can take the titles from that album and just search that title on Spotify and you might find the traditional folk music recording and you will find something very different but we took those melodies and then we added chords and different modes and different styles to every song and made our music of it and we are all it's my jazz quartet yeah same generation and happy jazz players so we just improvised and played what we felt and heard

SPEAKER_00:

After listening to the first album from your quartet, which is, as we said, a kind of straight ahead, you know, playing jazz standards. And then I listened to this one, I'm thinking, Swedish folk, but yeah, it's that kind of free jazz sort of feeling about it, isn't it? Yeah, really interesting. And again, really pushing the boundaries there.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and it's lots of waltzes as well. In jazz, you don't often play in 3-4, but on this CD, we play many kind of different time meters as well. Almost 3-4 is the standard. And then we stretch that to different versions of 3-4.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Did you upset the Swedish folk fraternity by doing that to their traditional Swedish music?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, maybe some people, but many of them were very, very happy. And we got the Swedish Grammy in the folk music category for that album.

SPEAKER_00:

Ah, excellent.

SPEAKER_03:

And also we got lots of gigs in the folk music community in Sweden, at big festivals in Sweden, because folk music is strong in Sweden. We have a very living tradition, lots of players, lots of courses, lots of festivals, lots of clubs. So we got into a new kind of concept as jazz musicians.

SPEAKER_00:

And then your next album out in 2017, Live at the Victoria. I think this is a live blues gig, basically, with a great singer on there. Yeah, Svante Show.

SPEAKER_03:

And we have been playing blues together since 2004, since I was 17. Every summer I had a gig, second weekend of July, where we played at Sweden's biggest blues festival. We never met during the year, but then like 8th of July, we went to that festival and played a bunch of gigs and then went home. 2017, we had done that for like 13 years. We have to make a CD now. So then we recorded Two Nights in Malmö. And yeah, that CD came out.

UNKNOWN:

Oh! Oh!

SPEAKER_03:

That's also a nice journey, not to close a chapter, but to make a point that we have done this music together. And I mean, those songs, I love all those blues songs. I only play them with him once

SPEAKER_00:

a year. So as a blues diatonic player, did you listen to lots of blues, the classic blues harmonica stuff when you were younger?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I did. That's one of the reasons I started, that I heard that sound. First, I think I heard it like on Beatles. And then my father said, oh, but if you like harmonica, you should listen to Rolling Stones because they have more harmonica. And then I listened to Stones. And then he said, yeah, but you should not listen only to Stones. You should listen to the Roots. And then he gave me CDs with Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf and Little Walter and stuff. And my father, he could play some of those things on harmonica. So all of the old blues guys, they are with me somewhere in my sound, in my head all the time. I go back to them still and I think I have studied every one of them for a little while and then then moved on but now I'm revisiting so many of them because people share clips with them on Facebook and it's like oh yeah this is this song and ah this is this and I mean the things they say with their harmonica is incredible they are so expressive in how they handle their instruments it's like wow

SPEAKER_00:

well that live album definitely you know ensuring that you've got your blues chops on the diatonic oh thanks yeah so you know it's great to here again showing your diversity and the fact that you're playing all these harmonicas well particularly the chromatic and diatonica really strongly great and then your most recent two albums more sort of well jazz so you did the duo album with the guitar player

SPEAKER_03:

Emil Ernebro the guitar player he's really a virtuoso in what in his playing he's he's so cool in his style that's interesting as I said earlier that it's good to have a good video clip we got together I was guesting on his CD and then we just yeah that was done and then we filmed a clip with his phone, put on Facebook, and then we got like 10 gigs. And it's like, okay, maybe we should play together. So we kind of built all of our stuff on social media. And then we felt like, ah, now we have to make an album. So we made an album of just standard songs that we love and play. I wanted to do a standards album for a long time. Yeah, I'm really proud of that one as well.

SPEAKER_00:

And you're playing Nature Boy on there. And the first chunk of the song is like a bass harmonica solo, isn't it? And it's quite a nice long couple of minutes almost. isn't it? A bass, which is great to hear so much bass.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

It's hard to find solo bass harmonica, so I took my spot there. Yeah, now we should have some bass harmonica. And that album I recorded as well and mixed, actually. in my studio.

SPEAKER_00:

And on here you do Someday My Prince Will Come which is another jazz standard which is made famous by Miles Davis so just bringing up this video that you have on YouTube and I'll put a clip on it on the podcast page where you're playing obviously not on this album but on the video you're playing the chromatic harmonica and the guitar and you videoed yourself doing both at the same time which looks fantastic and I definitely recommend people checking it out it's just it works amazingly well so yeah how do you put that together?

SPEAKER_03:

It was during the in the spring time of 2020 when I had lots of time at home felt like now I have practiced non-stop for two months I should learn something more and then maybe I should raise my video editing skills because I had seen those kind of films going around on internet where people clone themselves and play with themselves and I thought maybe I should do a song on guitar and harmonica and then I mean someday my prince will come is so fantastic and for me that was the first song I heard with Toots Tillemans actually so I always relate that song to him from his, it's an album from the 80s with Joe Pat. And I really, I know his solo there. I can sing it in my sleep from that version. So I decided now I will record Someday My Prince Will Come with myself on my couch. It took a few hours, but yeah, it was a good and funny take.

SPEAKER_00:

And your most recent CD is with the, is it Gotland Jazz Trio?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, exactly. And we recorded two years, yeah, summer 2018. Actually, it's a state-employed jazz trio on the island of Gotland in Sweden. Kenneth and music music music music

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

I really dig the sound on that CD because I'm using an old SM58 from the 60s into a very expensive preamp. But most of my other CDs I have recorded with other mics. This one was the first full-length CD. I just handheld SM58 like Toots did all of his life. I really dig the harmonica sound on that CD. But it's pretty hard to get those old SM58s. They are pretty rare to find.

SPEAKER_00:

And then you've also done, according with other players, you've worked as a kind of session musician. You're on this Louise Lynn album, which is where now she's a singer. So have you done lots of work like that where you've been guested as a player on?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Actually, so many. I have lost count. That one, we were in the studio together, but I often, I do sessions at home that I get files sent. I do the recording and we send back and forth. And I love that work. It's a great way to work these days that you can do it. But of course, it's also great to meet everyone in the studio and do the music together.

SPEAKER_00:

Great. So yeah, a very varied catalogue of recordings there. Loads of great stuff as well. I recommend people check out your playing. Yeah, definitely. So another thing that you've done is quite a lot of teaching You taught at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm. You did that for a while. That's the one you mentioned earlier on, is it? And also in Malmö at the Music Conservatory in Copenhagen.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, exactly. When I took my exam in 2011, it went like a wave among the music colleges in whole Scandinavia that now there is a harmonica player that has studied this. And then people, how can I have harmonica at the school? And then some people picked up harmonica as a second instrument. And I I got students from different schools. And I also had one student for three years in Stockholm that went to the folk music education, Erland Westerström. He plays fantastic folk music. Yeah, I've been teaching a lot on that level. And I don't do so much teaching privately anymore. I did that before, but I have done lots of harmonica workshops on festivals around the world, harmonica festivals. I have also been teaching a bit of online classes. I think that works great. as long as I get a nice audio recording before the lesson, because then I can really hear the harmonica player's kind of tone and sound. Yeah, streaming doesn't give the right sound. At the moment, I'm also working on building an online teaching platform, because I realize that's a beautiful way to learn and to share knowledge with people that want to play the harmonica. I have worked a lot with recording videos online, Actually, today, when we speak, I opened up a page at Patreon, which is a membership site where you can subscribe monthly and then to my account. And I have videos there already, and more is coming every week. And that's a really cool way of learning. And I have been studying that way with Howard Levy for a few years. Because nowadays, to think about, you can learn from so many sources. I mean, you can learn, I mean, online, and you can learn so much on YouTube. I mean, watching YouTube for three and a half minutes on Wednesday night can change your life and that's a very beautiful thing but I also I felt for like really doing some kind of project on it so I'm building my own harmonica hub and at the moment the level is intermediate and advanced there are so many good online harmonica schools that focus on beginners and blues and how to pick up the harmonica from the beginning so my classes are more I mean that you know how to get a single note and can play some songs and so on just want to develop and it's growing now so it's kind of evolved and if people say can you do a video on this maybe I do it because I really like teaching as well the address is patreon.com slash philipjersharmonica

SPEAKER_00:

so are you teaching diatonic and chromatic on here

SPEAKER_03:

yes both chromatic and diatonic and also you get sheet music and tablature with the things I teach

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and also if you're a student who signs up, you invest in it more, don't you? Because you're paying a little bit of money. It's usually not a lot of money, you know, and then it's like, yeah, you're more motivated then to practice. Yeah, yeah. We touched on a few of the awards that you've won. You won the World Championship at Trossingen twice in 2005. You got a long list of awards on your own website. You won a Young Jazz Prize in 2003, the Danish Harmonica Championship, a Junior Blues, and then going on through the years, you got the 2014 Jazz Quartet Best Group. So yeah, lots of awards. through the years, so great to see. Any particular special ones from there?

SPEAKER_03:

They all mean a lot to me. The one that really changed my life was the gold medals at the World Harmonica Festival when I was 18. I mean, I'm just very, very thankful that I received those awards.

SPEAKER_00:

And you've done lots of touring, played all around Europe, of course, but you've also been to the USA. I think you appeared at Spa in Dallas in 2012. I've

SPEAKER_03:

been, yeah, at Spa a few times, I think four or five times, and I had a great time. And then I would like to go every year, but yeah. Every second or third year, I tried to go there to meet the people and get the vitamins of the harmonica.

SPEAKER_00:

And then you played in Japan, Canada, but even in West Africa. How was it? What happened in West Africa?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, West Africa was fantastic. Me and a friend got invited to one of the biggest jazz festivals in West Africa in Burkina Faso, in Ouagadougou. We got the gig because I knew one arranger that had did it before and blah, blah, blah. So we went down and we played and it was fantastic and it was extremely warm.

SPEAKER_00:

And you've played for the Swedish king?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, many times. One time he asked, do you have it? I said, what? Your harmonica. Oh yeah. And then I took out, so he held my Suzuki Sirius 16 hole and he said, oh, this is, it's heavy. I said, yeah, it's heavy. I mean, I couldn't take a picture, but it would have been a really good picture to have the king holding my harmonica. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But you hang out the king regularly, do you? No,

SPEAKER_03:

I haven't. No, but I play many kind of ceremonial gigs in Stockholm at events and and ceremonial stuff. And then the king is pretty often there to make a speech or shake some hands and stuff. And I don't know him, but we have talked four or five times.

SPEAKER_00:

You've been featured in a documentary called Harmonica Man in Sweden as well.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that was beautiful. It was independent filmmaker Mikael that made that movie. And then he got it sold to the Swedish TV. And that really opened up lots of doors to have like 30 minutes on primetime TV just about yourself. He followed me for a year, Mikael Ek, the videomaker.

SPEAKER_00:

It's in Swedish, I take it, is it?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's in Swedish.

SPEAKER_00:

Good to have that. It's funny, Errol Linton on the last one, he had a documentary made about him. That really helped him sort of launch his career. So yeah, interesting. Yeah, it launched me as well. TV is still TV. So a question I ask each time, we touched on teaching, but if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

SPEAKER_03:

I take a harmonica and then I take a note and I really try to find the note. Inhale, exhale, really kind of which note do I resonate with today? Really try to find a nice resonance and a nice tone. And it can be a bent note or a normal note. I do that for a few minutes, just play very slowly, very meditative. And then I often either play some blues lick or like a train stuff, or on chromatic, I would play some jazz lines, just free improvisation, playing the notes that comes. Often they say the hardest thing to play every day is the first thing that you're trying to play. I'm working on that. It's nice just to take a harmonica and start playing something. But to answer your question fast, I would improvise something for 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and obviously working on your tone is important.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, always work on tone. I mean, long tones in every register and really work on that. And the cool thing, because with harmonica we inhale and exhale the music so we become the tone almost. I mean, we are the reason the tone is there. So I think one should really value that and work with that.

SPEAKER_00:

Playing the different instruments then, what do you do to pick up on techniques from other instruments that you bring to the harmonica, say, and vice versa?

SPEAKER_03:

I think many of the other instruments if it's first non harmonica that i have played i have tried to incorporate them into harmonica that like okay now i'm playing fast super cold pentatonic guitar lick or now i'm playing a very mellow soft nice clarino note from the clarinet in this register or i'm trying to bark and sound fat and big like a tuba i often think kind of in terms of gesture on other instruments when i play imagine kind of a sound in my head and also that i have tried to play many other instruments I think that might help that I kind of know how much air is required to get a note out of a tuba then you can talk about pressure compared to playing just a low F or play the tuba it's a bit different but also playing in between diatonic and chromatic I am one of those people that say you should do it and it will only help you in the long run you will become a better player on both instruments because the diatonic if you're a good diatonic player and pick up the chromatic you often have lots of stamina and good muscles strong tone kind of you're a strong player and then you will have a unique and cool sound on the chromatic because many chromatic players mostly play single notes that's beautiful and great but there are many other things that the harmonica can do which you will mostly experience if you play diatonic and vice versa if you are a chromatic player that think maybe I should pick up the diatonic You should do it because you're already very good at single notes and you often know how to phrase and play scales and stuff. So many doors are already open. I feel like also that the harmonica muscles get a nice workout every time I switch between instruments because it's a little bit different muscles on the different instrument. But most of all, it's the touch on the instrument, the way you like put the harmonica in the mouth, how you approach the pressure with the lips, how you have your tongue or your breath control. Everything is really has to to to work you both have to practice all of that and be super aware and you also have to practice it and and don't be aware at all and just play or just okay now i really have to try to play the f note on a c harp in hole two try to get that as as clean and strong as as it can be in a chromatic those are things i i practice a lot and also i i practice mostly chromatic harmonica when i was in the college of music in stockholm for like five years my main in practice was on chromatic but before that I have had like seven years on really diatonic for many years and both blues but also overblow Howard Levy style and then when I took my degree I played both a lot and then in some bands I play more chromatic than diatonic and some bands more diatonic than chromatic but I always try to have both harmonicas in every band and for me it's nothing more strange than if you would play saxophone you would also maybe play a Or if you play guitar, you might play some bass and some mandolin. I don't think you should make so big of a difference on the instrument. You shouldn't make borders too much. You should just think that they are harmonicas and let's try to find the music inside of them.

SPEAKER_00:

It's interesting. I play a lot of chromatic. I played diatonic for a long time and a bit of chromatic, but now I practice chromatic more than diatonic. But I find that when I'm performing, I still play the diatonic more, partly because it's a stronger sound. It comes across louder and more powerful when you're performing live than the chromatic. So that tends to sort of make me turn to the diatonic more when I'm playing live. So I'm often intrigued by that thinking, yeah, I always play lots more diatonic, even though I practice the chromatic more now.

SPEAKER_03:

But I also think practicing lots of chromatic can make you a better diatonic and practicing lots of diatonic can make you a better chromatic player people shouldn't think that oh if I take the other kind of harmonica I will become a worse player on my primary that's the wrong way of thinking for me and I should be honest I don't practice so much bass harp I do when I have recordings and when I played with Stockholm Lisboa project I played it live a lot so then I played it but when I practice it I mostly practice only with a metronome and a bass harmonica and me and I really try to work on when does the note come When does it come? When does it really come? And that is so hard on the bass harp because the reeds are so heavy. On the chromatic or diatonic, you can control that a lot better. I think many harmonica players should practice really on a when does the note pop out? Does it come when I think of it? Does it come when it starts in the stomach, in the diaphragm, from the throat, from the articulation? And to practice that in a good way is to have a metronome and to play things like that, that, that, that, that, that you play that note with that value and then you have the metronome or like of my if my snap is the metronome you play like and try to just play those eight notes as good as you can and that's really hard on the harmonica these things i do a lot minimalistic timing practice so

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, we're moving to the last section now to talk about gear. So I know you're a Suzuki Endorsi, so obviously you're playing Suzuki harmonicas exclusively now, yeah? Yes, I am. Is the chromatic the Sirius?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, the Sirius and the G48s, and also the Fabulous. I have all of them. And also the SEX, I like. They all have sound and feel a bit different for different songs and moods. I need all of them.

SPEAKER_00:

And are you playing 12-hole chromatics and 16-hole chromatics?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes. 12 and 16 I have some 14 but I don't use it that much when I play folk music I play lots of chromatics in other keys meaning D E A G chromatics

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and how do you find switching between the 12 and 16 hole chromatic? That's no

SPEAKER_03:

real problem actually, but I think they have kind of a different sound. The 16 is more mellow, more airy, more kind of, while the 12 hole is a bit more punchy. If I'm playing like cutting edge jazz, high tempo, then I take a 12 hole. But if I'm playing a nice warm ballad, I take a 16 because the tone is bigger.

SPEAKER_00:

And obviously you're playing Suzuki Diatonics as well.

SPEAKER_03:

There I use the Manji line. And the cool thing with suzuki's diatonic is you can like put every part on every harmonica so i yeah i have many hybrids but the manji reed plates and i customize them myself i have done that all of my life thanks to this guy dick he taught me how to customize do you play any different tunings and no not yet i have thought about it but no i think if i play different keyed chromatic that opens up so many doors and that that took a while for me to be open to do but when i really wanted to start to play full I realize I need to do this because to get the right trills and ornaments, to play F sharp G on a C chromatic, it's so much work and heavy and will sound so strange compared to if you just take a G chromatic. Then that drill is just there and the music is there. So if I took a different keyed chromatic, I could learn 20 songs in the right way. But if I only played a C, I had to work with one songs for 20 hours. For jazz, I play C chromatics.

SPEAKER_00:

And what about embouchure?

SPEAKER_03:

I use both pucker and tongue block, but I started as a pucker and then tongue blocked when I played the blues riffs. And I took some lessons from Robert Bonfiglio a few years ago. And then I got into tongue blocking and corner switching more because I was playing more classical stuff on the chromatic. I had some gigs with a string orchestra and I really needed that nice legato. We're jumping big intervals and it just, it just sings kind of. I needed to learn how to tongue block corner switch. Now I use both. I I improvise mostly with Pucker.

SPEAKER_00:

And amplifier-wise, what amps do you like?

SPEAKER_03:

I usually play through the House PA system, yeah. But I have AER, acoustic amplifier, that I bring for smaller things. And I also have a Bose amp. It's kind of an active speaker that does a great job.

SPEAKER_00:

And if you're going for a blues tone, then are you using any tube amps or using pedals for that or anything?

SPEAKER_03:

No, no pedals. If I want a blues sound, then I just plug into a guitar amplifier, put the bass on maximum, treble on zero, and then... Yeah, SM57. And that works. And I put the tape on the grill so it doesn't rattle. And then it's stable. And then you can... It's good for blues for me. And for live gigs, I'm a Shure SM58 guy, either on a stand or in the hand. And I have used the same mic for... Yeah, it's almost since I started playing harmonica. So 20 years on Shure SM58.

SPEAKER_00:

Is that the old one that you mentioned earlier? No,

SPEAKER_03:

I have a new one.

SPEAKER_00:

A beta or not the non-beta?

SPEAKER_03:

I have both. Right now, I'm speaking into a beta, actually. Often, if the PA is old, then I take a beta 58. But if it's a new PA, I take an SM 58, because that one is a lot softer. So if the house sound is crispy, I take a softer mic, and then vice versa.

SPEAKER_00:

And you talked a lot about recording and you got quite a good studio at home. What sort of microphones and setup do you have in your home studio there?

SPEAKER_03:

For studio recordings, I've been using the Sennheiser 441 for many years.

SPEAKER_00:

Is that

SPEAKER_03:

the one that Howard

SPEAKER_00:

Levy plays?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's the same. And then I also have the 421, which is another version. And I also like a ribbon microphone. I have a really good one, the Röde NTR, which is an active ribbon. Very good. On the Emil Anderby album, all the harmonica goes through that ribbon. And then on the jazz quartet, albums I have been using, I have been in a studio and they had, he had like a U47 copy, you know, this kind of, you cannot buy those microphones for money, but that one worked good. But most of the other albums, Stockholm Lisp, Promise Motor, My Soul, Spiro, all of these are through my Sennheiser 441.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I have to check that out. I remember when I talked to Howard, yeah, I was looking at that microphone. He performs through it as well, doesn't he? Yeah, maybe. So last question then, Philip, fantastic talking to you and all the great things you've done. So, future plans coming up hopefully this year we're going to get out playing again soon how are things in sweden and looking for you generally on the on the gigging and touring front

SPEAKER_03:

yeah all my gigs are are cancelled now until april i hope i can play a bit in the summer and me and emilian my guitar player we have many gigs that are on hold and my jazz quartet has that as well and i also have been doing lots of school concerts playing for kids here in sweden we have a really nice system so i play and talk about the harmonicas here history, and I have a guitarist and a drummer with me. We have a school show that we tour with.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks very much for joining me today, Philip. It's been a real pleasure. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for inviting me. That's episode 32 in the can. Thanks so much, everybody. Just over now to Philip Jers to play us out with some Swedish folk.

UNKNOWN:

...... Yeah.