Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Jason Rosenblatt interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 47

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Jason Rosenblatt joins me on episode 47.

A native of Canada but now resident in Israel, Jason is best known for his band Shtreiml, playing a mixture of Klezmer (Jewish) and Eastern European music with great use of the harmonica. 

His first instrument was piano before he went on to pick up the harmonica after hearing Sonny Terry and Paul Butterfield. He then took advantage of the vibrant Montreal blues scene to witness harmonica live.

After hearing Howard Levy’s seminal ‘New Directions in Harmonica’ tutorial video, Jason knew he also wanted to take his own playing down a new path. He proceeded to take lessons with Howard, helping him to expand his sound using the overblow technique.

In 2015 Jason released his album Wiseman’s Rag, a slightly twisted take on the blues and jazz music that first got him started.


Links:

Jason's website:
https://jasonrosenblatt.com/home

Shtreiml band:
http://www.shtreiml.com/shtreiml.php

Jerusalem Harmonica Festival:
https://www.facebook.com/harmony.culturalcenter/photos/a.259961650825736/2058544157634134/

Joe Spiers custom harmonicas:
https://spiersharmonicas.com


Videos:

Grand Theft Stutinki - Shtreiml CD Launch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG9PUugB-Zs&list=PLyA_Ggl9bnME8h4rLSjdK86aK4CVzWcUp

Harmonica Jazz - Paper Moon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LyUd3gSswU&list=PL0F121BC77E9267C7

Teaching: using overblows in blues context:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsfh4QF7XrY

Teaching: Salt Creek:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQmoDjp32qc


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:

Jason Rosenblatt joins me on episode 47. A native of Canada but now resident in Israel, Jason is best known for his band Streml, playing a mixture of klezmer, that's Jewish, and Eastern European music with great use of the harmonica. His first instrument was piano before he went on to pick up the harmonica after hearing Sonny Terry and Paul Butterfield. He then took advantage of the vibrant Montreal blues scene to witness harmonica live. After hearing Howard Levy's seminal New Directions in Harmonica tutorial video, Jason knew he also wanted to take his own playing down a new path. He proceeded to take lessons with Howard, helping him to expand his sound using the overblow technique. In 2015, Jason released his album Wiseman's Rag, a slightly twisted take on the blues and jazz music that first got him started. Hello Jason Rosenblatt and welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much. Thanks for joining us today, Jason. So I believe you're a native of Canada, but you're now living in Israel.

SPEAKER_03:

That's correct. I was born in Montreal, lived most of my life there, and I moved to Israel roughly 10 months ago.

SPEAKER_00:

I think you're Jewish and you play klezmer music, yeah?

SPEAKER_03:

That's true, yes. I am Jewish and I do play a lot of Jewish music, in addition to other forms of music. But I guess my professional career began playing Jewish music. It's probably the first style that I was associated with.

SPEAKER_00:

So So back onto your, you know, your raising in Canada and the music scene and what got you into playing the harmonica. I think you started playing the piano first.

SPEAKER_03:

I started playing piano, I think it was about eight or nine. And I had the pretty standard afterschool piano lessons with the teacher for, you know, roughly 10 years. We started with, I would say, you know, classical. And then my teacher is a very wise man. He realized I wasn't really progressing too far with classical music. So he gave me some pop music, a lot of Beatles, Rolling Stones, Dylan. So he saw the music that I was interested in playing and really allowed me to explore music other than classical music. The harmonica came about a little later. My parents were very much into American folk music, 50s, 60s, 70s. And my parents were, my dad's a doctor and my mom's a music teacher. And they were in bands and they had tons of guitars lying around the house and a lot of harmonicas lying around the house. And my dad would play Sonny Terry chugging on the harmonica. And I happened to find one lying around and I just picked up when I was about 15 or 16 years old. They encouraged me. They gave me a bunch of Sonny Terry and Brownie McKee records and Paul Butterfield records to play along with.

SPEAKER_00:

It's incredible the amount of people on here who say that Sonny Terry is sort of one of their first inspirations. And even Paul Butterfield's mentioned a lot as well. So are there any particular songs that you recall from Sonny Terry or Paul Butterfield or anyone else that really turned you on to the harmonica?

SPEAKER_03:

At least for Sonny Terry, it was like... It was a lot about licks and chugging patterns that I recall the most. With regards to Paul Butterfield, I would say his first album I would listen to over and over again. So songs like Born in Chicago and Blues with a Feeling and Shake Your Money Maker, I listen to over and over and over again. And I still go back to that music as a resource to A, to listen to, to enjoy, and B, to listen to as a kind of an inspiration for playing in a particular style. And in that Chicago blues style.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, so again, you started on piano and then you went into the harmonica a bit later. What sort of age were you when you started playing the harmonica?

SPEAKER_03:

I was about 16 years old when I picked up the harmonica, 15, 16. And I just, I didn't put it down, basically. I love the fact that it was portable. I love the fact that I could bend notes on it. I remember as a 15, 16 year old, I would go down to various clubs. I was underage. So, you know, here's an underage kid with braces going down to blues clubs in downtown Montreal, listening to local harmonica heroes like Jim Zeller, whom I'm sure many of your listeners don't know who he is, but he's a phenomenal blues harmonica That's

SPEAKER_02:

what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_03:

And I would just listen to them. And then, you know, minus 20 outside, I would go during the set breaks into the alley near a particular club called Le Beaux Esprits and just practice and try to copy what I heard during his set.

SPEAKER_00:

So there was quite a good blues scene in Montreal, was there?

SPEAKER_03:

Great blues scene. And it's an interesting scene because at least in those days, I would say in the early to mid 80s, those musicians that played on the blues scene, one guy, a guitar player by the name of Jimmy James and Jim Zeller and Carl Tremblay, harmonica players they didn't really tour much outside Quebec they would either play in Quebec or play in France you know they were francophone artists so they they were probably not very well known to anglophone artists rather our anglophone audiences in the states or the rest of Canada but they're quite well known from in Quebec and and then across the Atlantic in France.

SPEAKER_00:

This days then you were playing mostly blues harmonica and on piano were you sort of edging towards blues side as well or were you quite varied on piano?

SPEAKER_03:

In terms of piano My big piano heroes were like Professor Longhair and Dr. John. And I've spent the better part of 35 years still trying to emulate those guys. Professor Longhair, James Booker, Dr. John are like my three New Orleans piano heroes. and then of course all the great jazz pianists I love Bill Evans Red Garland those players like hard bop players

SPEAKER_00:

and you had lessons with Howard Levy yeah

SPEAKER_03:

I believe my first lesson with Howard was in 2000 2001 I discovered his music probably 95 I'm not sure if your audience is familiar with I believe it's called New Directions for Harmonica which is it was a VHS tape that Howard came out with it was issued I think produced by Homespun Homespun tapes or homespun records. It blew my mind. Early on, I would say when I first got it, I just kept on playing it just to listen to it and enjoy it. I never really tried to copy what he was doing. I understood that he was playing chromatically on the standard diatonic harmonica, but I guess I was in school and I didn't put enough effort into musical studies to really take full advantage of it. When I first got the record, around 2000, I started to actually really put effort into the harmonica and really try to be the instrument as a as a as an instrument capable of playing in all 12 keys and that's when i went back to that resource and then went back to the the the man himself to howard to uh to ask him for lessons uh how do i improve my technique on the standard 10 hole diatonica harmonica

SPEAKER_00:

yeah so yeah i've had howard on the podcast and we did talk about that uh video that he released back then so yeah i've seen it myself so did you have face-to-face lessons with howard

SPEAKER_03:

my first lesson actually was uh he was in montreal giving um a masterclass with a great guitarist by the name of Greg Amiro. And they did, I think they did a recording together. And while Howard was in town, they decided to do like a masterclass. So I took a private lesson with him. And then I decided to apply for a Canada Council grant to go study with him in Chicago. So I had another month with him in about, I would say, we're talking, I think, 2003, roughly. I had a month with him. And then subsequently over the years, I've met with him in 2008, 2012. and then fortunately or unfortunately I don't know how I had another opportunity to study with him in 2020 but of course it was online I wasn't able to travel to Chicago to go study with him face to face but nevertheless I managed to put in about 12 hours of lessons with him on Zoom.

SPEAKER_00:

Obviously we all know Howard is this huge brain of harmonica knowledge and you know doing things that we'd never dream of in the harmonica and obviously playing it chromatically and using overblows being a big part of how he's able to do that so you know what's he like as a teacher and how did you learn from him?

SPEAKER_03:

So just to give you an idea about how much knowledge he's transferring over to his students, I still go back to those lessons of 2004. There's still so much to learn from those early lessons that I took with him. I have probably about 15 to 20 hours recorded from 2004, another 15 to 20 hours of lessons recorded from 2008. I still go back to all those lessons because the lessons weren't just about how to play 12 tones on a diatonic harmonica we covered playing different keys covered vibrato we covered just elements that had nothing to do with the harmonica specifically but just musicianship playing in odd time signatures reharmonization of tunes it was almost 10 years of musical instruction a bachelor's a master's and a PhD course crammed into like 30 hours of lessons or 40 hours of lessons so I'm constantly going back to those lessons for inspiration and instruction if I ever feel like I'm I'm not progressing. I just go back to those

SPEAKER_01:

lessons.

SPEAKER_00:

so great so obviously howard also plays piano as you do so you know what comparisons do you make there obviously you know we're playing chromatically and playing over blows is you know between playing the piano and playing the harmonic and how those two fit together in the way that you both learn

SPEAKER_03:

so one of the things that howard mentioned early on was to visualize when you're playing harmonica you can't really see what's going on you don't really know what's going on see what's going on in your mouth per se and it doesn't really help to say okay i'm on hole two i'm blowing i'm on hole I'm inhaling, I'm bending. One thing that he taught me early on is just to try to visualize a piano keyboard. Instead of focusing on, I'm blowing here, I'm inhaling here, I'm bending here, I'm overblowing here. And that's really helped me. When I'm playing, I'm doing one of two things. I'm either visualizing a piano keyboard in my head or I'm visualizing notes on a staff. And I think that visualization has helped to free me up quite a lot on the harmonica. The other thing that I did early on, I started off as a blues player and I guess what people people call a field player. Logically, I knew that if you had a C harmonica and you blew out on hole number one on the C diatonica harmonica, you would come out with a C. And the same thing if you had a B flat diatonica harmonica, if you blew it on hole number one, you would have a B flat. But the rest of the harmonica more or less was a bit of a mystery. I just kind of used my ear and a bit of trial and error. And it wasn't until about, you know, my first few lessons with Howard that I realized, you know, if I was going to progress, I would have to sit down at the piano and plunk out on a note. and really try to map out the instrument, basically using the piano as a tool for pitch to make sure I was playing in tune and also to help me visualize where the notes are on the harmonica. So being able to play the piano has helped me immensely on playing the harmonica.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and you're a very good piano player. You've recorded much of your albums. You play the piano on it, don't you? And you do some albums where you play the piano and don't play harmonica as well. So you're a very good piano player.

SPEAKER_03:

I guess I could say that reasonable piano player. Reasonable in terms of I can get around. Okay,

SPEAKER_00:

so you consider the harmonica as your main instrument?

SPEAKER_03:

At different points in my life, I would say that one has taken precedence over the other. As a musician, I work in different scenarios. Sometimes I'm called upon, a lot of my work is playing weddings or playing conducting choirs. So when I'm conducting a choir, I play the piano and the choir could care less if I played harmonica. I basically just use them as a built-in audience you know I invite them to my shows but they want to be conducted and they want to hear me accompany them on piano and the same thing at weddings I love playing harmonica for ceremonies because it kind of takes the place of the violin but during the course of the evening let's say I'll only play it during background music but the rest of the evening I'm called upon to play you know electric piano sounds Hammond B3 sounds on keyboards so there's times when I'm playing more harmonica and times where I'm called upon to play more keyboards

SPEAKER_00:

yeah do you ever play the two at the same time

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, that was actually the focus of my last few lessons with Howard. You know, I'm really focusing on trying to split my brain apart to be able to play believable harmonica and believable piano at the same time.

SPEAKER_00:

You're just playing the piano one-handed there.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, so...

SPEAKER_01:

just

SPEAKER_03:

just rolling rolling chords

SPEAKER_00:

yeah no it sounds great i mean so i guess you're playing on the harmonic you what would you be playing in your right hand yeah

SPEAKER_03:

yeah sometimes i i shift them around and i play if i'm playing faster melody melody Then I'll play right hand and I'll hold the harmonica with my left.

SPEAKER_00:

Are you playing, do you think, what you would be playing literally on the piano on the harmonica when you are doing both together?

SPEAKER_03:

So when I'm playing with the left hand, like I was trying to play... So there I'm accompanying myself playing like, I'm just like kind of playing stride. But if I'm playing like a solo,

SPEAKER_01:

I'm

SPEAKER_03:

trying to basically play exactly what I'm playing in the right hand on the harmonica.

SPEAKER_00:

So you mentioned there about when you're practicing with the piano, it's something that you use to hit the right pitch on the overblow. So for people who play overblows or try to play overblows or listen to people playing overblows, I think there can be a problem with them that they don't always hit the right pitch spot on or they don't always sound great. So that's something you've really worked on with the piano to really nail the right tones, is it?

SPEAKER_03:

First of all, I know there's always these wonderful debates online about should we be playing overblows? Why do you play overblows? Why don't you just grab a chromatic? Why don't you play in a more traditional style without overblows? Overblow is just another way of getting a note. And if it's possible to get that note and make it sound pleasant, why not add it into your arsenal? You know, there's plenty of players that bend notes and don't hit the bends in tune. And even players have hit just a straight on blow or a straight on inhale and don't hit those notes in tune. So it starts, everything has to be relatively perfectly in tune as possible. So I do use the piano as a reference point. I do use a tuner every now and then just to make sure I'm playing as in tune as possible. I would say that a lot of my effort is concentrated really when I'm focusing on tuning issues. I was on third hole, draw bend, making sure I'm playing, let's say on a C harmonica, the A, rather the B flat, the A, the A flat, and then looking at the overblows, making sure the whole number six on a C harmonica, for instance, the B flat, whole number five, the G flats and the E flats on the whole number four, that they're in tune. And a lot of it is really making sure that the air support is coming from the right place, that it's not a pinched kind of really forced attack on the note, but really something that's gentle and light. I try to explain. I don't know if this is going to come up for your listeners. I'm playing super light. If I put a feather in front of my mouth, I don't think you can even see it move. And I'm sure there's, you know, people that like to criticize overblowers that could say, well, I heard the overblow. I would say nine people out of 10 can't tell where I was overblowing. The sound, at least to my ears, pretty even throughout the course of those notes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And I think, you know, the overblows have come on from the early days as well, haven't they? And obviously Howard's a big part of, you know, of innovating that sound. And I mean, to get those incredibly fast runs that you can get playing overblows on diatonic and the fluidity you get out of a diatonic and i do also play chromatic and you know i just don't think maybe it's me but you know i don't think you can get that sort of fluidity out of chromatic that you can out of a diatonic so you play any chromatic yourself?

SPEAKER_03:

I actually started as one of those pandemic related crises, I would say, led me to picking up a chromatic harmonica. You know, as I mentioned, I moved to Israel. There's tons of great harmonica players here, but very few of them are diatonic players. There's a lot of chromatic players. So I said, out of necessity, I'm going to just force myself to learn how to play chromatic harmonica, even though I've been avoiding it for years and years. I love the sound of the instrument, but I guess I figured I was practicing diatonic and practicing piano, I didn't think I could take on another instrument. But just out of necessity, I picked up the chromatic and, you know, staying one step ahead of my students.

SPEAKER_00:

So how have you found that transition? Have you been able to, you think, you know, kind of easily pick it up given your knowledge of the piano and the diatonic?

SPEAKER_03:

It's like playing a new instrument, although it's not entirely new. It's like a familiar, but it's going to take me a few years to get to a level that I'm comfortable to play this out of the home. It's going to require some effort, but I love it. I love the sound. There's something that's so nice and pure about it

SPEAKER_00:

yeah and what about the maybe the similarities between playing overblow diatonic and the chromatic

SPEAKER_03:

i think it's strangely enough i find that the ability to play overblows and even bend on the on the diatonic just confuses though when i play chromatic i have to force myself the first few weeks don't go into a bending embouchure don't don't try to inhale too hard like it forced me actually be a it gave me right away, which apparently, I didn't know this, but apparently chromatic players struggle with sometimes for years, is getting a nice deep vibrato. I was able to achieve a nice vibrato, like a nice resonant, slow vibrato, almost instantaneously because I had that experience on the diatonic harmonica. It wasn't one of those very fast, warbly type of vibratos that you sometimes hear on the chromatic.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm sure we'll look forward to you playing some chromatic as well. So you moved to Israel. What's the music scene like there and to be able to quickly get involved in the music scene there?

SPEAKER_03:

I would say I got involved relatively quickly. In Canada, while I played jazz a fair amount and blues a fair amount, I was mostly known for my band called Strymal, which basically played a mix of original Jewish and, say, Turkish-style music, a lot of odd-time signatures and musical modes from the Middle East.

UNKNOWN:

MUSIC PLAYS

SPEAKER_03:

And all of a sudden I'm coming to Israel and there's a lot of bands that essentially do that style already, but what they didn't have and they were looking for at various venues, whether it be hotels or nightclubs, whatever, there's a lack of people that sing standards in English properly. So I kind of, in the past year, most of my gigs have been jazz and blues gigs and playing gospel music and New Orleans style music. And we're very fortunate at the time that we came, there were lockdowns, but really about a month or so after we came They were already opening up because, of course, the climate here was a lot warmer. They were opening up street gigs, gigs where the audience would sit outside in cafes while the band would play from the entranceway of various clubs. So we were starting to work. When I say we, I'm talking about my wife also who plays trombone. We were starting to work relatively soon after we arrived.

SPEAKER_00:

So, yeah, you say your wife plays trombone. She's in the band.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, exactly. She is in the band Strymal. The band was founded, I believe, in 2001, something like that. And we had relative success playing around festivals in Canada. We actually made it to the UK a few times, played in Germany, played at Krakow Jewish Culture Festival, played throughout the States. You know, for niche audiences, people that were interested in the style of music that we played, that were interested, I guess you'd call it the generic term for it would be world music, but it was something a little more specific than that. It was, I guess you'd call it neo-Judeo-Turkish music.

SPEAKER_00:

One thing I like to do on the podcast is, you know, get different style of music, different style of harmonica on the podcast and to discover that and, you know, it was a real joy discovering the music of this band because it just sounds so joyous.

SPEAKER_03:

A lot of it is joyous. The last two albums starts off pretty melancholy then builds up towards some joy. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that a lot of the songs were written in the winter and Montreal Winter is a I'm sure as you are aware are not the most, they can be not so pleasant. So maybe that had an effect on the music. But yeah, the idea is that it's klezmer music. There's a celebratory aspect to it. It was traditionally played for life cycle events, mostly weddings, weddings and holidays. People were encouraged to dance to this music. This was not performance music initially, but it was dance music.

SPEAKER_00:

As you say, there's certainly some slow songs on there as well, which sound great. So just talking through some of these albums. So the first one, I think 2004, Spicy Paprika.

SPEAKER_03:

Spicy Paprikash. electric piano, cymbal, some Hammond B3, but a little bit, a little funkier.

SPEAKER_01:

This

SPEAKER_00:

second album, Spicy Paprikash, there's some, again, some great songs on there. A lot of fast playing on there, some amazing fast playing. I really love the song Galitzianer Tanz,

SPEAKER_03:

is it? Yeah, Galitzianer Tanz.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a dance, is it a tanz?

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly, yes. And Galitzia is an area, it's an area, I guess you'd say, southern Poland.

UNKNOWN:

Galitzianer Tanz

SPEAKER_00:

You've got the uncle, Tibor's spicy paprikash, which again is great. And that one really speeds up. And again, you get that real dance feel about it, real joyous music.

SPEAKER_03:

That was actually written for my uncle, whose Hungarian name is Tibor.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so that was a great album. Plenty of harmonica on there. So as well as playing the piano and harmonica, you're also the producer of the band as well, aren't you? And are you composing actually some of the songs and...

SPEAKER_03:

If you look at the evolution of that particular group, we start off with a lot of traditional music, and I'm arranging a lot of music. And then as you get to the more later on, the album from 2014 called Eastern Horror, and then the latest one called Har Meron. I'm the composer of, I believe, every single tune on the last two albums, maybe save for one or two. So it went from, again, playing traditional music with a little bit of changes in terms of the arrangement to playing all original music. I always like to say that at least over the last few years where most of the music has been original that we you know we still try to pay respect to the to klezmer music traditional music of the past while giving music like our own our own flavor the people that i play with they're people that that respect and that learned and studied traditional klezmer music and just take some of those elements whether it be the ornamentation uh some of the nuances the slides this and that um the rhythmic feels they take it from what stuff they they've learned from old recordings and then and apply it to this these new compositions

SPEAKER_00:

yeah and you mentioned that eastern horror album though which a few songs to pick out there so we got this grand theft

SPEAKER_03:

yeah what about that song We had traveled to Bulgaria to perform. We performed actually for the Jewish community there and then for a summer camp. I don't believe it was a Jewish summer camp. It was just a regular summer camp. And Stutinki is a penny, like a cent, a Bulgarian cent. And I called it Grand Theft Stutinki mostly because I was so influenced on that trip by the music that I had heard. I ripped off, so to speak, some of the feel and the rhythms of the music that i that i was hearing uh when i was there

SPEAKER_00:

and there's a song called a saturday evening blues which you might expect is a traditional kind of blues sound from the harmonica but of course it isn't so

SPEAKER_03:

It's again, it has a bit of that Turkish element. And the only thing that really makes it a blues, it's not really, it's not really 12 bars. I don't recall, but it's three sections. And I think what makes it a blues to me is that you have, you have that first section, which is almost like your one chord. You have that section, second section, which is like your five chord, four chord rather. And then you come back to this resolving section, which is almost like your five, four, one, five. And to me, that reminded me of a blues.

SPEAKER_00:

And there's Waltz of Zoe.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't know if I necessarily intended to do it, but it's one of my favorite pieces. I tend to write things that are quite notey, with no rest. And this piece, for whatever reason, came out pretty minimalist. And it's 16 bars, and it's got that... That flat five there, that sticks out. It's quite more jazzy, I would say, than anything. I think the musicians that I play with, they tend to like this tune best out of anything I give them, which is kind of surprising because it's maybe, like I said, 16 bars. There's

SPEAKER_00:

not much to it. Well, sometimes the simple is best, eh? Exactly. Your most recent album is the Horror Meron, as you mentioned, with the band there. Certainly the CDN, it's quite a jazzy song, isn't it? So there's more of a jazz sound on this one.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, exactly. The lineup, I wanted to, for that particular song, I wanted it to be pretty sparse. And the idea behind that particular song was, it's named after a neighborhood called Côte de Neige, again in Montreal. And it has an interesting mix of ethnicities in that neighborhood. On the one hand, you have Hasidic Jewish people. On the other hand, you have Muslims that recently immigrated from various Arabic countries. And there is a harmony in that neighborhood. And I wanted to write a song that reflected that harmony. So successfully or unsuccessfully, I tried to mix in some Jewish feel and some Arabic feel and at the same time, have it be what I consider to be like a kind of semi-contemporary jazz sound to it as well.

UNKNOWN:

So

SPEAKER_00:

And there's another song on there where he sees Cheru.

SPEAKER_03:

I was trying to go for, especially in the solo section, yeah, for kind of that open kind of modal jazz sound that, you know, your listeners probably be familiar with, like the era of like music of John Coltrane.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And you did an album, Mismore, didn't you? Which I think is you playing piano with an alto saxophone player.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, exactly. I didn't play any harmonica on that album. In our live shows, we did play, I did play quite a bit of harmonica just to add some variety to the show. But for this This was, I think, the only album I've ever done that I haven't played any harmonica on.

SPEAKER_00:

So you've gotten, you know, with the metal band, you're getting lots of different Eastern European sounds in there, which sound great. Are you, you know, your approach to playing the harmonica, are you playing particular scales in there which fit that style of music?

SPEAKER_03:

First of all, it's, there are particular scales. That's basically like a Phrygian sharp

SPEAKER_01:

three.

SPEAKER_03:

That's a mode that comes up a lot in both klezmer and Arabic and Turkish music. There's another mode that I use which is more of a minor

SPEAKER_01:

mode.

SPEAKER_03:

That's basically the same scale, but starting a full step below. That's Dorian sharp four. That's regular Dorian. that has that sharp four in there.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it sounds great. It sounds so exotic, don't it? Well, I remember some scale practice in the past, just a slight aside. There's a scale which was the, I would call the Spanish scale or the Jewish scale. I don't know if you're familiar with what that scale is.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. People also call this, I'll play it in another mode. I'll play, sorry, rather, I'll play the same mode, but in a different key. They're always playing an E on a C diatonic harmonica. I'll play it in G. People called it Spanish Phrygian.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and a great sound. So yeah, so if people listening want to get that exotic sound, check out some of the scales you mentioned there and get away from playing the usual Mixolydian scale that they might be used to playing on the diatonic. And then in 2015, you released an album called Wiseman's Rag, which was under your own name, the Jason Rosenblatt Quartet. So this is more of a kind of blues, rootsy, jazzy album, isn't it? So yeah, you wanted to get more of a blues sound on this one did you

SPEAKER_03:

that's right it was more almost for marketing purposes i was getting pigeonholed as the klezmer harmonica player and and i i certainly love and i grew up with blues and jazz and folk music and i always performed it but i never had any recordings to the show for it so I didn't want to record just a strict, straight ahead Chicago blues album. So I kind of looked at some New Orleans music, Music of Alan Toussaint, let's say, or Dr. John, as I mentioned before, both great influences. And I looked at ragtime music. So I tried to incorporate a little bit of blues, a little ragtime, a little bit of the avant-garde as well. You know, I call it like a little bit of a twisted take on roots and blues. I love the music of Bill Frizzell. So the guitar player that I play with by the name of Joe Grass, who's an amazing guitar player and pedal steel player and a mandolin player. He got what I was going for. I didn't want something that was very strict, should Chicago blues. I wanted someone that was going to be able to improvise and play creatively, play within the form, but play in a way that wasn't strictly what people view blues should be.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I think the Sea Heart Blues song, which is a very good example of that, it's quite jazzy lines, isn't it? And you get some nice, crunchy harmonica tone in there. I think it's something that was inspired by Howard Levy, wasn't it?

UNKNOWN:

......

SPEAKER_03:

It's funny that you mentioned that it was inspired by an exercise Howard Levy gave me. how to play roughs or call it like sweeping. Sweeping on the guitar, you can also sweep on the harmonica. It was inspired by his lessons. Actually, before I released it, I had to actually go to him and say, Howard, did I rip off this song from you? And he told me, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, great. I'm sure he's on it. You sing as well, yeah? And you sing quite a few songs on this album, yeah?

SPEAKER_02:

Now I'll take the Chevy And you take the brand new automobile Goodbye.

SPEAKER_03:

I sing, yeah, I would say half the songs are vocal songs. You know, I grew up singing in choirs and I grew up singing in, you know, in pop bands. And again, I had nothing to show for it on a, you know, an original recorded level. So I had to, I wanted to put out something with some vocals on it. The project was thankfully successful. You know, we got to tour a bit in Canada and, you know, people were interested in that. And I still use... That album, people are still interested and still people are downloading it on Bandcamp. And I'm quite happy with that. And I think maybe it's time for a new one five years post.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, no, no, it's great. I'd say quite a good take on some blues and more jazzy edges as well. But there's still that klezmer edge on some of the songs. So there's lots of variety on the album as well, which is great. I picked up some songs you're playing with a band called Jump Babylon.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, so Jump Babylon was my project. Again, it was like a rock band. pop project that I did with a friend of mine, Adam Stotland. I think we released that in 2012 to 2013. And that was really an effort to write well-crafted, at least I thought at the time, well-crafted pop songs with horn sections and multiple guitar takes. There was a lot of effort that went into arranging that album. But one of my favorite harmonica solos that I've ever laid down is on the song called Canada.

UNKNOWN:

Canada

SPEAKER_03:

For people that are looking for a harmonic album, it's not necessarily a harmonic album, but if you're patient enough, I think, to get into probably the two and a half minute mark of the song, it's a pretty in-your-face harmonica solo.

SPEAKER_00:

I thought your solo sounded a bit John Popper-esque on that. Was that something you think you were influenced by?

SPEAKER_03:

I definitely was influenced by John Popper. Early on, I played with another band. I have some recordings of myself playing along with, what's it called? What was the first album? I think it was made of just being called Blues Traveler. I used to play along with that album like crazy. I remember just, we had no air conditioning in one of my first apartments and I remember just sitting there for like three hours playing like a mental case and just drenched in sweat, you know, coming out of the apartment. But I would play along with it hours and hours and hours playing like a... You know, like those lines, I don't really remember them 100%, but like a lot of those fast pattern type of lines.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, no, great. I noticed that. Yeah, so that's a good, like you say, that's a very good album. Like you say, quite conventional pop songs, isn't it? And it comes across really well and good use of harmonica on the songs that it's on as well. The Soldier Woman album.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that was the goal was to write well-crafted pop songs. Mostly the rationale behind it is I love writing music and I just compiled these songs and I think the shame, we only would perform them actually with this side project Jump Babylon and people come out to the shows and they say when are you going to record an album with these songs and eventually we just said you know fine and we did it we recorded it we released it

SPEAKER_00:

So as you you know you're writing the music do you write harmonica solos or do you always improvise them?

SPEAKER_03:

On the last album that I did, Harmony Run, it was all improvised. Of course, the melodies, the heads are all written. Wiseman's Rag, except for the one solo on Fairmount Blues, which I wrote out, it was all improvised. I would say 95% are improvised solos. Of course, I practice them. What I practice sometimes comes out in the recorded version, but they're not really written out. The only time I'll really write something out is if I have to really be conscious that I have a really short amount of time to lay down a solo and I want to make sure that I'm going to come in where I want to and leave exactly where I want to and not leave any room for error. So then I'll write out everything. And then what I'll do is I might not necessarily play note for note in the studio. I might improvise a little bit around the written solo, but at least I have a good framework. Nowadays with home studios, you know, you can lay down a million takes and it doesn't cost you anything extra except for your time, but When you're going to a studio, like we did with all the earlier albums, and you're paying whatever it is, X amount of dollars per hour, you want to make sure that you work efficiently in the studio.

SPEAKER_00:

Great. So moving on from your recordings, then, you've done various other things. And you've had some of your music featured on television, a documentary called Kosher Love. And is it a film called Last of the Wild Jews or a documentary?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, so Last of the Wild Jews was a documentary about a famous Montreal author, novelist, Mordechai Richler. And Kosher Love was an interesting documentary about finding love in the Orthodox Jewish world. I wrote some, I don't think there's, there might be some harmonic in there, but mostly it was brass band music that I composed for that.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure, and you released an album of brass band music, didn't you? Brass Fabulous.

SPEAKER_03:

That's correct, yes.

SPEAKER_00:

You You've also got a book out of your instrumental music called A Mother's Pain.

SPEAKER_03:

That's right. My mom's not too happy with that title. But you know, when a child tells their parents, you know what, I did an undergrad in economics. I did a master's of business administration. I worked for a few years in high tech. And in the end, despite all their efforts to make sure that you stay on the straight and narrow path and you tell them, you know what, despite all that, I'm going to become a musician and that's what I want to do. And there's nothing else I can see myself doing. The parents aren't popping the champagne and you know the answer and this is not just me it's a lot of my friends that chose this career path uh you sure you want to do that this with your life you know that that's usually the reaction but my parents are i think they're very accepting because of their influence that i chose this uh this path

SPEAKER_00:

your mother music teacher yeah

SPEAKER_03:

exactly she she was my choir my choir director growing up for for many years my father was the one who gave me all all my early influences uh and musically in terms of uh you know old jazz uh Danny Goodman, even Klezmer music, Dave Tarras, wonderful clarinet player and blues player, Sonny Terry and Brown Miggy. And like I mentioned, Paul Butterfield. So they only have themselves to blame.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. And you've been involved with music festivals quite a while. In 2010, you helped organize the Montreal Jewish Music Festival.

SPEAKER_03:

That's correct. Maybe Montreal is not the only city that calls itself this, but they call themselves a festival city. And we have an amazing jazz festival, amazing festival called Louis d'Afrique, which is an music and culture festival. There's the Franco Folie, which is a music and dance and culture festival from various French-speaking nations. There's so many different wonderful festivals, and we were missing a Jewish music festival, I felt. And I took upon myself collaboration with a wonderful festival, more of a teaching festival called Quest Canada, to collaborate and make a festival of concerts, bringing in different musical acts from around the world, but also giving support to local artists music that artists musicians that played not just standard what you call standard classical music but people that that played something on the cutting edge artists by the name of so-called josh dolgan who mixed hip-hop with cantorial music we had a band called called nikuda which was played like music from provence from france jewish music ancient jewish music it's something that most people would not necessarily have known about this ancient provincial jewish music you know from france uh and the idea was to introduce this as challenge people's preconceptions or misconceptions of Jewish music.

SPEAKER_00:

And later this year in November, I believe you're helping organize a Jerusalem Harmonica Festival.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, I'm so excited about this. I mean, I'm a new immigrant to this country and already my first year of helping to spearhead the first Jerusalem Harmonica Festival. There's some amazing players in Israel. I wasn't allowed. I didn't have the budget. And also because of COVID, it didn't make sense to start hiring people from outside of Israel at this point because we didn't know if they're going to be able to come in at all so there was no sense in putting in the effort but we didn't have to even leave the country to find world-class players we have Ronnie Eitan who's an amazing chromatic harmonica player we have Michal Adler we have Dov Hammer who is a wonderful like real classic Chicago blues harmonica player who by virtue of being such an amazing musician and blues player and being one of the few in Israel that plays such an authentic blues has played with every visiting blues artists you can imagine.

SPEAKER_01:

Right,

SPEAKER_00:

yeah, so people come along to that. I think it's on the 10th and 11th of November, is it?

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

You've been to the spa festival in the US.

SPEAKER_03:

I've been twice as a participant, once as a featured performer, and once also as a teacher. I taught a masterclass on how to get into playing in different modes. In other words, what are the first steps when you say, okay, here's my diatonic harmonica. I want to play chromatically. Well, there are steps that you can take, and Howard kind of covers this in his New Directions for Harmonica VHS. I think I further simplify it. It's basically getting out of your comfort zone, making yourself a little uncomfortable trying to play an A minor on a C harmonica, trying to play an G minor on a C harmonica, trying to play an F major on a C harmonica. And what are some simple tunes that you can play in these different keys and some simple exercises that you can play in these different keys that kind of start to open up those possibilities for the average player. We're not talking about, not everyone has to become a virtuoso, but there's no reason why a player that can bend can't play in D minor on a C harmonica or F or E minor on a C harmonica.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, exactly. And that's great words there to encourage people to try exactly that just trying playing in fourth position for example and then just playing in some minor tuning on the diatonic really gives you a different sound doesn't it and opens up the harmonica gets you away from playing the same old kind of second position licks

SPEAKER_03:

That's exactly it. And I think harmonica, I would say more so than the piano, because the natural inclination is your breathing. From the time we were born, we breathe in, we breathe out, we breathe in, we breathe out. That's not the way a harmonica works. Sometimes you have four ins and one outs, and then there's a bend. So you have to be able to break those natural habits. And that's the hardest thing about playing in different positions and playing chromatically is to basically break out of those habits that we get when we only treat the harmonica as a So

SPEAKER_00:

teaching, you know, it's important to you, you mentioned there that you've given various workshops and lessons. So you've been teaching, I think, for 15 years or so, haven't you? So it's still something that you're actively doing and you're offering face-to-face teaching now and online teaching?

SPEAKER_03:

So, of course, because of COVID, most of my teaching has been moved online. But I do have some students here in Israel that we're now working face to face. I have a broad range, everything from beginner children to professionals, people that have been playing on a professional level for years and want to, again, break out of those habits and want to explore different ways of playing blues, let's say blues or bluegrass or country, something that's typical for a harmonica player to play a style that's pretty typical. typical but to not play it in second position they want to learn how to play things in first flat position or to play things third position major you know for instance like blues you know to play in d major on a c harmonica

SPEAKER_00:

so leading on from this so a question ask each time is uh if you had 10 minutes to practice what would you spend those 10 minutes doing

SPEAKER_03:

If I only had 10 minutes, let's say, to warm up before a show, let's say, the first thing I would do, I just play through the chromatic scale. I would just play through the chromatic scale using a tuner or a piano as reference. And next would be

SPEAKER_01:

arpeggios. You

SPEAKER_03:

know, I'm trying to go through all 12 keys and just making sure that I'm kind of in tune. For the purposes of this podcast, I'm rushing through it. I would try not to rush. I would try to play each note as clearly as possible. Finally, the last thing I would do would be what I call long tones, focusing on a particular bend that can sometimes get a little out of tune. So for instance, I would focus on an F. I would play without vibrato. Then with vibrato. Add vibrato, take away the vibrato, then play the F sharp. add vibrato, take away vibrato, and just try to hold the note as long as I can, 30 seconds, a minute, and play it with a tuner so I can see if the arrow is sticking perfect center, am I playing it flat, sharp, whatever the case is. And this way I can really try to gain control over those particular notes.

SPEAKER_00:

So we'll get on to the last section now, which we'll talk through some gear. First of all, your harmonica is of choice. I believe you play the sidles.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm a sidle player. I mostly play sidles because of the longevity of the instrument I have one particular Seidel I've been playing for I think 13 years I've had to tune it every now and then but it's basically the same instrument I started with you know you have to clean it otherwise it's pretty unsanitary but you clean it I still have it that's not to say I don't keep on buying Seidels I have an addiction to buying instruments I keep on buying new Seidels as they come out but essentially buying Seidels 1847 Silvers Nobles I have one Lightning I have the Class But I would say most of the sidles I play are nobles. I do gap them. I do emboss them to make them easier to overblow. I do have Joe Spires harmonicas, which are, in my opinion, are the top of the line, cream of the crop, so to speak. I haven't gotten him to customize any of my sidles. I just haven't gotten around to it. So the Spires harmonicas that I have are essentially marine bands, reed plates with special 20s. covers, I believe. The action on them are just absolutely perfect, perfect instruments. I have some James Gordons that are phenomenal as well. I have some Seidls that have been customized by a wonderful customizer that doesn't do it for the public anymore. His name is Antoine Hamel out of Montreal, which basically he customized a bunch of, like I said, the Seidls for me. And it just goes to show you that Seidls can play just as smoothly as some of the customized honers that Joe Spires does. So when

SPEAKER_00:

you play playing obviously you're playing overblows are you you're always playing Richter tuned harmonicas are you

SPEAKER_03:

that's that's correct yes

SPEAKER_00:

yeah so have you considered you know there's quite a lot of different tunings on these days and for example talking to Tony Ayers a few episodes ago and he's got this major cross and so have you ever considered you know trying different tunings or is it a case of you know you know where you are with the Richter tuning having practiced it for years and and you stick to it for that reason or

SPEAKER_03:

that that's a great question I feel like I started with the Richter tuning harmonic tuned harmonica and I'm just gonna I'm just gonna stick with it I put so so much effort into it. If I'm going to learn what I consider to be a new instrument, it's going to be the chromatic and any extra effort I'm putting into learning, you know, or to practicing on a new harmonica, it's going to be on the chromatic.

SPEAKER_00:

So you just play Richter tunes that you don't play any different tuning diatonics at all? That's correct. What about embouchure? What embouchure do you use?

SPEAKER_03:

So primarily I'm using Pucker method. The only time I'll ever use tongue blocking is to get intervals or if I'm doing like a tongue slot.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, that's the only time I'll ever use tongue blocking. I find that the pucker method, it makes more sense, at least for me, for overblowing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think the Septic Wisdom is overblowers generally pucker, don't they, and don't tongue block. Amplification-wise, what do you like to use on applications of microphones?

SPEAKER_03:

Depends on the project that I'm playing with. I would say more often than not, I'm playing just through an SM58, through, I play a Sons Amp Power Driver DI, mostly because I like to have control over my EQ. A lot of sound man they feel that the harmonica has to be shrill that's how they envision what the harmonica is and i like to take away some of the the high end boost a little of the low end make a i guess use a create a creamier sound they usually add a little drive which adds a little bit of compression also i'll play through i'll have a reverb pedal Sometimes if I want to emulate an accordion, I'll use called the micropod, which is an octave up, octave down, along with a chorus pedal. I usually use the MXR stereo chorus. That's usually in my pedal chain. If I want a dirtier sound, again, I'll just use the SM58 because I don't like totally dirty. I like to have a little bit of natural sound. So I use it again in SM58. I have a wonderful amp called the Supro 16T, which is, I believe, from 1962. Tube amplifier, five watt amp, and it sounds amazing i don't have to fiddle around with anything it's plug and play and you get a beautiful chicago round chicago blues sound it's not over the top though it's creamy without too much crunch

SPEAKER_00:

and you're using your sm58 into that are you

SPEAKER_03:

yeah like anytime i have a green bullet um an old one it sounds great but it for me it's it's a little too honky if you understand what i'm getting at yeah i like a little bit more of a natural sound uh and then of course the other amplifiers rather microphone I use for a lot of times for recording but also for live in a very acoustic environment would be the Sennheiser MD441 which of course Howard discovered it sounds great with harmonica because essentially it does what you would want the sound man to do with EQ it cuts out a lot of the real shrill high frequencies of the harmonica just naturally there's a switch on it which allows you to cut off those really shrill frequencies

SPEAKER_00:

oh yeah I've been since talking to Howard I've been keeping my eye on that MD441 but yeah they're quite expensive those microphones aren't they I haven't quite managed to commit myself to putting that much money on one yet

SPEAKER_03:

right I found I don't know how much money I think mine was about it was about$700 I bought it used many many years ago I don't think it's come down in price I think it's just gone up

SPEAKER_00:

yeah but they last don't they because they're they're tough dynamic microphones so yeah I think you could probably can buy second hand ones can't you and they will they'll be good I yeah when you're playing with the SM58 are you do you hold the mic to cup it or do I cup

SPEAKER_03:

it. I do. And I feel that if you have like a, you know, a nice little reverb pedal, that will give it the space that you need. Otherwise, again, it sounds really muffly. So I like to, I like to add a little reverb again to make it a little more open sounding.

SPEAKER_00:

What about a volume control?

SPEAKER_03:

No, so I don't have one, but that, that reminds me, I'm watching people, as it blows me away productions, I need to get myself one of those microphones. The ones with the volume controls built on. I've been thinking about it for years and I just procrastinated on it. But you're right, that would be a great addition.

SPEAKER_00:

And what about recording the harmonica? Do you use any particular setup for that, any particular microphones?

SPEAKER_03:

So again, recording, like for instance, the Wiseman Rag album was all through the Supra 16T. That gave me enough crunch. The song Canada, I actually went through a Blues Junior and a Ibanez Tube Screamer, like maxed out. So you mentioned it sounded a lot like John Popper, and that was what I was going for. I just like, I put the amp in another room far away for me with the doors closed so it wouldn't feedback otherwise for sure would feedback but I was going for like the the most overdriven sound I could possibly get

SPEAKER_00:

so you but you're generally playing through the setup you play live with so you know the SM58 and the amp you're not using kind of studio microphones to record yourself

SPEAKER_03:

no the only I did use a wonderful I believe it's Telefunken ribbon mic an old ribbon mic on some of the Wiseman's rag where I'm not playing through the amp or what they did was they did a blend of the two. It kind of gave you a little bit of the high end with a bit of the Chicago honk through the amplifier.

SPEAKER_00:

Final question then, Jason. Thanks so much for your time today. What have you been doing over the pandemic and what future plans do you have? Are you getting out there, getting some gigs? Obviously, you've got this festival coming up. What's going on with you?

SPEAKER_03:

I'm just looking for touring to open up. We moved to Israel and it's closer to Europe, whereas there were opportunities to play in Montreal and Ottawa and toronto you know you get on a plane in three hours you have you know you have france and germany in four hours you have the uk a lot of my friends that that work as uh as musicians here they they use that proximity to europe as an opportunity to play for an entirely different market israel is a very small country and there's only so much touring you can do within the country itself so i'm hoping i'm hoping uh things open up that we can start traveling a little bit

SPEAKER_00:

yeah superb yeah no regret to see you playing across in europe and So you have that advantage in Europe that, you know, you've got lots of countries close together. So, yeah, that's a great thing. And hopefully get to get you back over to the UK again and see you play. I'd love to. So thank you so much for joining me today, Jason Rosenblatt.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you. My pleasure.

SPEAKER_00:

That's episode 47 in the can. Thanks again for listening. Great to hear Jason and really innovative use of the harmonica. Check out his music. Some wonderful stuff there. We're just over to let Jason play us out with his Wiseman's Rag.

UNKNOWN:

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